I was talking to someone the other day about life balance and stress.
I gave her this analogy:
- Imagine you’re at a cottage and decide to go swimming in a lake (warm water for me, please! haha). When you jump off the dock you get mentally and physically ready. You’re psyched. You might even be excited. Or, you may be nervous. Either way, you need to jump.
- Then you’re in the water and in order to get back to the dock you need to swim. Let’s say you need to swim a fair distance. It takes work, your muscles work hard.
- When you get back to the dock you need to rest. How long do you need to rest? 30 min? An hour?
Let’s say instead of resting, you jump off the dock again. Then swim again, maybe a bit farther.
Then again. And again. Each time, one after the other without resting on a lawn chair.
After a while, you’ll feel like you’re drowning. Your body can’t catch up to the amount of effort you need to keep going.
This is how so many of us deal with stress. We jump off the dock with each of our stressors: work, deadlines, screaming kids, lack of sleep, taking care of family, etc etc.
Each time, our body prepares to jump off the dock. Maybe we load up with caffeine or sugar to do it but we keep jumping. We don’t give ourselves the time we need to recover.
How much time in a lawn chair does your body need?
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