Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #89| 5 Simple Relaxation Tools to Use When You're Overwhelmed
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: Are you having a busy day or do you have an overwhelmed brain?
- 0:03Michelle Gauthier: Good news you don't need an hour-long meditation to feel better.
- 0:07Michelle 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 Gothier, 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.
- 0:35Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend, thanks for joining today.
- 0:39Michelle Gauthier: Today I'm going to share with you four relaxation techniques that you can use.
- 0:44Michelle Gauthier: Two of them are for when you're in a public place, like, say, you're in a work meeting and you feel really stressed or upset about something and you can't do something outwardly to calm yourself down.
- 0:54Michelle Gauthier: And then two are for when you are in your house alone and you want to make yourself feel better.
- 1:00Michelle Gauthier: So these tools can help you feel totally calm and focused, no matter where you are or what's going on with you.
- 1:06Michelle Gauthier: I just finished up a weekend that I would call stressful or overwhelming or overwhelmingly stressful, and it reminded me that when I'm trying to because that's what happens to me when I'm feeling stressed and overwhelmed is, I reach for all the tools and tips and tricks that I'm always talking to you guys about, and so it reminded me that there are so many things that you can do to make yourself feel better quickly and in the moment.
- 1:31Michelle Gauthier: So that is exactly what I want to share with you today.
- 1:34Michelle Gauthier: This past weekend was my daughter's birthday, hosted a slumber party with a bunch of her friends.
- 1:39Michelle Gauthier: It was my niece's birthday.
- 1:40Michelle Gauthier: The next day went to her birthday party.
- 1:42Michelle Gauthier: My daughter had a horse show, which is always a whole thing, and then my son.
- 1:52Michelle Gauthier: Well, he hit a deer.
- 1:53Michelle Gauthier: He's fine, my son is fine, the deer is not fine, the car is not fine, so it was a little bit of a stressful weekend.
- 1:55Michelle Gauthier: So let me just jump into some of the tips and tricks that you can use to make yourself feel better, no matter what's going on, because you can't solve the problem in 30 seconds, but you can definitely get yourself to a more relaxed state so that you can solve the problem in 30 seconds or a minute or something like that.
- 2:14Michelle Gauthier: So let's start first with the ones that are discrete.
- 2:17Michelle Gauthier: So, for things that are in public spaces, for some reason, when I say this, I'm always picturing someone like being on the subway in New York City.
- 2:24Michelle Gauthier: Don't know why, I'm never on the subway in New York City, but that's what I'm picturing.
- 2:28Michelle Gauthier: So if you're in some place where you're feeling really stressed and overwhelmed and you can't like get out a notebook and journal, you can't scream at the top of your lungs here are a couple of things that you can do.
- 2:40Michelle Gauthier: So one is called box breathing, sometimes called square breathing.
- 2:44Michelle Gauthier: I have talked about this a lot and I can put a link to a video in the show notes too that shows you exactly how to do it.
- 2:51Michelle Gauthier: But essentially what you do is first you obviously have to recognize that you're feeling stressed and overwhelmed.
- 2:57Michelle Gauthier: I've talked about that concept in a lot of episodes.
- 3:00Michelle Gauthier: So hopefully by now you've got something in your body that indicates to you oh yeah, I'm feeling overwhelmed.
- 3:06Michelle Gauthier: For me it feels like a pressure on my chest, kind of like a spinning in my head.
- 3:10Michelle Gauthier: And then this weekend I noticed that my shoulders were like tight and up.
- 3:15Michelle Gauthier: I'm doing it right now.
- 3:16Michelle Gauthier: I've heard someone say before that I thought was really funny is like your shoulders shouldn't be your earrings, like they shouldn't be up to your ears.
- 3:22Michelle Gauthier: So those are the kind of indicators that I feel when I know that I'm feeling stressed and overwhelmed.
- 3:27Michelle Gauthier: So when you notice that about yourself and you decide to try box breathing, here's what you do: you inhale for four seconds, then you hold the inhale for four seconds, then you exhale for four seconds and then you hold it at the bottom so you leave the exhale out and you hold that for four seconds.
- 3:45Michelle Gauthier: So it's called box breathing because if you think about it you're breathing kind of around in a square, so four up, four across, four down, four back across the other way.
- 3:56Michelle Gauthier: And if you do that for one to two minutes you will totally feel a huge reduction in the tension in your body and in your mind.
- 4:06Michelle Gauthier: This is great again for meetings, while you're commuting somewhere, while you're standing in line, when you're at your child's horse show, baseball game, wherever you might be in that situation.
- 4:18Michelle Gauthier: Another one that works great for situations where you're not in a place to scream at the top of your lungs is envision yourself in a relaxing place.
- 4:29Michelle Gauthier: So ideally you could close your eyes.
- 4:32Michelle Gauthier: I would not recommend closing your eyes if you're driving or if you're in a meeting.
- 4:36Michelle Gauthier: People might notice that, but you can do it with your eyes open as well.
- 4:39Michelle Gauthier: But think about, if you were feeling really relaxed, where would you be?
- 4:45Michelle Gauthier: So, for me, I always get a few different pictures in my head, they kind of rotate through, but one of them that I always get is lying on one of those like beach beds that they have on the beach in Mexico.
- 4:55Michelle Gauthier: So the sand is all white and there's the beach bed, it has a little cover for shade and you can see the ocean and you can hear the ocean breeze.
- 5:03Michelle Gauthier: And just focusing on that and then focusing on all the sensory details about that situation.
- 5:10Michelle Gauthier: So what does it smell like?
- 5:11Michelle Gauthier: What do I see?
- 5:12Michelle Gauthier: What do I hear?
- 5:13Michelle Gauthier: What do I feel?
- 5:15Michelle Gauthier: Do I feel that sand between my toes?
- 5:17Michelle Gauthier: Do I feel a pillow behind my head?
- 5:20Michelle Gauthier: And this is a great one to use if you're, like at the airport and there's a million people around, or, you know, sitting in the doctor's office waiting to get called in, or before you have to give a big presentation, because science shows that our brain doesn't know if something is happening in real life or if it's happening because we're envisioning it or imagining it, and so the feeling that you get can be the very same.
- 5:46Michelle Gauthier: So that second one first we had box breathing.
- 5:49Michelle Gauthier: And the second one is a visualization which I would call take yourself to the beach in your mind, or to a forest or a spa or whatever makes you feel the most relaxed.
- 6:01Michelle Gauthier: Now here are a couple of things that you can do that are less discreet.
- 6:05Michelle Gauthier: I have alluded to, I think, twice now in this episode that sometimes just screaming at the top of your lungs is something that can be extremely helpful.
- 6:13Michelle Gauthier: This is something that I often do in the car.
- 6:16Michelle Gauthier: If I'm feeling really stressed or frustrated, I will just like scream at the top of my lungs until my throat almost hurts.
- 6:23Michelle Gauthier: You could try doing that.
- 6:24Michelle Gauthier: You could try doing that in your house if you're alone.
- 6:26Michelle Gauthier: Your dogs or your neighbors might think that you're kind of losing your mind, but that's okay.
- 6:32Michelle Gauthier: That's something that you can do just to get out that top level of stress and overwhelm and frustration.
- 6:38Michelle Gauthier: Another one that you can do is called shaking it out.
- 6:41Michelle Gauthier: So sometimes when I ask a client in a session to like tell me about a really hard situation, and they're bringing up that, just like I said about bringing up the beach, they're bringing up and remembering a hard situation and telling me about it.
- 6:53Michelle Gauthier: It gets kind of stuck in their brain and in their body, and so I'll have them shake it out.
- 6:58Michelle Gauthier: So if you stand up and shake your whole body for like 30 to 60 seconds and imagine that you're shaking off whatever energy you're feeling, so if the feeling is overwhelmed or stress, or frustration or sadness, if you shake that off for 30 seconds, it releases physical tension and just resets your energy.
- 7:17Michelle Gauthier: So this is a good one to use after you've had a tough conversation or a stressful event and you just want to shake it off.
- 7:23Michelle Gauthier: And I think for this one, especially if you're alone, the sillier you can be, the more effective it is.
- 7:31Michelle Gauthier: This would be a good one to play, shake it out and maybe dance as well.
- 7:35Michelle Gauthier: Dancing is always a good option as well.
- 7:42Michelle Gauthier: Dancing is always a good option.
- 7:43Michelle Gauthier: The next one is laugh therapy.
- 7:44Michelle Gauthier: Seriously, when you listen to a comedian or you watch a funny video or you recall a really funny memory and you laugh.
- 7:50Michelle Gauthier: I mean, think how good you feel in your body when you're laughing super hard, and this is a great one to break you out of a negative thought loop.
- 7:58Michelle Gauthier: Or if you're just lying around and feeling stuck in that overwhelm, getting yourself to laugh can motivate you to gently shift into a different energy.
- 8:07Michelle Gauthier: For me, one of my best friends sends me funny videos like it's her job, and so anytime I need that, I can just go to her DMs from her to me and look at the whole list of funny stuff that she sent me.
- 8:19Michelle Gauthier: Also, a big chunk of my Instagram feed is babies laughing, because I always like those and comment on them.
- 8:25Michelle Gauthier: So I always have access quick access, to things that make me laugh.
- 8:30Michelle Gauthier: What is your thing and where can you find a playlist, so to speak, of those things?
- 8:34Michelle Gauthier: Maybe it's old funny videos of your kids or something like that.
- 8:38Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so today we covered five quick ways to relax: box breathing, guided visualization aka taking yourself to the beach, screaming at the top of your lungs, shaking it out, and then laugh therapy.
- 8:53Michelle Gauthier: These are each fast, effective tools that you could do for like one minute, two minutes, and will make you feel so much better and so much more relaxed.
- 9:03Michelle Gauthier: Stay tuned for Michelle's Do Less For More Success tip - two minutes and will make you feel so much better and so much more relaxed.
- 9:17Michelle Gauthier: My Do Less tip for this week is about subscriptions.
- 9:21Michelle Gauthier: I feel like in general, subscriptions are things that I sign up for and then I forget that I've signed up for them and then I end up wasting a bunch of money on them.
- 9:30Michelle Gauthier: So I think there's the one side to subscriptions, which is to look through everything that you're paying for and cancel the stuff that you are not using, which means spending less and spending less time having to figure all of this out at a different date and time.
- 9:47Michelle Gauthier: I recently did this and found out that I had like three subscriptions to Apple Music that all three of us we have three people in this house and we had three family subscriptions so we needed one and we had three.
- 9:58Michelle Gauthier: What an annoying waste of time and money.
- 10:02Michelle Gauthier: And when you have subscriptions that you actually use like I always use Netflix, for example, I use Athletic Greens, I get those on a subscription.
- 10:11Michelle Gauthier: I have a monthly subscription with Amazon to send us our Method products - I get dish soap, hand soap, and counter kitchen spray.
- 10:23Michelle Gauthier: I get the same smell that I love and I get that, it just automatically comes.
- 10:28Michelle Gauthier: There are times where it comes and I still have some left, but often it's empty or almost empty, and I just don't even have to think about it because it's always either here or coming soon.
- 10:36Michelle Gauthier: So think about your subscriptions and think about where they're saving you or where you're wasting.
- 10:40Michelle Gauthier: If you are just looking for a super quick tip today, then I would say what is something that you find yourself always buying, and can you just schedule that purchase so that it automatically comes to your house?
- 10:51Michelle Gauthier: If you have or want to make more time like 30 minutes to go through and look at your credit card charges and see what all the subscriptions are that you're signed up for there are even apps and services that can do that for you Then you will probably save yourself a lot of money and effort in the future.
- 11:07Michelle Gauthier: Okay, that's it for today, everybody, if you have enjoyed this podcast or any of the prior podcasts, I would love if you would share that with a friend.
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- 11:49Michelle Gauthier: Right now, we are a top 2% podcast globally and I want to keep on going up and up.
- 11:54Michelle Gauthier: Thank you so much for your support and, as always, let me know if you have any ideas for topics or any questions that you would like to ask me to address on the podcast.
- 12:04Michelle Gauthier: Down below, you can click text and send me a message.
- 12:08Michelle Gauthier: Have a great day.
- 12:09Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.
- 12:14Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 12:17Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.
- 12:21Michelle Gauthier: com.
- 12:23Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.