How to Improve Gut Health Issues Caused by Anxiety, Depression, and Stress Pt. 2
If you’re short on time, feel free to only read the bold font/paragraphs that start with bold font and have arrows pointing to the follow-up text.
Stress Management
Work-life Balance
I’ll acknowledge that for many people, for many reasons, work-life balance is much easier said than done. Even so, that doesn’t mean that our mental and physical health should suffer indefinitely. Significant, radical changes are potentially not possible at this moment. But, sustainable micro-changes are more of a possibility.
Those tiny and more accessible changes could look like one or both of the following:
Reassessing your morning routine.
For anyone who hits snooze to get some extra sleep —> When you do that do you end up rushing, running late, or not having time to eat breakfast? Do you have time to do something that soothes your nervous system? Do you have time to do anything that brings you joy?
You can set your alarm for 30 minutes earlier than usual. This way, you can still be satisfied with rolling back over for a few more glorious minutes. When your alarm goes off again, you have 15 minutes to do something you enjoy. You can stretch, do some light yoga, savor the taste of your coffee at home while you step out on the porch or the balcony, get a little sun, read, etc.
For those who don’t hit snooze and get up on time —> Again, I ask are you taking time to do something soothing for your nervous system? Are you taking the time to do anything that brings you joy? Or are you already focused on getting ready and out of the door?
For my work-from-home friends —> I see you over there rolling out of bed and immediately opening your laptop or powering on your desktop. Is that a practice that is serving you well? Does it help you kick-start your day and get ahead? And even then, is anyone truly ahead when more will be added to your plate? Or does that cause you to start your morning feeling frazzled already? Does this practice of hopping online right away soothe your nervous system? Does this bring you joy?
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These are examples of ways you can revamp your morning routine, but this isn’t an exhaustive list. These may seem like simple changes that might not have much effect, but hear me out.
Our brains have a bias towards negativity. If we start our mornings despising having to get up, only to have to go to a job we don’t like, while we worry about having enough money to pay the bills or feeling trapped at a job that pays well but we don’t like, worrying about the health, and safety of our families and friends, and the numerous other life stressors, likely, we won’t feel great in the long run.
Constantly not feeling great is how we get lost in t.v., movies, books, video games, alcohol, drugs, partying, shopping, etc. Initially, these things feel great to most people. They might start as harmless hobbies or the occasional enjoyment, but at some point, they can quickly become attempts to avoid feeling or thinking.
Yet, we sometimes keep doing these things long after we derive value from them. It’s ok to read a book, play a game, or enjoy a movie but ask yourself - am I truly getting enjoyment from this, or am I just numb? Is this genuinely relaxing, or am I avoiding something? Would I still choose to do this if I had more bandwidth?
Now to get back to the negativity bias. If we start our day miserable and end it feeling even worse after work, chores, and errands, that could play into our negativity bias. Think about it - how often have you woken up knowing you’ll have a bad day? How many of those times did you end up having a good day? I’m willing to bet that more often than not when you said you’d have a bad day, you did.
At this point, the cards are stacked against us. We’re already predisposed to paying attention to the negative things. Then if we already set the tone for a bad day, anything that happens after that can feed both into the negativity bias and our confirmation bias. Hence the earlier options for changing your morning routine.
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2. Reassessing your evening routine.
Hello, again, work-from-home friends —> You shut down your laptop for the day. Or if you’re like me, you’ve left 100 tabs open and put it to sleep. Regardless of how you pry yourself away from work, once again, I see you.
You leave the space where you work at home and…carry on with your life. You start figuring out dinner, let the dogs out, make sure the kids aren’t destroying the house, etc. Why though?! It would be best if you did all those things, but they can likely wait another 2 minutes.
To compartmentalize or separate the rest of your day from your work day, you could do something that signals your brain that you’re out of work mode. You could:
If you work with a candle going, you could blow out the candle and shut your office door instead of leaving it ajar
Change into different clothes
Leave your home and check the mail, or do a quick walk around the block
Turn your phone on DND
Stretch
For people with children —> If you have a live-in partner, can they alternate days with you? Instead of immediately tending to them as soon as you come home or leave your home office, one day, they could take the children for 30 minutes or an hour while you decompress; the next, you can do the same for them.
If you’re a single parent, can you get your child situated with a game for 5 - 10 minutes? I’ve heard of some parents playing mermaids with their children, and they pretend to be the coral so they can lie there. Other parents have played some version of who can be quiet the longest. If you do this daily, they can already know what to expect, and you get to have a few moments of peace before jumping into parent duty.
Additionally, if you commute, sitting in the driveway for 5 - 10 minutes before you go in the house is another way to slow down and enjoy some you time before you transition to your personal time.
For anyone who takes care of the home —> You’re done with work, but now it’s time to cook dinner, clean, run errands, etc. Before you hop right into those tasks, pausing for a second might be worth it. See the bullet points above in the work-from-home evening routine section.
For those who are financially able and want to do so, what tasks can you outsource? For those who live with others, what tasks can you delegate?
For anyone who gets lost in social media posts, t.v., video games, and/or drinks —> How often do you find yourself doing these things? How much time do you spend doing them? What do you want to do instead but don’t because you don’t have the energy? Could you dedicate 5 - 10 minutes/day to that thing? And the real question is - will you?
We’ll look at other possible ways of cultivating a work-life balance in part 3.
Disclaimer:
No content on this site should ever be used as a substitute for individualized clinical care, treatment, or services.
No content on this site should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.