Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #123| The Surprising Truth About Productivity and Reaching Big Goals (& Why It Isn't What You Think!)
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: Meditating, over time, can actually change your brain.
- 0:02Michelle Gauthier: But you don't even have to worry about changing your brain, just change your day.
- 0:06Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:18Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:23Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences, and in each episode you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease and relaxation to your life.
- 0:38Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend, I love today's podcast topic.
- 0:41Michelle Gauthier: It's so much fun for me because I do this and I really believe in this and it has to do with taking naps, which is one of my favorite things.
- 0:48Michelle Gauthier: So today I'm gonna talk about why the most effective productivity tool around might just be chilling out.
- 0:57Michelle Gauthier: We're gonna talk about meditation.
- 0:59Michelle Gauthier: We're gonna talk about how, when your brain's default mode network activates, and I'll tell you what that is, how that can make you feel more creative and allow you to solve problems better.
- 1:12Michelle Gauthier: And then, finally, we're going to talk about naps, power naps and coffee naps, which is something that I have just discovered.
- 1:18Michelle Gauthier: But before we jump in, I want to tell you that I have a one-on-one coaching spot open.
- 1:23Michelle Gauthier: I know I said this a couple weeks ago too, and that spot did fill really quickly with a podcast listener.
- 1:29Michelle Gauthier: So if you have been thinking about potentially coaching with me or learning more about it, take this as your sign.
- 1:35Michelle Gauthier: Send me a message and I will tell you the next steps for us to get together and just have a conversation about it.
- 1:42Michelle Gauthier: All right, let's dig into all the ways that chilling out and relaxing is what we need to do to help us hit our goals.
- 1:49Michelle Gauthier: First, I want to talk about meditation.
- 1:51Michelle Gauthier: I was just talking about this in my Simple Sunday newsletter, the last one that went out.
- 1:56Michelle Gauthier: By the way, if you like this podcast and you don't get that newsletter, you should get on my email list.
- 2:01Michelle Gauthier: It comes out every other Sunday.
- 2:03Michelle Gauthier: It's always got tips and tricks and just fun stuff.
- 2:08Michelle Gauthier: Actually, we were talking about the white lotus on there as well.
- 2:11Michelle Gauthier: So there is a link in the show notes for you to sign up for that simple Sunday email newsletter if you're interested in that.
- 2:19Michelle Gauthier: Okay, but I digress.
- 2:20Michelle Gauthier: So I was just talking about this in the newsletter that I meditate almost every day.
- 2:27Michelle Gauthier: It's a pretty rare day when I don't do it and I wear an oura ring, If you don't know what that is.
- 2:33Michelle Gauthier: It's a ring that tracks.
- 2:35Michelle Gauthier: It tracks your sleep, it tracks your activity, it tracks your daytime stress.
- 2:40Michelle Gauthier: It just gives you all these metrics about yourself throughout the day, which I love because I'm a nerd and I love that kind of stuff.
- 2:46Michelle Gauthier: And when I meditate it is so fascinating.
- 2:50Michelle Gauthier: The way the aura ring classifies daytime stress is you're either you're being restored or you're engaged or you're stressed.
- 2:58Michelle Gauthier: So engaged is like you know you're awake and you're working and you're doing productive things, or you're talking to a client or whatever it is, and you know your heart rate's not too high.
- 3:08Michelle Gauthier: And then stress, which it always nails it on the stress, it can always tell when I'm feeling stressed about something.
- 3:14Michelle Gauthier: It shows that.
- 3:15Michelle Gauthier: And when I meditate it goes just it's like it goes off a cliff, from stressed or engaged right down to restored, and I can see that on the ring, which is cool.
- 3:27Michelle Gauthier: But I can also feel it If I meditate in the afternoon.
- 3:31Michelle Gauthier: My most often meditation time is to meditate between work and you know, like dinner or being a mom, the being the mom phase of the night, and I can tell you it gives me renewed energy.
- 3:44Michelle Gauthier: It just makes me feel clear.
- 3:47Michelle Gauthier: It is so, so powerful and there's so much proof scientific proof that meditation is good for you.
- 3:54Michelle Gauthier: But something I found really interesting is a study at Harvard found that meditation increases the gray matter in your hippocampus, which is where your learning and memory is, and decreases the size of the amygdala, which is where we feel stress.
- 4:10Michelle Gauthier: So I thought that was interesting that meditating over time can actually change your brain.
- 4:15Michelle Gauthier: But we don't even have to worry about changing your brain, just change your day by trying a five minute meditation.
- 4:22Michelle Gauthier: And if you're thinking, I cannot sit still and empty my mind for five minutes, me neither.
- 4:27Michelle Gauthier: I always use a guided meditation.
- 4:28Michelle Gauthier: There's tons of free ones on YouTube.
- 4:30Michelle Gauthier: I use the Breathe app.
- 4:32Michelle Gauthier: There are like 10 other apps that you can use.
- 4:35Michelle Gauthier: So if you feel like you could just use a stress break during the day, give it a try, Okay.
- 4:42Michelle Gauthier: My other counterintuitive productivity tool is stillness, just in general stillness.
- 4:49Michelle Gauthier: What I'm talking about here is think about when you are taking a shower and it's just quiet and you get these great creative ideas that come through.
- 4:59Michelle Gauthier: That's because when you are doing a low focus, relaxing task like taking a shower, your brain's default mode network, DMN, activates and it helps you process thoughts and make creative connections.
- 5:14Michelle Gauthier: So when you're in that low, focused, relaxed state, your brain can help you really think of things.
- 5:21Michelle Gauthier: I don't know about you, but I always get great ideas in the shower.
- 5:23Michelle Gauthier: Many a podcasts are written in the shower.
- 5:26Michelle Gauthier: So how do you do that?
- 5:27Michelle Gauthier: In the middle of the day?
- 5:29Michelle Gauthier: You probably can't run and take a shower unless you work from home, like me.
- 5:32Michelle Gauthier: I guess you could, but other ways to create that stillness in your life are to sit and focus on something, something in nature, for example.
- 5:42Michelle Gauthier: Can you go outside?
- 5:44Michelle Gauthier: This probably sounds really weird, but one of the things that I do.
- 5:47Michelle Gauthier: I have several plants in my office and one of the things that I will do is just stare at one of the plants.
- 5:53Michelle Gauthier: I'll like notice how the leaves are on it, see if it looks a little dry, observe any new things that are growing, appreciate the fact that it's growing so well in my office and I just, you know, sort of have a soft focus on it and just let my brain relax and observe.
- 6:11Michelle Gauthier: You can also get stillness just by will move away from my desk.
- 6:15Michelle Gauthier: I have a swing in my office, which is so fun, and I will move away from my desk and over to the swing, with no technology, and I will just sit there and take deep breaths and just allow my brain and my body to think for a second.
- 6:29Michelle Gauthier: So try that, Try five minutes of stillness, which is different from meditation because it's not a guided, you're specifically thinking about something else, it's just letting your brain chill out like you would when you're in the shower.
- 6:42Michelle Gauthier: And then the third point, and then the third way that you can allow your brain to relax in order to be more productive is to take a nap.
- 6:53Michelle Gauthier: I love naps.
- 6:54Michelle Gauthier: I feel like I've.
- 6:55Michelle Gauthier: I come from generations of nappers.
- 6:57Michelle Gauthier: My grandfather took a nap every day.
- 6:59Michelle Gauthier: He was a pilot and he, just in the afternoon, would always take a little 20 minute nap and he would always say naps are so delicious.
- 7:08Michelle Gauthier: My mom takes a nap every day.
- 7:11Michelle Gauthier: Now we're just meant to be nappers, I think.
- 7:13Michelle Gauthier: If you're like I'm not a napper, okay, then you can try the first or the second idea to meditate or just to have some stillness.
- 7:21Michelle Gauthier: But if you're a person who does nap or could nap, there is real evidence.
- 7:25Michelle Gauthier: The National Sleep Foundation says a 10 to 20 minute nap boosts our alertness and performance, and I totally believe that to be true.
- 7:34Michelle Gauthier: Many famous people like Einstein and Churchill took naps every day to boost their productivity.
- 7:40Michelle Gauthier: If you're feeling like your brain is so full and you have so many things to do, it might feel counterintuitive to take a nap, but taking a short nap can totally reset your mind and your body and lead you to having more focus and creativity.
- 7:55Michelle Gauthier: I've got to tell you guys this hot tip that I just heard about and I think it's so interesting.
- 7:59Michelle Gauthier: So it's called a coffee nap, and the idea of a coffee nap is that you drink a small cup of coffee and then you take a nap for 20 minutes and while you're taking that nap, the caffeine kicks in along with the benefits of the nap.
- 8:13Michelle Gauthier: It's like a double boost.
- 8:14Michelle Gauthier: I think this is hilarious because all this time that I have been dating the handsome man friend, on the weekends he'll have a cup of coffee and go back to sleep, and I'm like maybe he's been doing the coffee nap all along.
- 8:26Michelle Gauthier: Anyway, I honestly haven't tried this one.
- 8:29Michelle Gauthier: I just found it when I was researching for this podcast, so I'm going to give it a try.
- 8:32Michelle Gauthier: If you try it, or if you already do it, send me a message.
- 8:35Michelle Gauthier: I want to hear about it.
- 8:37Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so let's move on to Michelle's do less for more success tip.
- 8:41Michelle Gauthier: I feel like this entire episode is a series of how to do less for more success, but I want you to choose one of these three things that I have just talked about.
- 8:51Michelle Gauthier: That's my challenge for you this week.
- 8:53Michelle Gauthier: So either try a five minute meditation, try stillness, or try taking a power nap or a coffee nap for bonus points, and just observe what happens.
- 9:04Michelle Gauthier: Notice how you feel before and notice how you feel after, and you might be surprised just how much clarity and energy comes from taking a few minutes of intentional stillness of any kind.
- 9:17Michelle Gauthier: That's it for today.
- 9:19Michelle Gauthier: I hope you have a calm and relaxing day and week where you are getting everything done that you want to get done without feeling overwhelmed.
- 9:28Michelle Gauthier: See you Thursday.
- 9:29Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 9:37Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthiercom.
- 9:43Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.