We had this repeating pattern of being busy but not being busy looking after ourselves.

• Busy working.
• Busy parenting.
• Busy socialising.
• Busy planning.
• Busy thinking of family & friends eg Birthdays & other celebrations.
• Busy looking after our pets.
• Busy making a house a home.  

Even making time for fun, like a night out with friends, left us exhausted and dehydrated from a few glasses of wine.

This busyness lead to feelings of stress but we didn’t have time for the antidote.

There didn’t seem to be time for:

• Regular exercise
• Journalling or reflecting.
• Resting.
• Early nights.
• Eating as healthily as we might like.  
• Even drinking enough water.

Not enough time just to be, to slow down and appreciate the small moments in life.

Turns out, it wasn’t just us.  

 

If you are ready to break this cycle and increase your self care,  find out about our online membership for women that balances your physical, emotional and spiritual self here.

 

We have now worked with hundreds of Women and it’s a repeating pattern, a by-product of modern living.

Problem is, not managing this stress is leading to very real impacts on the body, whether that is major stress (such as a bereavement) or perceived stress (such as worry about being late.)

One of these impacts is to our stress hormone CORTISOL.

Cortisol has many roles in the body but think of it as increasing sugar in your bloodstream.  

This can be really helpful in a flight or flight situation such as, ‘oh shit I’m about to miss my train and I need to run’…thanks cortisol for helping me make that quick decision and giving me that boost of energy!

It also helps you respond to stress, regulates blood pressure, converts food into energy, helps to reduce inflammation in the body and plays a role in the metabolism.

Like most things in life though, we can have too much of a good thing!!

Too much cortisol can lead to fat storage around the middle, can suppress your immune system and lead onto chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes.

Without the self care time to manage this stress and the spike in cortisol, we can finder it harder to manage our emotions and can even live in this state on a permanent basis.

Like when you are tired and try to sleep but can’t, tired but wired.

Maybe you’ve experienced this when you have tried to meditate but just couldn’t switch off or drop into a relaxed state.

SELF CARE ISN’T SELFISH, SELF CARE IS NECESSARY.

It also doesn’t have to take hours, although we do understand the point this quote is making: 

A simple tip is to front-load your day, meaning have some you time to yourself in the morning.  Even if that means getting up 5 minutes earlier.

This will give you some much needed headspace before your busy day starts.  

It will allow you to fill your cup a little, so you have something to pour from, so to speak.

We want to help you normalise and prioritise your self care because we have seen the ripple effect it causes.

 

That’s why we teach 5 self care tools, inside our online membership for women that are enjoyable and that you will want to do. Get the details here.  

 

When you use them regularly it will reduce anxiety symptoms like sleep disturbances, constant worry and even the high cortisol levels we have been speaking of in this article.

Leaving you more balanced, happier and with more patience.

 

For 3 more tips on reducing cortisol levels, watch Hannah’s nutrition video downloaded from our Facebook group that we ran as a live training in a hormone series.