5 super simple stress-relief practices that fit in your schedule

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I know that creating a balanced life can feel like a lot of work. It feels like there is so many things that need to change or need to be fixed or habits that need to form in order to truly lessen the stress and overwhelm, but what if that wasn’t true.

What if there were some super simple but immensely impactful things you could do that would take any time?

Well today on the podcast I am offering you my top 5 super simple practices that are guaranteed to lessen stress and overwhelm, but don’t actually require any time. You ready to hear them? Let’s get to it. 

Topics in this episode:

  • Simple practices to reduce stress and overwhelm without taking much time. 

  • The impact of removing your phone from the bedroom on sleep and morning calm. 

  • Visualization techniques to start the day positively and confidently. 

  • The power of self-affirmation through positive self-talk in front of a mirror. 

  • Reframing "busyness" into a "full life" for a more balanced and fulfilling perspective. 

 Show Notes & References:

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Transcript

Intro

I know that creating a balanced life can feel like a lot of work. And it feels like there's so many things that need to change or be fixed or habits that need to form in order to truly lessen the stress and overwhelm. But what if that wasn't true? What if there was some super simple, but immensely impactful things that you could do that wouldn't take much of your time? Well, today on the podcast, I am offering to you my top five, super simple practices that are guaranteed to lessen stress and overwhelm, but don't actually require much of your time. You ready to hear them? Let's get to it. 

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, your go to resource for integrating your career ambitions with life as a mom, I'm distilling down thousands of coaching conversations I've had with working moms just like you, along with my own personal experience as a mom of two and sharing the most effective tools and strategies to help you quickly feel calm, confident, and in control of your ambitious working mom life. You ready? Let's get to it. 

Hello. Hello, ambitious and balanced community. Really excited to be with you today. I've been thinking about some very simple practices that take virtually no time, but can create a really big impact on lowering stress and overwhelm and just making an overall really positive impact on your mental health. 

Like, I'm talking really, really simple practices.

I'm going to jump to in this episode today. Some of them don't take any additional time whatsoever. And that was sort of my goal as I was thinking about this podcast episode. 

Like, what would give you the biggest return on your investment of time and energy ultimately put into these practices. Right. 

And I was thinking about some of my clients and some of the practices that they do, some of which we've talked a lot in about in coaching, and then some of which have just sort of come about naturally for them and they've sort of adopted on their own. 

And then I'm drawing on some of my own experiences as well, things that I do personally that tends to have a really big return on investment of time and energy. That lowers my stress and keeps my mind really focused, and I wanted to keep it super simple and practical. All right, can't wait. Are you ready? Let's dive in. 

I'm going to go over five and the very first one we are going to talk about here. I actually have pondered doing an entire episode on this for quite some time, but this is a good place to start in talking about this. 

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this on the podcast before, but this is one that I personally practice. 

I have a really close friend that I just saw the other day that practiced this religiously and has done so over the last year. And she talks about how it has made such a huge impact on her and on her sleep. And this literally would not take you any additional time. 

Actually, it would buy you back time if you did it. I promise, no additional time to do this. You'd only gain time. B

ut I guarantee that it will radically change your sleep, your quality of sleep, how you wake up in the morning. Can you guess what I'm going to say? All right, here it is. 

Put your phone in another room.

It's putting your phone to sleep in another room. So putting it to sleep, putting it away, charging it overnight somewhere other than the bedroom. Okay. 

Now, I know some of you use your phone to wake up in the morning. So this would require you to buy a good old fashioned alarm clock in order to solve that problem. I know 100% you could do that. So there's no excuses there. Let me just give you some numbers here. Okay. 

So the risk of your sleep being impacted, which means it's harder to get to sleep, it's harder to stay asleep, and you sort of feel you get better sleep. Like you feel more rested in the morning. The risk of you having impacted sleep doubles if you use your phone between 16 and 30 minutes right before you go to bed. Okay. 

16 and 30 minutes doubles your chances and you're sleeping impacted. 

The risk goes up to seven times the likelihood that you will get poor sleep and your sleep will be impacted as a result of using your phone for 60 minutes or more. 

Now, it doesn't matter what you're doing on your phone. You could be playing a game, you could be watching a show, you could be checking messages or scrolling social media or writing a post or looking at photos. Yes, there is an effect on your eyes due to light. 

Content has an emotional effect on us.

There's a lot of research around that, but that's not really what doctors are worried about when it comes to smartphone usage. Right before you go to sleep, it's the content you watch right before you head to bed and how that affects your brain. It has an emotional effect on you. 

If you watch something, some content that is funny, for example, and that kind of makes you laughter, that gives your body a little dopamine hit, which creates like a surge of energy that goes through your body and it's hard for your body to process that when you rest. 

So you get a less, you get like a fitful night's sleep. Because of that, and because dopamine is addicting, it also starts creating a habit of you going to your phone more often to get that dopamine hit whenever you sort of need it. Right? 

Or maybe you are looking at content that is sad or more stressful because it's, like, work related or something like that that releases adrenaline in your body and that keeps you more wired as you go to sleep. Okay.

So then beyond that, I mean, tons of research on that. You could just research using your smartphone at night and see what, over the last decade or so people, researchers have been saying the impact of this is having on our mental health and our sleep, which is vitally important if you are ever going to experience balance in your life. Right? 

But beyond just the impact of sleep, I want you to think about the implications of not having your phone when you wake up in the morning. Think about how much calmer life would be if you did not end your day and start your day with a device in your hand. 

How much more control would you feel? 

Imagine what your brain was think about and process if you didn't constantly input it right before you go to sleep or the first thing when you wake up. Right. 

I wonder what you think about if you didn't look at your phone as the first thing in the morning. If you didn't start thinking about work and work related problems immediately when you first woke up. Right. Your day would not start out as stressful. 

  • You'd likely be more present. 

  • You'd be more focused with your family. 

  • You'd have more connection time before you sent your kids off for the day. 

Life would likely feel a whole lot less frantic because your brain is not already starting in, like, go go go work mode, stress mode, which is oftentimes what our phone usage at that time creates for us. Right. 

So I could go on and on and on about research. Lots and lots of studies have been done. Just do a quick Google search if you need a little bit more information on it. 

The vision I have for you.

But beyond the research, it's the vision that I have for you. It is a vision of not feeling so tethered to work all of the time, which means you're not so tethered to your phone all the time, where rest is a higher priority, which makes fun and adventure and laughter infinitely more likely in your life. 

Most of us, when we think of family time and family rhythms, we don't envision the family all sitting around on devices in the same room together. Right? We envision a life of fun and play and games and giggles and deep conversations, which means people aren't always staring at their screens. And ultimately, you get to be the model of that, right. 

When you learn to be untethered to your phone, you are going to create a greater opportunity for your family to do that as well. 

And one of the easiest times that you can do that would make the highest impact. It wouldn't take any time. It would take no resource from you except willpower to actually do it. 

And I promise, when you start doing it, you're not going to stop doing it. It will become something that you actually, that you actually realize. You can feel the impact pretty quickly as you stop feeling so, like, wound up by having your phone next to you first, last thing as you go to sleep, and first thing when you wake up, I promise. 

All right, so that's the first practice. Put your phone to sleep in another room. When you go to sleep, it will not be the last thing you look at. It won't be the first thing you look at. And you are going to notice how much less stress and how much less overwhelm you experience because, of it. 

The second practice that's going to help lessen that stress and overwhelm and take virtually no time or energy from you. This one is going to be a heck of a whole lot easier if you do the first practice already and actually put your phone in another room. But even if you don't do that, you could still do this practice as well. 

Visualize your day going really well.

Here it is. First thing, when you wake up in the morning, before you even get out of bed, I want you to envision your day going really well. Okay. You're lying in bed. You're sort of waking yourself up, right? Like you're probably in a state of sleepiness. That's totally okay. 

I want you to let your mind wander to what you have going on in your day. And imagine going through your day, your tasks, your interactions with your family, with your colleagues, with your clients, whatever your day looks like. 

And I want you to, imagine you doing it really well. You have to remember that our brain has a negative bias, which means it's always going to be thinking and focusing on things that are not going well, that are potential problems that need to be fixed. 

It sort of focuses on the worst case scenario all of the time. It's part of our survival mechanism. It keeps you safe and alive, but it doesn't tend to make you happy. 

Redirect your negative thoughts.

So your job is to redirect that negative bias brain as often as possible. And I have found doing that at the very beginning of your day increases the chances that you are going to feel really good, satisfied, and happy throughout your day. 

Okay, now, I've used the word visualize. I want you to visualize your day going really well and you being happy and successful throughout your day. 

And some of you might sort of cringe at that idea of visualization because you have absolutely no idea how to do it. You might even say you're terrible at meditation or something, some flavor of whatever that is, right? 

All visualization is, is it's using your imagination. And I guarantee at one time of your life, you were brilliant at using your imagination. That's when you were a kid. Right. 

All that we're talking about when I say visualize is, I'm saying, let your imagination, like, go through your day. Think about how your day could go. Like, watch yourself in your mind go through your morning routine and your interactions with your kids and getting yourself to work and sitting at your office and coming home and making dinner. 

See your normal routine, and just kind of go through it in your head. That's using your imaginations. That's visualizing, okay? 

Doing that and you like having a smile on your face and you having your shoulders back and you feeling really confident and staying really calm throughout your day. Right. I just want you to imagine your day going really successful. Okay? 

That's at the heart of this particular practice. It doesn't have to be long. It could be 30 seconds. It could be up to a couple of minutes. If you're sort of sleeping, you're sort of going in and out, whatever, however long you give it. 

But essentially what you're doing is you're showing your brain or you're pointing your brain towards a positive and successful day. And when you do that, you are making it more likely to happen. Okay? 

So we have putting your phone to sleep in another room. We have imagining your day going really well and being really positive. 

Positive self talk.

The third practice I want to offer to you is getting yourself ready in the morning, whatever your routine may be. And at some point, you look at yourself in your mirror and you say, here's what I want you to do. 

Here's the practice. You look at yourself in the mirror when you're getting yourself ready, and you say something positive about yourself. Okay? 

It could be an encouragement, like, you're doing such a good job, Rebecca. You're such a great mom. Keep it up. Or it could be an affirmation, sort of calling something positive out about yourself, like about your character. Or about your skill set. You're such a good coach. You're a really patient mom. People feel really connected to you. You're changing lives. Right? 

There's something very powerful about the visual of you looking at yourself in the mirror and then hearing yourself say something really positive. It gives, like, it's a whole sensory experience. 

Say it out loud.

When you do that, and I do intend for you to actually say it out loud, not just think it in your mind. Because when you say it out loud, your conscious brain is much more likely to, like, receive it and take it on. Right. Your conscious brain hears the words, the voice vibrations coming out of your mouth, trickles into your heat, your ear, and all of your senses, like, take in the positivity of that. That's one of the reasons why this is really impactful. Right. 

Remember, your brain is hardwired to see the bad and the negative. Everyone's brain is like that, so it already knows all of the things that you don't like about yourself, don't like about you, don't like about the way you look, the things that you want to be different or the things that you want to change. Right. 

Sharing another perspective.

This is an opportunity to just share another perspective, another side of the story on who you are. It's not like you're ignoring the things that need to get better or the things that you want to work on or change. 

You're just intentionally focusing on the good. 

You're practicing thinking positive things about yourself. And most of us need to practice that need to be intentional. It's not going to come to us naturally. Okay. 

All right. So we have put your phone in the other room at night. We have imagining yourself and your day going really well. We have looking at yourself in the mirror and speaking something really positive to you. 

Focus on what you got done today.

The fourth practice that I want to offer to you, that's going to go a long way. And you lessening stress and overwhelm with not a whole lot of time or energy is at the end of your work day, I want you to focus intentionally on the progress that you've made that day. Right. 

Every working mom that I work with, virtually all of them tell me that they get to the end of their work day and they never feel like they got enough done. 

They always feel behind. 

They feel like they should have been able to get more done. 

They feel like they're failing people.

And so they transition from work to home with this overall feeling of, like, not enoughness. I just didn't do enough today. I'm behind. Right? I'm not performing well enough because I didn't get everything done that I wanted to do today. Right. 

So that's where most working moms brains kind of live at the end of their work day. And while it might be true that you wish there was more time and you wish that you could get, you know, check more things off of your list at the end of the workday, it doesn't have erase the things that you actually did accomplish today. Okay. 

Highlighting what you did do rather than didn’t do.

What you're doing in this practice is you're highlighting the things that you actually did instead of focusing on the things that you did not do. It's called the progress effect. What that is, this has been a researched, this is something that's been highly researched. It's essentially the effect that happens when you focus on the progress made either towards big or little goals, tasks, projects, versus thinking about the progress you did not make, which is where our brains naturally go. 

Harvard did a big study on this with thousands of people. I think it was over 10,000 people. They've studied this group over the course of many years. So they actually saw the short term and the long term effects of progress. 

Seeing progress = motivation.

And when we focus on progress, and one of the largest impacts they talk about is how when you focus on progress, you create motivation, right? Which makes a lot of sense, right. 

When you perceive yourself to be making progress, even incremental progress, towards something, you can actually see the end inside of something, right? 

That gives your brain a little dopamine hit, which creates this, like, surge of motivation in you to actually complete and to get it done, right. It also, focusing on progress creates more satisfaction, it creates more happiness, it feels more purposeful, right? 

Write down 3 things that went well today.

So this practice, it's going to take you less than two minutes each day, but at the end of your workday, I want you to grab a random piece of paper and jot down three things that you did today that you made progress towards, essentially, right? Doesn't need to be major, doesn't have to be big projects that you ended. 

It could be really small wins that you had, like little simple things that you achieved, emails that you got to, something you've been procrastinating on, you actually make a little progress toward, or a conversation you had with somebody that could have sort of gone sideways. You did really well navigating that. 

This does not have to be big things, but the goal of it is for you to write those three things down and have a moment where you feel really satisfied with your day. So this practice is going to take you less than two minutes each day. 

Here's what I want you to do. I want you to grab a random piece of paper at the very end of your workday before you transition out, before you, like, leave the office. Or you could do it on your commute home, if you commute, or if you're at a home office, it's literally like taking a sticky pad or something like that before you walk out your office door into the living room with your family, whatever it is, right? 

Very end of your day, grab a random piece of paper. It could be a cocktail napkin, for that matter. And I want you to write down three things that you made progress on that day. 

Write down your wins.

It does not have to be major progress. Think of it as just small, little wins, something that was really simple, that you achieved, a checkbox, a way of approaching something, a hard conversation that you did, something you've been procrastinating on, that you made a little bit of progress on. 

“One of the most impactful tools.”

One of my clients recently highlighted this to me as being one of the most impactful tools that she learned in coaching that had just the most profound effect for her. She sort of developed a much more robust practice around it. 

Work-to-home transition.

It's a part of her work to home transition, so it takes her a little bit longer. But she talks about how when, she has been focusing so intentionally on progress, it sort of has ended this overwhelming urge that she used to have to log back on and keep checking email and stay available at night because she ends her day feeling like she, like, closed the book. 

She put a period at the end of her day, of her work day, she closed the book, and she walks out and she's like, I did enough today. I feel good about what I did because she intentionally focuses her mind on it. That's the power. That's what we want for you as well. Okay. all right. 

Stop saying I’m busy.

So the last practice, that would bring a huge return on your investment of time and energy, though there, there's truly no real time involved in this. It's really just a matter of commitment. It is to stop saying, I'm busy when somebody asks you how you're doing. 

Oh my gosh, I'm so busy. We don't say that anymore, right? We don't think that anymore. I don't want you to say it anymore. I just had a session with one of my clients where we got on the phone, and she told me she was feeling, like, really stressed out and crazy, crazy busy. 

And I asked her why, and so she started listing out for me all of the major projects that she was working on, like a couple of whole, like, big projects that are part of her role sort of culminated right here in this month. And so she was sharing me all these things. And after she was done, I said, okay, I hear all of that, but why are you feeling so stressed out? 

And she paused for a long time. She sort of stumbled through her words. And eventually she came to the conclusion that she really wasn't all that stressed out. Like, all of the things that she was doing were super life giving to her. 

She was really motivated to do them, she was proud of the work she was doing. She needed to limit her work time. She did admit that, but generally speaking, she was really focusing on all of the things that she wanted to focus on, and she felt really good about it. 

And so then I was like, well, why are you saying you're stressed out? Why are you saying you're busy? And ultimately, the conclusion we came to was, it's a habit. 

And I think that's true for so many of us. It's our habit to label a life that is full as being busy and stressful. Right. 

And there's no question that there's a, physiological effect that happens when you are, in fact, stressed and too busy. Right. Your body releases a lot of adrenaline in your body, which can be hard to process, which doesn't let you sleep, and it has you not eating well, it has your heart racing too much. Right. 

There's definitely an effect that stress has on your body. However, just because you have a full week does not necessarily mean you're stressed. 

You're listening to this podcast because you identify as being someone that is ambitious, that is goal focused, that's career driven. And inevitably, what that means is that there's a lot of demand for your time. 

You're good at what you do, you're efficient at what you do. People want you on their team. You're a closer, you're a finisher, you're a getter doner. Right. 

Unless you are holding space for rest, there is likely not a whole lot of time in your calendar that is not filled. That isn't a problem. 

In fact, most of you probably want it that way. It's not inherently stressful. What makes it stressful is the way you are thinking about it as being too much. 

You can't get it all done. 

There just isn't enough time. 

I'm failing everyone. 

It is those kinds of thoughts and mindsets that are actually having you feel stressed and too busy. 

So I think there's this time when you get to say that you're legitimately stressed out. But a lot of the time when you say you're busy or stressed out, it's actually not true. You're just living a really full life. And most of the things that you're doing are things that you choose to do or things that you would like to do when you stop and think about it. Right. 

The problem is that you're telling yourself you're busy and stressed, and then that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. So you stop actually enjoying the things that you're doing. You start feeling even more overwhelmed. 

You kind of create for yourself the physiological effect because you are actually focusing on saying and then, and then creating a life that feels stressful. Okay. 

Robbing yourself of the joy of living life.

Another way of saying this is when you tell yourself over and over again when the answer to, how are you doing? Is, I'm so busy, I'm so stressed. When that is your response, time and time again, you are robbing yourself of the joy of living the life that you have created. 

You are automatically telling yourself you're busy and you're stressed, and so you're not allowing yourself to be filled with the satisfaction and joy of all of the things that you do. Right? You're not busy. You just have a lot of priorities that are really important to you. 

Your life is full.

I want you to try saying that this week. Rather than telling somebody that you're busy and stressful, I want you to start practicing saying, well, life feels really full right now. 

Or you could say, I have a lot of good things going on right now. Life is full. And see how different that feels like it's a subtle shifted mindset that's going to have a huge return, offloading all of this stress and overwhelm that you're sort of creating for yourself. 

All right, quick review. These are the five practices that are going to have a huge impact and require virtually no time, but is guaranteed to lessen your stress and overwhelm that you feel as a working mom. Here they are:

Number 1.

Put your phone to sleep in another room and allow your body to truly rest. 

Number 2.

In the first 30 seconds to a minute of your day before you even get out of bed, imagine your day and imagine it going really well. Imagine a smile on your face as you go throughout the day. Imagine the confidence that you feel going throughout your day. Okay, that's two. 

Number 3.

At some point when you get yourself ready in the morning, look at yourself in the mirror and say something nice to yourself out loud. You're building up positive self talk. 

Number 4.

Focus on progress made and write 3 things down that you accomplished today at the end of your workday so that you leave work feeling like you did enough and you are enough today. 

Number 5.

Instead of saying, I'm really busy or stressed out, start saying, life feels full. I have a lot of important priorities in life right now. 

Working moms, creating a life that feels balanced does not have to take a lot of time. There are simple internal shifts that have a profound effect on how you feel and then how you respond and behave as a result of it. 

As I look to the fall and I start thinking about our 200th episode, which is coming up, very shortly here on the ambitious and balanced working mom podcast, I would love to hear your ideas. 

I want to hear from you.

Is there something that would be really helpful to you that I talk about right now? Is there something that you're going through that you want me to address right here on the podcast? 

I would love, love, love to hear from you and hear all of your great ideas on how I can support you best in the last quarter of this year. You can do that by sending me an email. I promise that I will answer every single one of those emails as I hear your ideas and your thoughts on what I could talk about right here that would be most beneficial to you. 

You can email me at, rebecca@rebeccaolsoncoaching.com 

All right, working moms till next week. Let's get to it. 

Rebecca Olson