You are listening to sweet insights with Ali and Amy, where we talk about life candy and coaching from a real estate agent and a life coach to a candy store owner, we have a little bit of everything we are, both moms living busy lives, and we share all of our raw, authentic selves with you. Hope you enjoyed today's episode. Hello, hi. So today we're talking about stress, and one really cool tips that we can share is Be mindful of the number amounts of coffee that you're having. If you're already stressed and you drink, and I would never say to quit coffee, because I love me some coffee, but if you're having a stressful day, careful that you don't have too much coffee. I mean, that's a good way to start the show. It's a little bit late here for me to have coffee. But, I mean, it's almost one o'clock here, so, but I am drinking water, which also is great. If you're stressed, you should definitely drink more water. Um, I don't do that enough, but coffee is my number one way to, like, I don't know, get going in the morning. It feels like I don't really need it, but it feels like I do, like my body is, how many cups of coffee do you have? Oh, just one. Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, you probably shouldn't have coffee first thing in the day anyway, from I mean, if we were doing some reading on stress and things that they say to avoid, I'm pretty sure caffeine first thing in the morning is, like, something that makes your stress higher in some cases, right? I think that, like, one cup is reasonable. I think it's when they continue throughout the day. And so I know a lot of people who, you know, if they're having a stressful day at work, you know, they go to the kitchen and get another cup of coffee. And so during a stressful day, you know how many times you're doing that? And is there something else you could do instead? Fair and what I like to do is, if I am going to have more coffee, it would be later in the day, or if I'm having caffeine of any type, it's later in the day, although, as I get older, having caffeine too late at night, depending what it is. Now Coca Cola won't bother me, but if I had an energy drink, you better believe I'm staying awake till one o'clock at night. So somebody was telling me that the other day they had at our cheer gym, we have a new coffee bar, and they make some really good shaken espressos, and someone decided that they were at the cheer gym for multiple practices for their child, and so they had two shaken espressos, and they were up till morning, right? And that can't be good for stress, because then you're stressed out one that you can't sleep, you're not sleeping, so that's not helping with your cortisol levels either. Like, there's so much that plays a factor into stress. You've been sick recently, so that's stressful. How are you feeling? You know, it's really funny. So I was fighting this cough for three weeks, and when I went to the doctors, they had actually said that I must have had some sort of cold and that it triggered my asthma. And so I was diagnosed with asthma at four and really am, like, not a bad asthma sufferer if I do, like, if I was to run outside in the winter or fall when it's cold and windy, it's like, too much air, my lungs can't handle it. So I've been always really good with my asthma, about avoiding the triggers and this latest cold I've had, and there's a lot of people here that have coughs and stuff, but he says that he doesn't even think I'm sick anymore. He thinks that it's literally my asthma that's been triggered. And we went to this really cool place called activate. I think you have one out there for Austin's birthday this past week. And when we went into the laser room, which is like, a little bit smoky, so that you can see the lasers, I could, like, literally feel my asthma kicking in. And I was like, Dude, I can't be in this room. Like, I'm out. And he wanted to go back in. And I was like, I can't go in that room. And, like, the running and stuff was, like, was triggering it a little bit, but that little haziness in the room was like crazy next level. So, yeah, so it's this weird, like, asthma that's kicked back in in my life, and that is that, do you find that stressful because you can't do the things that you normally would do because of all of a sudden you're having this little bit of an asthma attack, or, like, just not able to just enjoy the things that you want to do. I think that through all of my life journey, I think that I don't like things to prevent me from doing things so like, I know that, but I've always known my whole life, like with my asthma, that, like, I'm never going to be a. Runner. Like, that's just not something that my body's gonna respond well to. As as though I hear great things about running and wish I could, but like, it didn't stop me from going to activate. So I, like, I don't think I even think of it stopping me from things. I think the cough that it's in creating right now is super annoying, but I just kind of roll with it. And don't you know, only it is what it is, right? It's kind of like me not eating gluten. Is a celiac, like, I still go to restaurants, I still eat delicious food. I do have a pity party once in a while, sure, but then I put my big girl panties on and say, It's okay, right? For me, just interrupt you for a second. Like, for me, you talked about asthma versus your gluten um, like, if I have to go to a restaurant and have to eat gluten free, it stresses me out. So, I mean, I guess different things for everybody, and at first maybe it did stress you out, but now it doesn't, because you're used to it and you know how to plan for it and prepare. And so I'd like to, if we can, I'd like to break that down a little bit. So what about going to a restaurant eating gluten free stresses you out, because all the good things have gluten I mean, let's let's be honest. We know I like food, and so if I'm looking at the menu, not every restaurant has gluten free options, one, two, not every item comes in a gluten free substitute. Yes, 100% so I guess, I guess part of my habit for being gluten free, for like, the CO billion years that I've been gluten free, is that I, if I'm going out for dinner, I'm going to pick somewhere where there's something succulent and delicious I can eat at. And so I think that's my strategy. And most people in my life, I think, I mean, one of the annoying things to me is that, like everyone always wants me to pick the restaurant, because they want me to pick a restaurant that I can go to. So, like, sometimes I want someone else to pick and I want someone else to do the research, and I want and then go somewhere, but I find that I sometimes I do get frustrated that I wish I could go places that other people go right like, there are definitely those frustrations. But if I'm choosing to go out, I'm choosing to go somewhere where I'm going to pick something succulent and delicious on the menu, that's fair, yeah. So and So, I think that avoids my stress in that situation, right? So if you were just new to this, though, you may not have that option, or you may not have been so prepared, so it would have been stressful. So, you know, certain things stress us all out, I think, like, what stresses you out may not stress me out and vice versa. 100% definitely have been stressed out dealing with so many different work things, life things, just turning my phone ringer off, because that would stress me out if it goes off during our podcast, so turning that off, but yeah, just life in general, and so different things that we had kind of talked about when we were planning for today's episode, because we actually planned a little bit only because we both had a stressful week. I guess I want to know, like, what are your coping mechanisms? And I know it depends. It could be situational, but overall, what are your coping mechanisms for stress and de stressing? Yeah, so I think it's really important to look at where you're at. So for those that don't know my history, I used to work in the corporate world. I was an HR manager. Then I was a general manager of a custom shop, and I ended up my adrenals were shot, and I ended up going on three months of stress leave, and at that time, I had seen a naturopathic doctor who said that my eyes weren't even responding to light because my adrenals were so damaged. I ended up proceeding to leaving that job and taking a couple years off in order to get my system back on track. So one of the things that I do as a coach is I work with people who are stressed out, specifically for that reason that I don't want anyone to get to the rock bottom that I was at, because it wasn't really an option. It would have been so unhealthy for me to stay in that situation. And I loved my job. And so we can find ourselves in situations where stress becomes so normal that we just think, everyone has stress. We're all in stress. And unless there's a major life situation, then we say, oh, that's stressful. Like a death in the family, we would acknowledge that or an illness. We seem to acknowledge those things as stress, but the accumulation of stress over time, we sort of it, normalize it, and I'd normalized it for so long that I found myself swearing at my toddler, or swearing in front of my toddler, or making choices and not taking care of myself. And I really fear for other people that because we've normalized. So much that to what expense do we get before we fix it or address it? So like you mentioned, stress is something that we all experience differently, and different things will stress us out, but it's also the accumulation of stress. So sometimes it's the little stressors that all add up that become too much. And it's funny because I my one of my dear friends I was on the phone with today, and she's a psychotherapist, and I was just telling her about some stuff that was going on with my kids at school and in sports and different things. And she's like, Oh, Ali, you have a lot on the go. And I said, You know what? It's funny because until I verbalized to you all of the things that were kind of in my head, I didn't actually realize that there were that many accumulative things I would have said to you that, yeah, I've had a stressful week, but I thought it was because I said yes to too many things, which learning to say no and learning to set boundaries is really key to managing your stress. And I knew that this week I'd said yes to too many things, but they were things I really, really wanted to say yes to. And it wasn't until I stepped back having that conversation with her that I was like, hey, yes, saying yes did contribute to my stress, but so did all of these other things that I have going on. And this week has been more stressful than normal. And so for me, as I recognize that the old version of me didn't always notice that. So as I go into you know, I have a couple more stressful days to get through, but for me, the weekend. Unlike you, you work weekends, but for me, I have the weekend off, so I can now figure out some pockets of time within my weekend, when I'm going to sports and doing things with my family. What can I do to help me recharge? And so one I would say, working with someone, whether it's a coach, a therapist, somebody, working with someone and identifying your stresses, identifying the things that are triggers for you, and then figuring out, like, some people recharge by being by themselves, some people recharge by being with other people, and sometimes people recharge in both ways. Right? Like you see more articles and stuff talking about introverts who are actually extroverts and extroverts who are introverts. And it's really about how we recharge our systems. And sometimes it's both, and sometimes your system will recharge differently based on having too much of one or the other. And so for everyone, that's going to be different. And I think one of the tools when we work together as coach and client was, you know, having a, you know, a joy list or a nourishment menu. Or what are those things that work for you, that aren't necessarily big time users or big money crunchers, if you will. So it doesn't have I get my nails done. I love getting my nails done. I don't find it de stressing. I find it like Korea the hell up. Let's get the hell out of here. I got other things to do. It's not de stressing for me, but it makes me feel pretty so that's why I do it. But like other people might go and get their nails done and find it's wonderful to just sit there, and that's de stressing for them, different people, different things. But I also think it's important to have de stressing things that you can do that you don't need an appointment for. It's not a massage, it's not getting your nails done, it's not going shopping, that's spending money, but also other things that are like little tidbits of things that you can do at home on your own, by yourself, you know? And so one of the things you mentioned about your nails is it's not de stressing you, because I get it when I go for appointments if I can't have my eyes open, for example, whatever I'm doing, or if I can't have my phone can't make a phone call, whatever it might be. If I can't attend to my business, then that appointment is no longer de stressing me. It's stressing me out because I know that I'm going to have a backlog of things to do after but the part that you mentioned about it makes you feel pretty well. It also probably, if your nails weren't done, it might stress you out that you look at your nails and they're not done. So although it's making you feel pretty, it's also probably a de stressor on the flip side of it, although the act of getting it done is not de stressful and no offense for any of the nail technicians out there, like we love what you do, but it takes too long no matter what appointment we're at. It doesn't matter if it's for hair or not their fault. It takes as long as it takes, right? Not their fault. They when your phone is exploding, you feel like it's taking too long. Yeah, and when your hand is being taken care of by the aesthetician, you can't necessarily type or do the things you might be able to hold one hand and flip and scroll down your phone, but you're certainly not doing what you what you want to be doing that is now stressing you out. So, yeah, that makes sense. And for me, I've like everything you said, like, I, you know, there's appointments I go to, they stress me out, but then I feel good afterwards, which is great. So it's, it's the things that you do. But for me, some of. Things that we probably talked about in our previous sessions. I like to go in the hot tub. I like to sit and relax and like let my muscles soak, or go in the pool, if it's summer, or whatever it might be, like just something like, I like the water. So if you can go to the beach and go for a walk, that's great. If it's just walking outside and walking your dogs, although if you have big dogs like mine that pull you and are not great walkers. It's more stressful. It should be a nice, relaxing thing to do, but not always. So you gotta find something that is a good balance, I think, and choosing somewhere right, like, maybe you go out for a walk without your dogs in, like a cool trail somewhere, and that's like something that you say, Hey, I'm doing this for me in this moment. I don't stress all week, so I'm going to go for 20 minutes, and I'm going to go for a walk and just listen to the leaves crunch under my feet, just for me. And I think the other strategy, too, that's really important is to identify it, to label it. Because I guess part of my struggle with stress management and people's approach to stress management is so often the first things on the list are a massage, getting your nails done. And that isn't and it can be, it can be relaxing, it can be wonderful. And I encourage you to make it that, like, if you can label it, hey, I'm getting my nails done. I'm going to put my phone aside, and I'm going to I'm going to feel great about this. I'm going to honor this time great. But you need those things that you also can do in the moment that like, what can I do right now before I blow somebody's heads off because I'm just frustrated with the clock that moves, and whether I want it to or not, I've got too many things on my plate, you know, what? What can I do at that exact moment to help me regroup? You know, show up as a better version of myself. And I don't know if anybody who are watching the video, but literally, as I said, that you could watch Amy take a deep breath. Yep, absolutely. I mean, my phone constantly goes like I was messaging a client last night at midnight, and that's what it is. And I was up and I was still working, so I was like, Well, I'd rather deal with it now than wait till the morning. Should I have done that? Probably not. I do try and end my contact with my clients between eight and nine, unless or earlier, if I'm going to be doing something, but it just depends. Like, if I if I'm in the middle of negotiations, I can't just turn my phone off and say, Oh, that's okay. Well, wait till morning. Like, that's not how my job works. Um, so there's certain things that I need to do for me, and there's certain times of the day, like, sometimes me finding that time of day is when everybody's at work and everybody's at school, and I sit and veg out on the couch and watch, like, shameless TV, like, just right and guilt free, like, sit there, have guilt free snacks. Like, I know I will regret them later, but if that's what it is, because it feels good to me, and it's de stressing me, whether they're I'm eating spinach or eating chips or I don't need spinach for the record. I mean, just in case anybody is taking notes, um, but like, if I was sitting there and just having a healthy snack or a non healthy snack, like, whatever it is, I just want to be guilt free, sit there and enjoy it and be uninterrupted, just to like, let my mind relax. I literally said to my daughter yesterday in our drive home from cheer I said, we're gonna go home. We're gonna put our Jamie jams on, we're gonna get under a blanket, and we're just gonna watch a TV show together. It felt like a really long, hard day. We both felt exhausted, and I was like, we're not going to use our phones, we're not going to whatever. We're just going to watch an episode of TV and we're just going to chill. And that felt like what we needed in the moment. And you know, it's really important to to notice the things that cause you stress and the things that make you feel better, and because you've worked through stress before, and you know, you've gone through your ups and downs of stress. Your choice last night to respond to your client at midnight was a choice, and it likely for you, was a choice that was reducing stress, because you're like, if I reply to this now it's done, I don't have to deal with it. It's, you know, it's taken care of, and I can go to sleep and I cannot worry about it. And so it's about knowing, and that's where sometimes people put these restrictions on themselves, that, like, oh, like, I, you know, I can't do this, or I can't do that. I've always been stressed by email. Email is a trigger for me, that if I get too many emails, I can, like, feel it, it like, rises up. So sometimes, if I know that it's been the weekend where the naturopath that I work for has maybe done lots of promos. I'm like, it's going to be a drowning Monday morning in emails, and if we're just watching a football game, and maybe it's the, you know, a score on Sunday that's quite distant apart. I'm not really missing anything. I might hop on my laptop and do 30. Minutes of emails, just so that it's a little bit easier Monday morning. Yep, and that is a strategy I use that might be, you know, some people will say it's overworking. You're working outside your hours, but I know I'm going to show up as a better version of myself on Monday morning, because I took that 30 minutes on Sunday night. And I don't do it every week. Like if the score on my football game was closed. I ain't doing that, but if it's distant, and we're just watching football anyways, like, what's the big deal? And so it's about knowing those things that are your triggers, and what are the things that help reduce those triggers, either whether it's a taking a breath in the moment, or it's, you know, doing something ahead of time that's going to prevent, you know, avoiding the procrastination, those kind of things. The the, the other thing I will say that I think is super important is that, you know, knowing I have no idea what I was going to say, I knowing when it's time for a brain fart. Well, I like where you were going with all of it. And so if you think of it, you can cut me right off, um. But I do think that there's times like, obviously, like things that are non material financially, like outputting like, I enjoy playing like, family game night. I enjoy like, again, I said, watching mindless TV. Um, but I enjoy doing puzzles. Like, there's things I enjoy doing. It depends on the season, because I'm probably not going to sit inside doing a puzzle in the middle of the summer unless I need a break from the sun. I'd rather be outside doing outdoor things that getting fresh air and things, and I love the fall. So walking right now is great. And we did a hike over the weekend and took the puppy, who is, you know, an 80 pound puppy, but we took the puppy, and he was so good. But there's things that happened on our walk that actually caused more stress, like he peed all over Colton because he thought he was a tree. I mean, there's things that happen and and I tried to, like, keep everybody relaxed, because it happens. And of course, Colton was not happy, and he was upset, and wanted to go all the way back down, a half hour hike back down the mountain. And I was like, we are getting to the top, because I want to do it for me, but I mean, so what is not like, what is de stressing for me? Is not de stressing for everyone, and I get that. But if you can do things as a family, and then you can try and make that like your relaxing moment, even if people are fighting, and you can see past that like they're bickering, like kids bicker. My kids are pretty good. They don't do it often because it's the age that they're at. But I mean, you know, there's everything, and I think it's important to realize too, that there's an association with our stress on the things that we can control and the things that we can't right, and so are we stressing about things that are outside of our control, and how can we shift that perspective? And so those kind of things become really important. I know a lot of coaches who focus a lot on meditation as a form of stress relief, and I fully support meditation. It's a great tool. However, I think a lot of people try to implement it before they might be ready. And the reason why I say that is because a lot of coaches will promote, you know, waking up earlier, adding in a morning routine, adding in a meditation routine, and that is all good. However, if you are doing your foundational things first, like pausing to eat, then I don't know why you want to reduce your sleep to add in meditation. And so that is something that I'm very, very passionate about, because I think I was someone who had huge adrenal fatigue, and the solution they had for me was you need to meditate. And I was so far from that that I thought that maybe, maybe, if I made all situations perfect, and I made a room into a meditation room, and I bought a pillow and I had the right candle and the right whatever I would it would magically become easier for me to shut off the voices in my head and sit and do nothing, and that was way too far of a jump from where I was at that time. And so that's where I do think that if you can work with someone, it can be really beneficial, because ideally, they're going to work with you where you're at and not try to get you from here to here in one step, right? And I mean, for me, I know that I need sleep like I haven't been sleeping well. I got a new sleep pillow yesterday, which actually I slept really well last night. Despite the fact that I went to bed really late, that probably didn't help but when I am full out and I'm working first thing in the morning to like, last thing at night, I'm exhausted, and I know I'm not getting enough sleep, and I can feel my eye twitching some talking about it, so it's stress, um, but I definitely need, I need more sleep, and I know that that's part of it, too. So the best thing I can do for myself is not wake up early and try and get to the gym and do that. Like, I need to actually get extra sleep. And you mentioned earlier you would love to be a runner. Well, we just had this conversation at our race yesterday for cross country for my son, and I was like, nobody likes running. Like, even the runners that like running, they really don't like running. I know we can cause a debate here, but I mean, it's so cold this time of year, and then when it's so hot, like, there has to be the right season for running. And I even when I ran and I loved running, I really hated running, like, I like, I never wanted to run, but then I would get there and I would go, and I would enjoy it, but I never really wanted to go run, so I just had to mention that. But yeah, like sleep and like exercise, like it all plays a part in our stress, too, and what we eat. I mean, the junkier I eat, it's not going to help my stress any. Am I going to feel better about it short term? Absolutely, I'm going to feel great in the moment. Maybe not after the moment, but if I'm eating a healthier, clean diet, obviously I'm going to feel better because I'm also going to sleep better, and I'm also going to have better skin, and I'm going to have better hair and everything else. So long term that will probably help, but short term, comfort food is always a good thing when I love that. What you had said to me earlier this week when we kind of touched on the idea, on the idea of talking about stress, you had said to me, you know, I really need to up my eating game because I'm super stressed. And you know that acknowledgement that you know that you feel better when you eat cleaner, you know, means you're going to deal with your stress differently, and you're going to show up in your day differently. And something as we kind of close today's episode, you know, I think that it's important for people to think about, you know, where they're at, where their stress is at, and are they being honest with themselves about where their stress is at? And so many people will tell me that like I'm so busy, and I used to wear busy as a badge of honor, and I've since shifted from that. And sure, we have busy days, but be careful of how you talk about how busy you are, because you don't want to end up at the point like I was, where I was completely shut down before I sought help, and you want to notice it before it happens, because you don't want to get that broken, right? We don't let our car run out of gas at the side of the road before we fill it with gas, right? So be mindful of if you're doing that to yourself, and notice that like, maybe you can make time for some of these strategies. Maybe you can make time to, you know, take a 10 minute bath or a quick shower and wash the day off. And we don't want to say we don't have time, because if our hot water tank blew up, we would find the time to soak up the water and get it dealt with, right? So don't let your own health get that extreme, or your stress get that extreme, that you aren't prioritizing yourself and that you're the water tank that blows up, you know, you know, main, give yourself some maintenance and find pockets of time. It doesn't have to be a long time. It doesn't have to be a full hour massage appointment, but where are those pockets where you can make time for you? Absolutely, no, I agree, and that's a great spot to end on. Awesome. Thanks for today. Amy, thank you. Bye, bye, everyone. Bye.