Tag time management

Staying Well Amid Chaos: Tips for a Healthier, Balanced Lifestyle

drstaceynaito 1 Comment

Image via Pexels

I hope you enjoy reading this wonderful article, written by Camille Johnson of Bereaver.com

Maintaining healthy habits often feels like an impossible task when life is filled with constant demands. However, a busy lifestyle doesn’t have to stand in the way of your well-being. By incorporating practical, time-efficient strategies, you can make healthy choices part of your daily routine without added stress. The key lies in finding small, actionable steps that seamlessly fit your schedule, helping you prioritize health even on the busiest days.

Enhancing Your Routine with Time-Blocking

Incorporating time-blocking techniques into your daily routine can significantly improve your ability to maintain healthy habits. By dividing your day into dedicated time slots for specific tasks, you ensure that each activity receives the focus it needs. For instance, setting aside time from 9 am to 10 am for exercise can help prioritize this important habit. This approach not only provides structure but also aids in organizing and prioritizing tasks, transforming a hectic schedule into a more manageable one.

Energizing Your Morning with a Nutritious Smoothie

Kickstart your day with a vibrant super greens smoothie that not only boosts your energy but also enhances mental clarity. By blending nutrient-rich greens like spinach and parsley with almond milk, you create a wholesome alternative to caffeine. When selecting a greens powder, prioritize those made from organic vegetables and free from artificial additives to ensure purity. Additionally, review the best greens powders and find one that includes probiotics to support gut health. This simple morning ritual fuels your body and sets a positive tone for the day ahead.

Strengthening Your Brain and Energy with Smart Nutrition

Incorporating nutrient-dense foods into your daily meals can significantly boost your cognitive abilities and energy levels. Essential nutrients like fiber, vitamin D, probiotics, and polyphenols improve memory and reduce inflammation, crucial for optimal brain function. By ensuring a steady intake of these nutrients, you provide your brain with the necessary fuel to stay sharp and focused. This not only aids in better decision-making but also supports your ability to adhere to new routines.

Embracing Mindful Eating for a Healthier Lifestyle

Mindful eating offers a refreshing approach to cultivating healthier eating habits, especially for those with busy lifestyles. By immersing yourself in the sensory experience of food, you become more attuned to your body’s natural hunger and fullness cues. This awareness can lead to better portion control and a reduced tendency to overeat. Unlike traditional dieting methods, mindful eating encourages you to savor each bite, promoting satisfaction and reducing stress. This approach, rooted in the Buddhist concept of mindfulness, fosters a positive relationship with food and supports a balanced dietary lifestyle.

Building Habits That Reflect Your Core Values

Incorporating self-reflection into your routine can be a powerful strategy for developing habits that align with your core values. By understanding what truly matters to you, you can make intentional choices that resonate with your authentic self. This practice supports personal growth and enhances decision-making skills, allowing you to invest in habits that support your long-term goals.

Discovering Patterns Through Journaling

Journaling is a powerful tool for uncovering the behavioral patterns that influence your daily life. By consistently recording your thoughts and experiences, you create a personal narrative that helps identify why certain habits persist. This practice can illuminate emotional triggers, such as stress or anxiety, that might lead to intense reactions. Embracing journaling as a means of self-discovery boosts your emotional intelligence and empowers you to cultivate healthier habits.

Prioritizing Meaningful Habits for a Balanced Life

To truly enhance your daily life, focus on habits that genuinely boost your well-being and productivity. Start by evaluating your current routine and identifying activities that offer little value. By eliminating such non-essential tasks, you create space for pursuits that align with your personal goals and values. This approach boosts efficiency and enhances overall happiness, leading to a more balanced and fulfilling life.

Building healthy habits within a busy lifestyle isn’t about drastic changes but about creating routines that work for you. With consistent effort and a focus on small, achievable goals, you can seamlessly integrate wellness into your daily life. Remember, every positive choice adds up, and even minor changes can have a significant impact over time. By staying committed and flexible, you can cultivate a healthier, more balanced life regardless of your schedule.

Elevate your wellness journey with expert nutrition and fitness plans from Dr. Stacey Naito – your destination for transformative health and lifestyle solutions!

Balancing Life’s Demands with Effective Stress Management

drstaceynaito 1 Comment

Image via Pexels

I hope you will enjoy reading this wonderful article written by Sheila Olson of fitsheila.com which hones in on stress management.

In the journey to cultivate a more serene and manageable lifestyle, understanding and mitigating stress is essential. With a focus on self-awareness and actionable strategies, individuals can learn to navigate their stress with more confidence and resilience, leading to a more balanced and fulfilling life. This guide from Dr. Stacey Naito provides a comprehensive approach to recognizing the myriad stressors that permeate daily life and offers practical solutions for effectively managing them.

Recognizing Emotional Alerts

If you find yourself frequently overwhelmed, anxious, or irritable, these could be your mind’s way of signaling stress. These emotional reactions are important indicators, suggesting it’s time to reassess your current lifestyle choices and stress management strategies. Recognizing these signs early can help you take proactive steps towards stress reduction. Addressing these emotional cues promptly ensures they don’t escalate into more severe issues. Continually monitoring your emotional state aids in managing stress before it becomes overwhelming.

Pursuing a Fulfilling Career

If your existing role no longer aligns with your aspirations, exploring new career paths may restore balance and joy to your work life. Stepping into a role such as that of a special education teacher can offer profound personal and community benefits, especially if you are driven by a desire to support children with unique needs. Online educational programs provide flexibility, allowing you to blend further education with current professional duties effectively. For more tailored advice on making such transitions, check this out for more info.

Journaling for Pattern Recognition

Maintaining a journal about your daily interactions can reveal patterns in what causes your stress. Document instances when you feel stressed, including the people, environments, or situations involved. This record-keeping can be a powerful tool for identifying recurring stressors and addressing them effectively. Over time, this practice aids in avoiding or altering these stress-inducing patterns. Sharing insights from your journal with a therapist or counselor can also provide additional perspectives on managing stress.

Assessing Environmental Impact

Your surroundings play a significant role in your stress levels. An overabundance of clutter, noise, and lack of privacy can all add to a stressful atmosphere. Take a moment to evaluate these factors in your home and workplace to determine if they contribute to your stress. Creating a calm, organized space can significantly reduce stress and enhance your ability to focus and relax. Consider implementing minimalistic principles to further reduce environmental stressors.

Balancing Life’s Commitments

Often, stress arises from a mismatch in the effort allocated to personal and professional commitments. Reflect on whether you’re giving too much to one aspect of your life at the expense of others. Achieving a more balanced distribution of your time and energy can significantly reduce stress. It’s essential to maintain a healthy balance to ensure personal well-being and professional productivity. Setting clear boundaries between work and personal life is key to achieving this balance.

Integrating Relaxation Techniques

Incorporating practices such as meditation, yoga, or deep breathing into your daily routine can profoundly affect your stress levels. These techniques promote relaxation and provide a necessary respite from the daily grind. Regular practice helps manage stress more effectively and improves overall mental health. Dedicate time each day to these activities to nurture your mental and physical well-being. Engaging in these practices in a group setting can enhance their effectiveness through shared experiences and support.

It is important to remember that stress management is a dynamic and ongoing process. Implementing the strategies discussed will require patience and persistence. Over time, these techniques will foster a greater sense of control over your emotional and physical well-being, transforming how you handle life’s inevitable pressures. By maintaining this proactive approach, you can continue to enhance your quality of life and nurture a resilient, stress-resilient mindset.

Explore wellness, lifestyle tips, and inspiration with Dr. Stacey Naito.

Where Does The Time Go?

drstaceynaito Leave a comment

worried-woman-with-time-clockDo you know that feeling in which all your best laid plans for a day unravel like a knitting project being attacked by a kitten? I know the feeling all too well, and despite every effort I make to prevent such an occurrence, chaos presents itself EVERY SINGLE DAY. I know the problem boils down to having too much to do and not enough time in a day to get it all done. I end up feeling worthless and helpless when I have to move chores, errands, appointments and projects to another day, week or even month. The saddest part of moving things back in my schedule is that I tend to shove spiritual and expressive “fun” projects into a distant “someday”, simply because I do not want to seem selfish for immersing myself in them. As a result, I tend to starve my spirit and have caused a rift in my spiritual connection which is beginning to take its toll on me.

One way to break the cycle of signing up for too much to do is to take a step back, determine what takes top priority, and only put those items or events on your schedule so that you won’t feel overwhelmed. I realize that people these days are so incredibly busy that if the most basic and essential tasks are not added to a day’s schedule, they won’t get done. For example, I must schedule my workouts, errands, beauty treatments, plant watering and household cleaning tasks if I want to ensure that I will have time to complete them. Over the past several years, I have become accustomed to literally hitting the ground running when I start most of my days, without slowing down until late at night when I am home and have completed article writing and social media tasks. I often wonder if life really has to be this complicated all the time, and fantasize about being able to move through daily life without feeling like I am racing against time.

We tend to manufacture the frenetic schedules we complain of, and get so caught up in them that pausing for a moment seems alien to us. However, it is important to remember that taking a moment to pause and breathe does not have the negative repercussions we fear it does. You CAN put down your work for a little while and enjoy life. Allow your spirit and your body to reset so that you are refreshed instead of stressed out and frazzled.

I Hate Taking Selfies

drstaceynaito Leave a comment

IMAG0894

Both of my parents used to put me in front of cameras all the time, which largely explains why I am so comfortable in front of them. I am very much at ease before a still camera, and am usually fine in front of a moving one, even if I have to improvise or read cold. I have never really shied away from the camera lens like some people tend to do, and am usually happy to join in a group picture when asked to do so.

All bets are off when I have to take a selfie. I have stubbornly remained on the Android boat and refuse to cross over to the iPhone world, and as a result I have to deal with a camera which, quite frankly, sucks, especially when in selfie mode. I have an oval face, but my phone camera wants to make me look like I have a long, weird horse face! My phone camera is also completely incapable of capturing ideal lighting conditions. Since I want people to see me in my natural, everyday state, and am very reluctant to use filters on my social media posts, I realize that many of my social media posts which feature a selfie don’t exactly make me look my best.

As if that wasn’t enough to discourage me from taking selfies, I also don’t enjoy the process of looking at myself and trying to line up a picture. When someone else is photographing or filming me, I allow myself to relax and trust the person who is capturing my likeness. When I take selfies with my phone, I become easily and quickly bored with the activity. It’s not like me to spend massive amounts of time in front of a mirror, fussing and primping, so I certainly don’t enjoy spending additional time taking pictures of myself.

Here’s my M.O. for taking selfies: I think of a good setup for the shot, then I take between two and eight selfies. I know you selfie experts are probably horrified by the paltry amount of selfies I take, and are ready to tell me, “No wonder you don’t get good selfies!” I know that the most dedicated Instagram selfie takers will often take over a hundred versions of a selfie and sift through them to find the most flattering images, but I don’t have that kind of time!

I have spoken with branding people who say that it is worth taking time to snap the perfect selfie, but I have careers and a life outside of social media, and in that real world, time is money. If I don’t get my work done, I don’t get paid. And no one will have sympathy for me if I tell them I need a couple of hours each day to take the perfect batch of selfies. Since I also apply a five-minute face each day (concealer, brow pencil, eyeliner, mascara, blush, translucent powder and lipstick…NO foundation, bronzer, eyeshadow, lipgloss for my daily look!), I am not prepping for selfies all the time.

Who else out there hates taking selfies? IMAG0893

Keeping Pace With A Crazy Schedule

drstaceynaito Leave a comment

George Kontaxis shoot

The last few weeks have been NUTS. I am talking about day after day of so many shifts in my schedule and demands on my time, that I am torn in many different directions, and cannot focus on a darned thing. When this kind of chaos ensues, I begin to lose items, certain basic vocabulary terms escape me, and I feel like I am rushing by everything and everyone, like a bullet train zooming through a bustling cityscape.

For the life of me, I can’t find a gray tank top which I had recently purchased and put…somewhere. I honestly can’t remember where. This isn’t like me, because I am VERY organized, to the point of having all of my clothing organized by color, sleeve length, etc. So why can’t I find that gray top?

I literally run around in my bedroom, grabbing for clothes, rushing, trying to keep up with the stressful demands of being in so many places all the time. It’s starting to get old. Forget about having time to read a book, or watch a TV show, because by the time the dust settles from the crazy days I have been flying through, the notion of blissful sleep is so seductive that I don’t want to do anything else.

What keeps me from unraveling is the consistency I demand with my eating habits and my workouts. I am not joking about this. Despite the insane schedule I have been juggling lately, I still weight train six mornings each week. I attend lyra class one to two evenings during the week. My meals consist of clean foods like chicken breast, salmon, tilapia, green beans, asparagus, brown rice, quinoa, avocado, almonds, oats, and Greek yogurt. I have been drinking plenty of alkaline water. I have also been consistent about consuming MitoXcell every morning (I LOVE this supplement and intend to post more about it when I get a chance to breathe!), and I also take my regular supplements (like turmeric, CoQ10, folic acid, etc.) daily. My energy levels have been decent, and my mood has been generally great, with only a couple of stark exceptions.

There are two days next week which I have designated as clean up and organization days, and I desperately need them. During those days, I will perform the deep cleaning throughout most of the house which the housekeeper always neglects, I will reorganize cabinets and drawers, clean up the garage and patio, and find that gray top!

When You Can’t Catch Up

drstaceynaito Leave a comment

Every day I have the best intentions. I have my schedule mapped out and tear into it like a beast. But all too frequently, one or more hiccups in the timeline mess up my perfect plans to get a plethora of things done. That being said, I move like a dynamo and get more done than the average person does, mainly because I don’t lead a normal life, and am extremely ambitious. But just when I think I am about to catch up in one area of my life, I get dumped on in another area. I suppose it’s just how life goes, but sometimes it is so maddening to see my to-do list for the day unravel despite all my efforts. It certainly doesn’t appeal to my sense of order and control.

RunningLate

I know many of you who are reading this can relate. Opportunities are blessed things, but when you can barely come up for air and you can’t attend to the most basic things like buying groceries, doing laundry, or catching enough sleep, you are teetering way off balance and need to pay attention. By no means am I suggesting that you abandon your responsibilities in favor of wanton playtime, but no one should be that busy all the time. The body and mind cannot endure such constant stress and will rebel eventually, usually through physical illness, depression or anxiety.

I have been travelling through my days at a frenetic pace lately, and can tell the stress has exerted a toll on me. So last Saturday, after I had completed my workouts and run a few errands, I just said, “SCREW IT”, and headed over to a local movie theater by myself to see “Grand Budapest Hotel”, despite the fact that I had work waiting for me at home. I happily turned off my phone and nestled into the fantasy world of the film for close to two hours. I felt no guilt whatsoever, and was completely refreshed by my little getaway.

Another thing I have just begun doing lately is sifting through all the contacts and opportunities before me, setting boundaries, and learning to say NO when appropriate. This has been huge for me, since I usually do everything in my power to please and take care of people. Though I am pretty good about putting the oxygen mask on my own face, I will often opt to make someone else more comfortable at my own expense. I have noticed that if my movement and freedom are compromised, I become extremely frustrated, yet I also understand that I often bring that upon myself. The most compelling thing about this situation is that it is one that I see over and over again with other people. It’s almost like a cosmic movement, a tendency towards losing control, taking on more than what is reasonable, and draining the body and spirit of resources instead of replenishing and supporting those resources.

My take-home message is to:

1. take a break every now and then to recharge your batteries
2. learn to say no when appropriate
3. honor yourself

The sooner you learn to achieve balance, the happier and more productive you will be.

Never Enough Time

drstaceynaito Leave a comment

worried-woman-with-time-clockDo you know that feeling in which all your best laid plans for a day unravel like a knitting project being attacked by a kitten? I know the feeling all too well, and despite every effort I make to prevent such an occurrence, chaos presents itself EVERY SINGLE DAY. I know the problem boils down to having too much to do and not enough time in a day to get it all done. I end up feeling worthless and helpless when I have to move chores, errands, appointments and projects to another day, week or even month. The saddest part of moving things back in my schedule is that I tend to shove spiritual and expressive “fun” projects into a distant “someday”, simply because I do not want to seem selfish for immersing myself in them. As a result, I tend to starve my spirit and have caused a rift in my spiritual connection which is beginning to take its toll on me.

One way to break the cycle of signing up for too much to do is to take a step back, determine what takes top priority, and only put those items or events on your schedule so that you won’t feel overwhelmed. I realize that people these days are so incredibly busy that if the most basic and essential tasks are not added to a day’s schedule, they won’t get done. For example, I must schedule my workouts, errands, beauty treatments, plant watering and household cleaning tasks if I want to ensure that I will have time to complete them. Over the past couple of years, I have become accustomed to literally hitting the ground running when I start most of my days, without slowing down until late at night when I am home and have completed article writing and social media tasks. I often wonder if life really has to be this complicated all the time, and fantasize about being able to move through daily life without feeling like I am racing against time.

We tend to manufacture the frenetic schedules we complain of, and get so caught up in them that pausing for a moment seems alien to us. However, it is important to remember that taking a moment to pause and breathe does not have the negative repercussions we fear it does. You CAN put down your work for a little while and enjoy life. Allow your spirit and your body to reset so that you are refreshed instead of stressed out and frazzled.