5 Mindful Practices For The Multitasking Female
Women suffer more stress than men
A study conducted by Cambridge University found that women are twice as likely to suffer from severe stress and anxiety than men. This is unsurprising when we analyse the trends and modern pressures that women are regularly faced with, particularly as we accelerate at an overwhelming pace into the digital age where we can access everything and everyone through the tap of our finger.
During my 20s when I worked as a female lawyer, I was unknowingly crippled with anxiety, both as a result of work stress and deeply held fears about the future. Part of my fear-based mentality was driven by thoughts of ‘how will I ever afford to buy a house?’ and ‘my salary will never be high enough’ or ‘my fertility clock is ticking and having a baby feels like an elusive fantasy.’
Women between 18 and 35 suffer most
It has been found that anxiety is highest amongst ‘busy’ women in the 18 to 35 age bracket. A study conducted by a not-for-profit government funded organisation, Jean Hailes for Women's Health, made this determination in its survey of women aged between 18 and 80.
Survey Director, Dr Helen Brown, suggested that this finding could be linked to new expectations of social media, whilst the Cambridge study attributed stress amongst this age group to be a result of their multiple daily demands – juggling career, motherhood, family life and other social burdens.
The fact is, if you are a busy female with multiple demands, it is highly likely that anxiety and stress play a routine role in your life. It is also possible that you are largely unaware that you are anxious and stressed, or what impact this is having on your life. It is therefore important to understand the role played by stress and then take clear, positive steps to combat it.
How does stress and anxiety affect my health?
The mind is all through your body. The easiest way to understand how the mind affects your health is by looking at stress. For instance, imagine yourself walking through the jungle and encountering a tiger. Your instant response is to activate your fight or flight reflex to stay alive – your either run from the tiger or stay and fight it.
In the fight or flight mode, the body goes up into a different gear, producing a turbo charge of energy. The heart rate elevates, blood pressure thickens, sugars and fats are pumping into the respiratory stream, the immune system is repressed and the attention centre in the brain goes into overdrive.
This is a huge change in the body, designed to help us adapt to a clearly perceived threat in the environment, not to make us sick. Unfortunately, the majority of tigers that we’re fleeing are in our minds. When we do that repeatedly, we produce an effect in the mind that results in a physiological wear and tear on the system, similar to what occurs when we flog any engine. As a result, the repair bills go up and the parts quickly wear down.
5 Ways to Avoid the Tigers
The question is, how do we moderate this response when our lifestyles are so demanding? When our calendar looks like a multi-dimensional colour painting of diary appointments and tasks? When we fear we might lose our job and have no way of paying the mortgage or rising rents? And, when our phone beeps, rings and shakes all day long?
Following are 5 mindful practices that the busy female can look at adopting in order to diminish the number of tigers faced on a daily basis.
1. Learn to meditate and practice it daily. Science has had a major breakthrough in recognising that the body has the capacity to activate a state that is the opposite to the stress response - labelled the “relaxation response”. Meditation is one of, if not, the most effective way of evoking the relaxation response.
There are countless ways to learn to meditate, including the use of guided meditation apps (such as Headspace or Insight) or committing to a short course on meditation (such as a transcendental meditation course). Find what works for you and begin by finding 10 minutes each day.
2. Regularly engage in moderate physical activity. Move your body daily! Physical activity is a great way to deal with anxiety and stress. Researchers from the Jean Hailes for Women's Health study observed a connection between the women with disturbing mental health concerns and subsequent low levels (or no levels!) of physical activity.
Exercise is crucial to keeping the mind and body healthy and adequate exercise involves only 30 minutes of moderate activity (such as - yoga, Pilates, swimming, or jogging) per day. Find an activity that you enjoy and slot it into your day the same way that you slot that highly important meeting into your calendar. Prioritise this time and watch your mood and life transform.
3. Consult a nutritionist. What we eat and put into our bodies has a HUGE impact on our physical and mental health. Unfortunately, when we are stressed and depressed, we often eat poorly.
When I first started working as a lawyer at the age of 25, within 12 months I had gained 5 kilos. And while we like to blame the excess baggage on our supposed ‘ageing metabolism’, weight gain is largely a result of poor diet and not enough exercise (exceptions are where people have health conditions causing weight gain).
During my lawyering years, I had a fabulous nutritionist who helped me to find my health again and lose the weight I couldn’t shift. A good nutritionist will assist you to address dietary concerns and also provide you with crucial information on how to eat in order to feel lighter and gain more clarity.
4. Plan trips out of the city. Put your phone and laptop to the side and get out of the city grind and into the fresh air. A good weekend away can sometimes feel like an immersion into bliss. Nature has a wonderful way of restoring one’s mental well-being. Not only does it give you a chance to breathe, and breathe more slowly, but it also enables you to breathe fresh air which has an overall calming effect on the body’s system.
5. Learn to master your mind and eradicate negativity. Your thoughts and the way you think has a huge effect on both the quality of your life and how you handle stress. Humans produce up to 50,000 thoughts per day of which approximately 70% are negative for the average person. This equals about 40,000 negative thoughts each day that need to be managed and filtered! This is no small task.
There are so many wonderful and easily accessible talks, books and articles with valuable tools for eradicating habitual, negative thinking. Personal development workshops and yoga classes are also a wonderful space to work on managing your mindset. It’s a constant process of building awareness and practice!!
Looking for more advice on wellness or interested in booking a wellness program for you or your group? Contact Dwana from Align (alignlife.co) on 0411 364 406 or dwana@alignlife.co.