Trying To Slow Down
You know how when you have too many tabs open in your internet browser your computer has a little melt down and freezes and you just get the blue circle of death while it tries to sort itself out? I feel like that is what is happening in my brain at the moment. I'm tired all the time (like seriously, all the goddamn time) despite getting 8 and a half hours sleep a night and eating plenty of nutritious veggies. I keep forgetting basic things like where I've put my keys or important dates and deadlines. Heck, I even forgot my lunch yesterday, which is pretty unheard of for someone who loves food as much as I do. And I know that it's all because I've got too much stuff whirring around my brain.
I feel like my mind is occupied for literally every single second of the day. Whether it's with work stuff or blog stuff or wedding stuff or family stuff, there is never a moment where I'm not constantly thinking about something or mentally working my way through my to do list. Don't get me wrong - I love being busy and part of the reason why my brain is going into such crazy overdrive is because I'm excited about so many things at the moment, but I don't think we always take into account how tiring it can be to be constantly "on it" all of the time.
I've written in the past about the importance of switching off. I've preached relentlessly about how necessary self care is. But what do you do when you literally don't have the time to completely switch off? What do you do when the deadlines and dates are rolling ever closer and you don't have a spare weekend to dedicate to chilling out and detaching yourself from the hustle and bustle of life? How do you get everything done without pushing yourself to the point of nervous breakdown?
In all honesty, I don't know. I don't know how to achieve everything you want to achieve without being left with some frazzled, burnt out version of yourself. I don't know how to strike that balance between #girlboss and falling asleep on the bus home from work. But what I'm trying to do at the moment is to just slow down whenever I can.
Sometimes that's by getting away from my desk and taking a little wander around the block at lunch time. Sometimes that's by soaking in a hot bath for half an hour with my phone in the other room. Sometimes that's by practising saying no every now and then. And sometimes, like last night, it's about climbing in to bed early with a good book and a glass of wine and getting lost in someone else's world for a little while.
Self care and switching off and balance is all so ~on trend~ at the moment and we're reading about it all the time, but I can't be the only who sometimes feels like it's just yet another chore to add to the ever-growing to do list. Trying to schedule in an evening of down time just makes me even more stressed when I realise I don't have that time at the moment. I kinda feel like if I try and stop the plates spinning for too long at the moment, I won't be able to pick them back up again.
But tiny little chunks of slowing down? That I can manage. That I can do.
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Have you ever felt like this? How do you try and look after yourself when life is busy?