Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. This quote from Maya Angelou starts us off today as we talk about how to rest and actually catch a little reset.
Welcome to the Modern Creative Woman, where we explore the power of creativity through neuro aesthetics, art therapy and innovative thinking. I'm Doctor Amy Backos, your hostess and creativity expert, bringing you the art and science of creativity through our conversations and creative insights. I'll provide simple tricks and practices that demystify the creative process so you can live a more authentic and expressive life. Let's get started.
Welcome in and I am so glad you are joining me on this audio creativity journey. I want to talk today about rest and how to have a reset. When we realized we've overextended ourselves and even gone so far as to experience burnout and rest is a very interesting thing.
As a woman, there's always much to be done. We have an extra experience around household labor, emotional labor and families, child rearing. There's these extra obligations that are often placed upon us, or we choose to pick up so that it can be taken care of. We often take on the caregiving roles in our family if someone is sick, if parents are aging, there is a degree of pride and satisfaction in taking care of others, and there is a risk of exhausting ourselves that comes with that. Even a vacation can feel tiring. If you're a mom and you're packing for the whole family, and you're just organizing children on a trip that's supposed to be a family vacation and rest can feel pretty elusive.
For women who work inside or outside of the home. There's endless list of duties and tasks, and there's often a sense of I'm not doing enough, I'm not trying hard enough. I could be doing better.
And those negative judgments and evaluations make us feel even worse. So we try harder. We work harder. I've certainly been in situations where I thought if I worked harder, I would be able to accomplish more. And in hindsight, I realize if I had rested a little more. I would be able to accomplish my duties in a much more enjoyable, realistic fashion.
Something I notice a lot with my students is that they'll take on extra work, take it home, finish their details of work after they've gone home on the weekend. And what happens is not only does it exhaust them, it sets up unrealistic expectations to their supervisor or boss that this work can be done in the allotted number of hours they're supposed to be working. It also sets a future precedent that the next person should be able to accomplish all of that, and it can make other people look bad who are sticking to their boundaries and only working the scheduled hours. So there's a personal cost, a social cost, and really a wider institutional cost.
When we keep taking on more and more, another thing that can happen is overextending ourselves to the point of burnout when we have overextended ourselves. So much so that when usual life circumstances happened and we fall apart. It has a negative impact, of course, on us, but on everyone around us. So over scheduling ourselves leaves no wiggle room. If someone needs something, if a child gets sick, if a coworker asks you to cover you, get a flat tire. All things that can happen. It becomes a crisis when we're overly scheduled.
I want to talk about rest and really define what that means. First of all, when we take rest, it is a refreshing quiet. Its ease, its an inactivity. After we exert ourselves, come home from work, take a break. It can also be refreshing ourselves and that could be sleeping, lying down for a few minutes, stopping what we're doing or just relaxing. Rest also means to feel refreshed. May Sarton says. The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche occasionally is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room, not try to be or do anything whatsoever. We can get rest by changing our work a little bit and shifting tasks. Not like hopping around or multitasking, but shifting what we're doing, scheduling a break in mental activity with some kind of physical activity can give us a sense of rest, but it's not the kind of rest I'm talking about. I'm talking about true rest.
Tricia Hersey from the Nap ministry says that rest is a radical act. You don't always have to be creating, doing, and contributing to the world. Your birth grants you rest and leisure as well. Leisure isn't something you have to earn, and rest isn't something that's only allowed after you accomplish everything. Let's talk about the true cost of taking care of everyone else. And we women can sometimes do that. What happens when we prioritize our family, our work, our community over ourselves to the point that we're neglecting ourselves? It creates a stress inducing environment, and that includes doing things like insufficient sleep, having too much of an individualistic attitude, thinking that if you want it done right, it needs to be done by me. Or thinking that it's all on our shoulders. And it may seem that way. And for many people, they are the sole provider, for example. Or they're the only parent, but we're not in it all by ourselves. The beliefs that were in it all by ourselves can cause more stress.
Taking on too many projects, saying yes when you really want to say no is a biggie here. Worrying or overthinking? Not making time for exercise also causes a stress inducing environment. And remember, what's good for your body is good for your mind. So making sure that you exercise as part of a really smart business plan, choosing a poor diet, having unrealistic expectations of yourself and others. Not scheduling yourself some social time. Having extremely long commutes adds to that kind of stress. And again, that's not always something we can control, but we just have to notice that that is part of a stress inducing environment. And finally, unresolved traumas. When we work really hard to not be ill or think about our traumas. It takes so much psychic energy, it creates a stressful internal environment.
Now, I know you know this about sleep, but I'm going to tell you anyway, 7 to 9 hours is what's considered mandatory. And if you're missing even as little as an hour of sleep, it has an impact on how you feel. And the later research has been on women. Instead of just researching men. And what they found is women need more like nine hours of sleep, not 7 or 8. So this business about sleep is not optional. We can't sleep when we're dead. We have to sleep now and it improves everything around us. And honestly, it was the best thing I ever did for myself.
In my 40s, I committed to sleep. I had to say, what's done is done, what's undone is undone, and just go to bed and put myself to bed on time. And that was one of the most boring aspects of self-care, putting myself to bed on time. And it has had the biggest difference for me in how I feel, how I can kind of manage difficult emotions, and what I can accomplish in terms of paying attention, being present. When we think about lack of sleep, the cost of that is, of course, a lack of alertness. We can get sleepy in the day, we end up exercising less and we end up eating more. We also have an impaired memory. We are unable to recall the things we need to recall when we're under slept. We have poor information processing. Our relationships suffer. We tend to engage in more conflict and have more stress in our relationships. The less we sleep. It also leads to a lower quality of life and unfortunately, more car accidents. I want to talk about stress and what happens in your body. And stress is normal part of life. It certainly helps us adapt and survive and it helps us up to a certain point. But chronic stress will damage our bodies and it can lead to ongoing aches and pains. Muscle tension can raise our blood pressure. It can make things so tense in our chest we can get chest pain or racing. Heart stress can also make our sleep worse, so we might be getting into bed in enough time, but we are unable to fall asleep. Headaches, dizziness, even shaking jaw clenching. If you check your jaw right now, if you are clenching your jaw. Try and relax. Stress can give us digestive problems. It can cause trouble having sex and it can even weaken our immune systems.
Now, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA has recently declared that stress is a hazard of the workplace. It's so bad that it impairs people's ability to function at work. And they're concerned about headaches, high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes. It can even cause skin conditions, asthma, depression and anxiety. So work stress is not something to be minimized. It's something to be taken very seriously. One more system that I want you to think about as it relates to stress is the systemic problems that exist in our society. And oftentimes there can be a lack of role models in family, school, at work and in the media who are reflecting health care standards, self-care standards. Other systemic problems include generational trauma and the genetic stress that is passed on capitalism, and the work demands are out of control. They had to put regulations on medical school residents so that they weren't, uh, at the hospital performing their services. If they hadn't had a break in 24 hours, if they hadn't caught in sleep in 24 hours, hostile and unhealthy work culture. So I'm talking about aggressions, microaggressions, discrimination, racism, ageism, sexism, homophobia. All those things in the work culture can make us sick. Other systemic stress problems include the messages that we get from society about trauma, sexism, racism, discrimination. Other systemic problems include money, finances, lack of access for housing, and also food scarcity. The research shows that stress is compounded, exacerbated, and just made so much worse by unresolved traumas, unsafe neighborhoods, unstable housing, financial insecurity, and food scarcity.
Now, to cope with the stress that we're experiencing, we do our best to feel better, to take care of ourselves. And there's things that we do. We try and. Feel better, but that make us worse. So the first one I mentioned earlier is individualism. So imagining that you're the only one in pain or experiencing a problem, or that there's something unique about the stress you're experiencing. We as women in particular, often avoid asking for help. We think we need to do it all ourselves. Sometimes we keep secrets about what we're experiencing at home or at work. We can spend a lot of time focused on the things as they are and how angry we are about them. And don't get me wrong, I feel like there's a lot to be angry at, but festering anger can make our stress worse. Focusing on thoughts and beliefs that were unable to change or contribute to a solution. Now when we feel emotionally upset, we spend a lot of time trying to feel emotionally better in the moment, and we often turn to tools of distraction eat, chop, drink, complain, gossip, breathe, and negative news. Sometimes we work more. We're worried that our work isn't good enough. So we work more and our quality suffers because we're working too much. Another problem that we face is denying the impact of systemic stress on ourselves and on others. When we tell ourselves to suck it up, other people are suffering. That kind of negative self-talk also makes us feel worse. We're allowed to have needs.
The really good news about all of this is that you can feel better without having to change anything outside of you. I'm not suggesting you have to go quit your job and drop out of society to feel better. What I'm saying is that you can make internal shifts that will allow you to, over time, see more clearly what it is that you want to change on the outside, really noticing and accepting what is like making contact with the present moment. Accepting things. Even if you don't like them, you are dealing with what's in front of you, and this allows you to drop the struggle and slowly make the change that you desire.
I teach a formula for healing and recovery and having a rich, purposeful life. And if you're inside the modern cradle of women, you already know the pillars…its presence, mindset, and purpose. And I want to talk to you about how you can use these pillars to feel better when you're in a stressful environment, when you're facing stressful circumstances, at home, at work, and when you're starting to feel it's taking a real toll on you, these are essential and that you often need a lot more than this. To overcome burnout, you're going to need a lot of time and support and rest. But the more we give ourselves this attention towards being present, working on our mindset, and moving towards our purpose, the more we're able to protect ourselves and insulate ourselves from stress.
Using presence, mindset and purpose allows you to create that protective factors and over time help you prevent long term burnout and stress. So let's start with presents. And I think of presents as making contact with the present moment. It's where change happens. It's where we are authentic. Anything else is just in our head. Thinking about the past, thinking about the future. That's not our life. Our life happens only in this moment, this exact moment. You know, if you want to manage your perception of stress, you're not trying to change anything outside of you. But I have a few phrases that have helped me along the way, and I'll share them with you.
My mom used to always say, let's try and stay calm, cool, and collected. Did anybody else's mom say this? Calm, cool and collected? I also like to use I am here now and there's a lot of research about that that we are able to enjoy our lives so much more when we are in contact with the present moment. One that I really use a lot with my clients and with myself is I have all the time there is, I have all the time there is. We can also think about establishing presence when we are really leaning into our values. So for me, I think about I like to learn new things every day. I'm learning more and more about myself every day. I'm open to new experiences and I'm open to new people. Presence also relates to your higher self. Your self has contacts that you that's always been there. It could be you. Think of it as your spirit, your source, your constant. And when you make contact with that part of yourself, you're able to weather a lot by trusting yourself to make choices that are good for you, in your best interest in the long run. And in that way I think about being willing. Trusting yourself, being able to forgive yourself and other people.
Next is mindset. And mindset is all about your relationship to your thoughts, and it's unrelated to changing your thoughts or changing anything outside of you. It's just being more comfortable and at ease with the thoughts that emerge in your mind. So for many of the women that I work with, they have a hard time scheduling and following through with self-care. So I have a mantra I deserve self-care. I deserve exquisite self-care. Here's another one that might help you. I can ask for help. Rest is a valuable part of life, and I am not alone in facing systemic problems. Over time, I've learned that my negative thoughts or uncomfortable feelings do not need to derail me from my values. I woke up yesterday feeling in a rotten mood and that doesn't happen very often. And my first thought was skip my workout and skip my hot breakfast. And I don't know what I had planned. I don't know what the alternative was, but that was my first thought was to not do the things that I've committed to doing towards my health, and I talked myself through it, and how I feel does not need to derail me from what I find important. Just because I don't feel like doing it does not mean I have to not do it. I can do it.
Another aspect of our mindset is taking full responsibility for our own behavioral choices to help us mentally and physically, and I like to think I always have options. There's usually more options than I'm able to think of. I also have to remind myself that rest and mental health are really important to me. If you're in a caretaking role or your work is about service, I want you to remember that taking care of yourself helps you care for others. A well-rested mother is a much better parent. It's hard sometimes to get rest, especially when your children are little. A well-rested sales person can enjoy their work more and make meaningful connections with their customers. And I also remind myself that relapse is part of the process. It's okay to take two steps backwards. It's how I know that I'm moving in the right direction, because I don't like going in the other direction.
And finally, I want to talk about purpose. And in the modern creative woman, we talk about purpose containing two aspects. One is your values. What's most important to you when you think about what is most important to you? Are you making time for it? If you think that your family is the most important thing to you, but you spend all your time at work, your values are not being demonstrated. The second part of your purpose is if you're taking actions towards it, and if you love creativity and you make no time to be creative, then it's just a wish. It's something that you're thinking about. Your values are living and breathing and you move towards them. You take action on them. So in the domain of purpose, it's essential that we identify and know what's most important. If you have conflicting values, which one will take priority. So when we know what's important to us health, community, family, spirituality, parenting, caregiving, knowing what's important in every area of our life. Lets us start to plan and feel good about our choices. It also helps us set limits to protect our values. If parenting is one of your values, you can say no to bringing cookies to the bake sale because you know that your parenting values are alive and well in your home. You can say yes to some aspects and no to others. I do believe that to live our fullest, most authentic life, we need to prioritize sleep, healthy food, and movement.
The research shows if we spend 20 minutes a day learning and reflecting, getting to know ourselves, we feel better. Another part of our purpose is celebrating yourself every day. You can just say, I did a good job today, and when we live our purpose and we're taking care of ourselves, we set an example. We can become a living example of what's important and role model that to other people. Carolyn miss says, mud drains your spirit, drains your body. What fuels your spirit fuels your body. Remember, it's not about a brain body connection. They're not connected. They are the same organism. It. We had to say connection because we just believe they were separate for so long. They're not just connected, they are the same. So I want to challenge you a little bit right now about making commitments to yourself. When you think about the word commitment, it's the state or the quality of being dedicated to something, to a cause, an activity, a person. When you think about commitment as action, it means taking action on what's most important to you and letting go of some of the things that are not important to you. It's also creating opportunities to respond differently and making a decision to persist in some value driven behavior and let go of others. If you think about your own rest and rejuvenation, I
've certainly given you enough reasons why it matters that you take care of yourself. It can feel like a daunting task. And when I begin focusing on myself, it started with sleep. There wasn't any extra time for myself after I added in the extra hour or two that I needed to sleep every night. That's where it began. And from there, more and more space opened up in my life. So what are your goals for rest and rejuvenation? Would you be willing to put yourself to bed on time so you can sleep eight and a half, nine hours? And you can also ask yourself, why do you need rest right now? Outside of the usual amounts of rest and relaxation, what do you need rest from? There's three ways to relax different kinds of activities. There's passive, active and vigorous. Passive relaxation is so much fun. Something like stargazing or napping. Active relaxation includes things like meditation, reading, writing, walking the dog, gentle stretching, and vigorous relaxation includes things like hiking, swimming, some kind of cardiovascular activity. Yoga.
So here's your assignment for the week. Go ask 3 or 4 of your friends how they relax, how they choose to relax, and see if there's anything that you can glean from what they say. Any ideas that you could apply to your own life? You also might hear people say, well, I don't relax. I work all the time. You might hear people say, well, I relax twice a year on vacation, and I want you to make your list of things that you can do every day, every week. And finally, ask yourself what judgments you have or you've heard from other people about rest. Now, who benefits from these thoughts of like, I'll rest when I'm dead? No one. Maybe the corporations that we work for would benefit, and that's not who we're trying to take care of. You can ask yourself who benefits when you work over time? Say yes to some that you don't want to do. Who benefits when you stay up late to finish chores? I hope you'll reflect on the importance of rest. It's not optional. It's not something that has to be earned. You deserve it. It is a birthright to rest and to relax and to be leisurely.
Let me know what you think. I would love to hear from you on Instagram about your experiences of rest or not resting enough. So many of us have gone through burnout or gone through burnout multiple times, because we have yet to figure out a system that we can use to help us prioritize what's important. And I really hope you'll take to heart what I said about focusing on your presence, your mindset, and your purpose, and helping guide yourself in advance of what you'll say yes and no to, and how you will protect yourself from burnout and stress. Have a wonderful rest of your week.
Now that you know about how to use your creativity, what will you create? Want more? Subscribe to the Modern Creative Woman digital magazine. It's absolutely free, and it comes out when some men and I know you can get a lot out of the podcast and the digital magazine. Yet when you're ready to take it to the next level and want you to know you have options inside the membership, and if you're interested in a private consultation, please feel free to book a call with me. Even if you just have some questions, go ahead and book a call. My contact is in the show notes and you can always message me on Instagram. Do come find me in the Modern Creative Woman on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest at Doctor Amy Backus. If you like what you're hearing on the Modern Creative Woman podcast, I want to give you the scoop on how you can support the podcast. You can be an ambassador and share the podcast link with three of your friends. You can be a community supporter by leaving a five star review. If you think it's worth the five stars, and you can become a Gold Star supporter for as little as $3 a month, all those links are in the show notes. Remember to grab your free copy of the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge. The link is in the show notes and you can find it at Modern Creative women.com. Have a wonderful week and I cannot wait to talk with you in the next episode.