The Power of No: Setting Boundaries for a Healthier You

“No is a complete sentence.”- Annie Lamott

Many of us people pleasers find it difficult to say no and establish boundaries. This often leads to us over-extending ourselves to others and feeling resentful when our boundaries are constantly crossed. But how can we expect others to respect our boundaries when we aren’t even communicating properly and saying no?

Learning how to say ‘no’ and set firm yet healthy boundaries is the key to mental peace and maintaining healthy relationships with others. Having loose boundaries and not being able to say no often leads to us feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. 

Understandably, we all want to be liked by others, but people-pleasing is not the way to go. It just allows others to walk all over us continuously. 

The Importance of Setting Boundaries

While it can be challenging to set boundaries with difficult people, it is important and the key to forming healthy relationships and taking care of your well-being. Saying no to things that do not serve you or you simply do not have the time for can help you focus on yourself and your priorities. It can enable you to create a balance in all aspects of your life. 

For example, if your boss asks you to come in and work on the weekends or expects you to work overtime late at night, it is important to set firm boundaries with your work, learn to say no respectfully, and create a work-life balance for your well-being. This helps you avoid any undue stress and helps you focus on other things in your life that might give you purpose or energize you like your family or hobbies. 

Healthy boundaries can free you from unrealistic expectations from others and the resentments that come with them. They can help you avoid conflicts in relationships. Setting healthy boundaries with your partner, friends, kids, or any other relationship you may have in your life can allow you to nurture these relationships, conserve energy, and save you from a lot of drama and toxicity. 

How to Set and Maintain Healthy Boundaries 

1. Find Your ‘Why’

 

Reflect on the reason you want to set a boundary. Perhaps something in your relationship or friendship is making you resentful and uncomfortable and you want to set a boundary with your friend to preserve your mental and emotional well-being. 

Start small. 

Start slowly and set a few boundaries initially and build them up slowly. Don’t go to an extreme level and set up rigid and unhealthy boundaries that you will not be able to maintain in the long run. Go at your own comfortable pace and make changes as needed. 

2. Set Boundaries Early On

Consider setting boundaries early on in a relationship as it can be hard to start putting boundaries around pre-existing relationships. For example, you could set boundaries early on with in-laws when you get engaged or married. This way you set expectations to be a certain way from the beginning avoiding any confusion or hurt in relationships. 

3. Stay Firm and Consistent

When setting boundaries, it is important to not let them slide as it will make people not take you seriously and just add to the confusion. Staying firm can help reinforce your boundaries. 

4. Communicate When Your Boundaries are Crossed

Confidently communicate when someone disrespects and crosses your boundaries continuously. You can communicate assertively and effectively without sounding aggressive or confrontational and still assert your boundaries. 

For example, if someone keeps calling you late at night repeatedly you could say something like, “I can see you want to get a hold of me, but the best thing would be to text me, and I will get back to you when I have the time in the morning.” This assertively highlights their behavior and sets and maintains your boundaries.

Setting boundaries and saying no to things that do not serve you can be an empowering experience and help you maintain great relationships. While setting your boundaries, it is also important to recognize the boundaries of other people and respect them just as you would expect them to respect yours. 

Try not to violate the boundaries of other people as it can cause resentment and contempt to build them which leads to toxicity in relationships and people withdrawing from others who may cross their boundaries. 

It is possible to set boundaries without being aggressive, confrontational, or upsetting people. Don’t feel guilty about setting boundaries and take it as an act of self-care and something crucial to your overall well-being. 

7 Things to Remember When You Feel Overwhelmed

Feelings of overwhelm can threaten your happiness and your relationships. When you take on more than you can handle, your body reacts with elevated stress levels. Often it results in you being short with other people. You may also forget to eat as you focus on getting your list done. Eventually, you may develop other mental health issues if you keep putting yourself through the same paces without any break.  

7 Things to Keep in Mind When You Feel Overwhelmed

At times, everyone gets overwhelmed, but that doesn’t mean you are a lost cause. Here are seven things to remember when you start feeling overwhelmed: 

• Your emotions are natural: Feelings of overwhelm are often a sign from your body that it is time to slow down and scale back. You can also control your feelings, so addressing this feeling and replacing it with better ones is possible.

• It isn’t the end of the world: This is part of life. The good news is that you can stop the feelings of overwhelm by recognizing it for what it is and taking proactive steps to prevent the cycle from happening.

• Now is a good time for a brain dump: Overwhelm leaves our minds cluttered. By writing down all of the things, you need to do or feel, you are alleviating some of the mental energy you have had to expend keeping it all in.

• Take action instead of wallowing in your thoughts: Action breeds more movement and will propel you out of your feelings of overwhelm. Additionally, new opportunities will crop up to help you chip away at your project.

• Avoiding digital stimulation is the better choice: Getting lost in social media will only leave you feeling worse when you realize you lost time to work. Notifications can leave you in a constant state of panic. Remember that it is okay to turn off notifications for periods of time and focus on what you need to get done.

• Stepping outside is a good thing: You do not have to be tied to your desk and laser-focused on what needs doing. Give your body the break it deserves to help you reset and recharge.

• You have been here before: More than likely, you have felt this way before. It won’t last, and you can shorten the timeframe by being proactive.

Feelings of overwhelm don’t have to stop you from being productive. Remember that this happens to us all, and you can take action to overcome it.

 

6 Steps You Can Take to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed

It’s 2 PM, and you are frustrated because you have accomplished nothing. Your list is still as long as your arm and more have been piled on your plate. Your heart starts racing while you get more agitated at your circumstances. 

Then it hits – the feelings of overwhelm threaten to drown you. It’s possible to reign in those feelings of overwhelm and kick them to the curb. If you let these feelings get out of control, your body will reap the negative consequences, including poor eating and sleeping habits.

How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed

Are you ready to stop the feelings of overwhelm that threaten to overtake you? Put these six steps into practice: 

• Determine What Is Triggering the Feeling of Overwhelm: What started these feelings? For example, were you late to work because you overslept after staying up too late watching movies or working on a project? Take note and write it down if you need to.

• Reframe Your Feelings: You will probably be full of negative thoughts and emotions. Instead of giving in to anger or hopelessness, replace it with empowerment and determination to tackle what is before you.

• Sit Up Straight: As you feel overwhelmed, you may respond physically by hunching forward and taking shallow breaths. Take a moment to straighten up and take several deep belly breaths. The change will reinforce to your brain that you are switching emotions. 

• Decide on One Small Step You Can Take Right Now: Look over your list, and decide on a tiny thing you can do at that moment, and do it. Once it is accomplished, pat yourself on the back and choose another task. With each one, you slowly tackle those items that have been weighing you down. Also, you reinforce to yourself that you can get things done.

• Get Over What You Can’t Control: Focusing on things you cannot control is a waste of time, energy, and emotions. If you can do something about a situation, then take action. However, if you cannot, why not relax and let worry slip away.

• Guard Your Calendar: A significant culprit to being overwhelmed is not protecting your time. It is okay to say no and leave some white space on your calendar. It is up to you to ensure keep your calendar free from being overbooked.

You can beat the feelings of overwhelm by being proactive and getting your emotions under control. Once you do, you will be empowered to knock out that To-Do list and protect your time.

Finding Balance Between Your Personal and Professional Life

In today’s fast-paced society, many feel that all they do is work without time left for family, friends, and leisure activities. While we are grateful that we have jobs, struggling to keep up with heavy workloads, other career challenges, and personal lives can be overwhelming. 

 

We tend to get so caught up in the rush that we forget to care for ourselves. As our stress increases, various physical and mental health issues, such as decreased immunity, poor concentration, irritability, depression, high blood pressure, and more, can occur.

 

Work-life balance is one of the most important considerations for your quality of life. The path to well-being is finding the balance between work and personal life. The following are several strategies to help reduce stress and achieve the desired balance. 

 

• Practice Self-Care: Boost your ability to cope with daily stressors by eating healthy foods, staying active, and getting sufficient sleep. Research shows a healthy lifestyle benefits physical and mental health, such as reduced stress and depression and a more robust immune system.

• You Deserve a Break: Take small breaks throughout the day to clear your mind and restore energy, whether at work or in your personal life.

• Create a Daily To-Do List: A practical approach to finding balance in your life is to have a plan or to-do list for each day. This helps you to be organized and control your personal and work tasks. 

Create your task list the night before to give yourself a roadmap for the upcoming day. Keep your work tasks and personal tasks separate to help foster a distinction between the two. Be sure to keep your lists realistic and don’t include unimportant tasks. Otherwise, you’ll race throughout the day trying to get everything done, causing more stress and disbalance.

 

• Practice Time Management: As you execute your daily to-do list, you’ll likely encounter interruptions and other activities that take focus away from achieving your goals. The following are several time management techniques that will help you be in control of your limited time. 

• Don’t Multitask: When you work on multiple tasks at the same time, you may end up wasting valuable time. Multitasking makes focusing on a single task challenging since your focus is split among several tasks.

• Control Interruptions: Prevent distractions by silencing your phone and checking emails only 1 – 2 times daily. Carve out 1 – 2 hours daily where you have no interruptions. Let those who need to know that this is your boundary and why.

• Communicate: When you feel that the demands and volume of work are too overwhelming, talk calmly and professionally with your employer. Your employer must be aware of your concerns to address them. If you have thoughts on a solution, share them.

Conclusion

OnePoll surveyed 2,000 employed Americans to find their reasons for quitting their jobs. The result is that 55% left their careers to find a better work/life balance. 

 

We understand that ongoing work/life stress can impact our well-being physically and mentally. Aside from finding a different career opportunity, there are positive steps that we can take to improve the work/life balance. 

 

Living a healthy lifestyle is essential to improve coping abilities and decrease stress. Taking short breaks throughout the day helps us to refresh and clear our minds. 

 

Creating a daily plan for work and personal tasks and time management allows us to take control of achieving our goals. Communication with colleagues and leadership is key, as well as taking control by reducing interruptions and eliminating multitasking. 

 

Regularly practicing the preceding strategies can lead to good habits that will help you find a balance between your personal and professional life. 

References:

 

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/physical-health/diet-exercise-sleep

https://www.onepoll.us/portfolio/wisetail-the-great-resignation/

 

6 Things to Do When You Get Bad News

The first several minutes after you hear bad news can whirl you around like a tornado. Your mind spins and you can barely even catch a breath. If someone is speaking the news to you, your pounding heart may begin to drown them out. It’s just too much. 

There are good ways to handle bad news, and I will share these tips with you in this article. Try them and see if you don’t recover more quickly from bad news. 

Steady Your Breathing and Don’t Allow Yourself to Panic

 

When you get bad news, it sucks the life right out of you. Don’t panic. Instead, pause and take a few deep breaths. Center yourself. Take a walk as this can help ground you and calm you down. This will give you clarity and the energy to keep moving forward. 

Don’t Avoid the Negative Emotions You Feel, but Don’t Let Them Overwhelm You

 

Attempting to avoid negative feelings may cause more harm than good. Allow yourself to feel the negative emotions as a natural reaction. Emotions are not your enemy. Let yourself react in whatever way it will, as far as emotions go. 

 

Healthy versus unhealthy emotional reactions include:

 

• Healthy: My heart is heavy, and I feel sad.

• Unhealthy: My life as I know it is over. We’re doomed.

• Healthy: I’m angry about this news.

• Unhealthy: Screw life, let’s just give up.

 

Concentrate on Your Physical Well-Being

 

Keeping your calm and maintaining your perspective depends largely on your physical well-being. Try to be as kind as possible to yourself when experiencing bad news. Get sufficient exercise and sleep and avoid taking drugs or drinking alcohol in excess. 

Reach Out to Others for Reassurance and Advice

 

When you feel overwhelmed, vulnerable and threatened, it’s natural to reach out to someone in your social network for reassurance, advice or a fresh perspective. Be sure to choose a person who will listen to your feelings and know positive ways to respond. You don’t want to choose someone who will make you feel worse.

 

Being with other people will allow you to more easily work through your feelings and thoughts, to regain a calm perspective. You can also enjoy engaging in painting, writing or spending quality time out in the natural world. 

Put Everything in Perspective

 

If you tend to hold onto negative feelings for too long, reach inside and attempt to put the situation into proper perspective. Accept good aspects as well as bad ones, in the situation. 

 

Write down things you feel grateful for and remind yourself about the things that are most important to you. This helps you to realize that it’s not really the end of the world just because you’ve received bad news. 

Develop an Action Plan

 

Draw up a plan of how to get your life back on track if the bad news has affected parts of your personal life. Set a deadline when you want to be fully back on track, and no longer dwelling on bad news. 

 

Only use practical plans in moving forward. This creates new opportunities to discover fresh ideas based on those plans. You’ll appreciate the planning when you’re back on track mentally and physically. 

Conclusion

 

The framework created by these positive reactions to bad news will help you to triage whatever the rest of this year and beyond will bring. No one is perfect in their responses to bad news but striving to confront the negative feelings and ideas that directly bother you is much better than allowing them to fester.

 

Ask for help whenever you need it from a trusted person, to help yourself in healing sooner and not later.

Reference

 

How to Cope With Bad News | Psychology Today

 

Your Health Matters: 10 Strategies to Reconnect with Wellness

Mental health is just as important as physical and spiritual health, and together they all make up a whole: wellness. 

 

When we think of "wellness," many people picture a serene yoga studio, stacks of vitamins, or perhaps someone doing deep breathing exercises in the middle of a nature retreat. While all those images capture facets of wellness, the concept is much deeper, more nuanced, and profoundly personal. Wellness isn’t just the absence of illness, it’s a full-bodied, multidimensional approach to living that seeks balance across many areas of life.

 

Wellness is a conscious, deliberate process of making choices toward a healthy and fulfilling life. It’s not a static state but a dynamic practice of growth and adaptation. At its core, wellness emphasizes harmony within ourselves and our surroundings. 

 

To understand wellness deeply, it’s helpful to explore its core dimensions: physical, emotional, social, intellectual, spiritual, environmental, occupational, and financial wellness. Each of these areas intertwines to create a holistic sense of wellbeing.

 

10 Strategies to Reconnect with Wellness 

 

1. Exercise 

 

In order to have a healthy state of mind, it is important to always take care of your body, too. By just taking even fifteen minutes a day to exercise, it can go a long way. This can be anything from going for a walk to running on the treadmill or lifting weights. 

 

If you do this for 15 minutes or an hour, you are going to see a difference afterwards due to the serotonin and endorphins your body releases. Those chemicals can lead to a better state of mind, and even affect your spiritual health, and as a whole, you will feel much more reconnected and refreshed. 

 

2. Eat Healthy

 

To keep your mind healthy, we not only need to take care of our body by exercising, but also by making sure we are feeding it healthy foods. Processed foods can make us feel sluggish, and the amount of salt, sugar, and fat in those foods is not good for your physical health either. 

 

Some healthy foods that are good for your body and brain include fruits, nuts, vegetables, and protein. Our gut health is the key to keeping our mind, body and soul connected to wellness. 

 

Instead of eating potato chips, try eating some fruit, or nuts that are high in protein such as almonds or cashews. By curving those unhealthy cravings and feeding our body healthy fruits and vegetables, we can appreciate nature’s natural snacks and reconnect with overall wellness. 

 

3. Meditate

 

The idea of meditating to some people can seem silly or strange, and maybe even uncomfortable if you have never done it. However, if you wake up in the morning and want to start your day off in a good state of mind, it can be very beneficial. 

 

This can be done by sitting in a quiet space, relaxing your muscles, and by practicing breathing exercises while turning off your thoughts the best you can. 

 

This can be a simple seven-to-ten-minute process that will go a long way. After those short minutes are over, you will feel ready to take on the day. This can also be done at night before bed, when you want to calm your body and mind to get a good night’s sleep. No matter when you do it, meditation is a great way to improve the wellness of mind, body and spirit.

 

4. Make Time for Your Hobbies

 

While we are working adults and we spend most of our days on the clock, it is still important to make time for the things that make us happy, and even bring out our inner child. To reconnect with wellness, you should tap into hobbies that bring you joy and make you happy and to alleviate stress.

 

This could be anything from reading, playing a video game, writing in a journal, painting/drawing, playing a sport, or anything that makes you happy. By making time for our passions and hobbies, we will feel much happier and reconnected to wellness. 

 

5. Learn Something New

 

A strong way to reconnect with wellness is by going out of your comfort zone and trying something brand new. This can be uncomfortable at first, but in the end, you can at least be proud of yourself for giving it a try, and it may even become something important to you. 

 

Some ideas for trying something new can be anything from learning a new language, trying a new sport, or even going to a new coffee shop that you don’t normally go to. It can be anything—simple or big. This is a great way to improve your overall wellness. 

 

6. Show Gratitude 

 

There are many ways to practice gratitude, and by taking time each day to show gratitude to someone or even yourself, you can easily reconnect with wellness and happiness. Gratitude can be manifested in many different forms, especially by doing acts of kindness every day, or as often as you can. 

 

Tell someone you appreciate them, give them a hug, go to a shelter and volunteer, make a donation, and start looking at life through a more positive perspective. You will be surprised at how fast your life will shift into the light. 

 

7. Remember to have Compassion and Forgiveness 

 

This one can be a bit of a challenge if you are someone who does not forgive easily, but if you try to have compassion and forgiveness for yourself or others, the benefits for your overall happiness, wellbeing, and wellness are tremendous. We are not able to truly achieve wellness if we cannot forgive ourselves or others.

 

8. Help Others

 

By helping others overcome challenges and giving them advice on their own decisions and choices in their own lives, you are challenging yourself to become the best version of yourself, and to reconnect with your overall wellness. Helping others can be extremely beneficial for the people you help and also for yourself. 

 

Some examples of how you can help others include things like volunteering for a charity, offering to help elderly neighbors/family members with chores and errands, asking someone if they need assistance in buying food or essentials, they may not have the means for, and maybe even tutoring children and/or students in subjects you can help with.

 

9. Reflect

 

Sometimes it can be hard to make time to sit down and think about changes you want to make in your life—whether it’s due to having a busy schedule, or just not enough motivation. 

 

However, if you really want to challenge yourself to living the best life you want for yourself, it is important and essential that you challenge yourself every day, and that includes making the time to sit down, write out your goals and dreams, and reflect on what changes need to be made. 

 

10. Mindfulness

 

Just like the well-known saying goes, “think before you speak,” it is important to be more mindful. Being mindful is one of the best ways to challenge yourself to live your best life and reconnect with your overall wellness. 

 

Being mindful helps you stay connected to the present moment. Some great ways you can practice mindfulness before making any certain decisions can include practicing breathing exercises, reflecting on your day, connecting with nature, or journaling. The present moment is the most important time of your life because it is never going to be experienced again.

 

Final Thoughts

 

Remember, your mind, body, and soul are all connected and make up wellness as a whole. Take care of each one individually, and you will be able to live a happier, healthier life. Take control of your life again and get started now!