Tag Archives: Sleep

3 Things To Do When You Are Menstruating

I just finished my period. Ha!

You probably didn’t really want to know that but hey I thought it’s important we talk about this sort of stuff.

In fact, I’ve been looking forward to it, it’s been 2 years since my last bleed because of being pregnant and breastfeeding on demand.

My son is now 1 year old and in a new season of life where he’s not needing the boobies so much.

Inner Seasons

But did you know that our menstrual cycle goes through its own inner seasons too, just like the seasons of the year?

When we are menstruating, this is what we call our inner-winter.

It signifies the birth and death of life.

Journal

It’s a time for deep reflection and going inwards.

It’s also a great time to journal if this has been a habit you’ve been waiting to adopt.

During this time, journaling is a wonderful tool to help work through some deep emotions, challenging times or even start planning for their next month.

When you are bleeding just remember to:

Let go, go slow and say no.

  • Let go, surrender and go within
  • Go slow, if you can’t clear your calendar and have responsibilities you want to uphold
  • Say no if you can and it’s okay to protect your boundaries

Sleep

One of my favourite ways to honour this time is to sleep more. If you’ve been struggling with sleep, you can download my free Sleep Checklist with 5 must-do tips for better sleep to help you.

Meditate

Speaking of setting healthy boundaries with others, I believe it’s important to set healthy boundaries for ourselves.

If you’ve been struggling with anxiety, self-doubt, overwhelm and stress, dedicating times to meditate for 10 minutes has been proven to help reduce stress and anxiety.

I’ve been using a great free app and it’s been designed to help support you with managing sleep, anxiety and stress. It’s called Insight Timer.

Tell me, how are the ways you like to honour this time in your cycle?

If you are listening to this blog post as a podcast, click link in the description for links or visit http://www.merlyhartnett.com

The ABCs of Focus and Becoming More Productive

This week I was featured on the Women On Business blog discussing 3 decluttering hacks you can apply at work for a more productive day.

I mentioned in this post that there’s a myth that humans, particularly women are great multi-taskers. Although yes we can multi-task but at what cost?

A study of adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD using a neuroimaging and cognitive testing showed that when our brains are distracted it impacts our ability to focus and reduce productivity.

But you don’t need to have ADHD to know that.

My husband who proclaims he’s such a great driver with amazing spatial awareness says that it’s only when I’m in the car he seems to lose his pizzazz.

As I was saying, I don’t know about you but often when I walk into a messy room or office, I immediately felt overwhelmed and it’s usually because I feel all over the place, I don’t know what to do or where to start.

One of my mentors, Milena would say “what’s the most important thing for you to focus on today?”

It helps cut through the chaos and gets straight to the root of what’s important now.

Have you ever tried to just sit and think nothing?

No matter how hard you try to think absolutely nothing, a thought will pass by, sometimes it’s thought about thinking nothing!

It’s a perfect example of how our brain is continually scanning your internal and external environment even when you’re focused on a task. For example, you’ve decided to sit down and read a book before bed and whilst engrossed in a chapter, you remember you need to turn the light off on the front porch or set your alarm on for tomorrow.

So what can you do?

The ABC Method

One neat little hack you can do to help you maintain focus and prevent distractions is to use the ABC method.

A stands for aware.

When you thought comes into your mind you are aware of your options to either focus on the distraction such as stop reading the book and set your alarm or you can choose to let the through drift by.

B stands for breathe.

Take a deep breath and consider your options.

C stands for choose.

They make a decision; will you stop to set that alarm?

For more tips on being more productive whilst reducing stress, download The Core Basics Guide for Balancing Hormones Naturally here.