But they're also things that we haven't shared publicly up until this point. So it was the first time. Publicly sharing these things and it felt, I think, at least for me and I imagine for Diana as well, it felt like a big step to now verbally put these dreams out into the world after, for both of us, what's been many months of nurturing these dreams, getting it to a place where we could now publicly share them.

So definitely recommend listening to that. And if you guys get to the end of it, we are recording a part two to this episode on Monday, so literally just a couple days from now, we're gonna be recording a part two and we're asking for your guys' input. We're asking for questions from you after listening to that episode, but we also would love to hear what are some of the pieces of yourself that you feel have been less left to cover dust and or what are some old dreams that you want to try and pursue again, but the fears that might be holding you back or the questions you have about pursuing those dreams. So this is pretty open. You could send us an old dream, you could send us a question about us and what we're pursuing, a question of about yourself, and what you are pursuing.

So it's really, really open. There is a link in the show notes of that episode to submit something, but I will also put the link in the show notes of this episode. And I wanna say something that I said on Instagram yesterday, which is I think everyone assumes that someone else is gonna submit a great question, and then the rest of us are gonna get to sit down and enjoy a really wonderful q and a episode.

But I just wanna say don't leave it to someone else. Submit a question, submit a comment, submit a story, because if you don't and the next person doesn't and the next person doesn't, then there won't be anything submitted and we won't, there won't be an episode to record come Monday and Diana and I would really so deeply love to hear from you guys.

So don't be shy, don't leave it to someone else. Submit a question or a comment through that link below. It also hit me probably yesterday that we are basically a week out from Christmas, so I don't know where December went. I mean, I just can't even wrap my head around that, and I'm so excited for Christmas and for family time.

But I just wanna let everyone know now that Friday, December 30th, that whole week there we're gonna have a break from the podcast. I'm gonna take a pause for the holidays. So that week right after Christmas, going into the new year, I'm gonna be taking a break from the podcast and I hope you all get a chance to rest and restore as well.

But I just wanted to let everyone know advance so that week doesn't come along and everyone's wondering where the episodes are that week. I'm trying to get better at this because I'm not so good at planning ahead. I'm trying to get in the hang of that, especially owning a business. I'm trying to learn how to think not only just a couple weeks, but a couple months in advance, and I'm really not there yet.

I will own up to that fully, but I'm working on it and this is my first step in working on it is letting you guys know that week there won't be any episodes. But I'll be back the week after that with some more great episodes for you guys. Okay, so onto today's episode. So there were two topics that I wanted to touch on in today's episode.

Now that we're really in the thick of the holidays, we're literally just a week out from Christmas, two weeks out from the new year. I imagine many of us are feeling the stress and are feeling the fatigue. And in fact, I've had texts from friends saying, I am so fatigued. What can I do? What are some things I can do to kind of get me through this?

And so that's what I wanted to talk about today is those two things. What are some things we can do? Really simple things to help support and reduce stress during this time, and then also support and reduce fatigue during this time. And those are very distinct things because, for example, things that might be really great at helping reduce stress might not be so great at helping reduce fatigue.

In fact, they might even add to fatigue. So that's what I'm gonna distinguish and I'm gonna really talk about some specific things for stress in general, and then some really specific things for fatigue in general. So I wanna start with stress and I wanna start with, touching on a little bit of a rant that I had on Instagram yesterday.

I say rant and that's being probably a little bit harsher, but I was on Instagram and it was probably the third time within a couple of days that I saw a post that was talking about how to de-stress during the holidays. And the first thing on the list was, Gratitude, have gratitude. And I just was like, are you kidding me again?

Again? And I wanna explain a little bit why. And the first thing that I wanna say is, first of all, no hate or shade to the individuals who are putting up those posts. Gratitude is a wonderful tool. There are literally studies showing that gratitude can affect us, it can reduce our stress and change our internal environment.

The thing I wanna say here though is, and the rant that I kind of went on, on Instagram a little bit, is I think oftentimes many of us use Gratitude as a form of emotional bypass. And I don't think we're doing it intentionally, but I think what so often happens is, we're feeling a certain way. We're feeling overwhelmed with all the people coming over the events.

We need to host the food. We need to cook, the gifts we need to buy, and that is starting to overwhelm us, stress us out. Maybe we even have some anger, some resentment, some fatigue coming up, and instead of attuning to those emotions, we immediately go. Well, who am I to feel this way? Like, look at what a great life I have.

I need to go straight into gratitude. I'm being so selfish. I'm being so entitled, yada, yada, yada. And gratitude in that form I don't think is very, stress releasing. And in fact, it's inflicting a wound on ourselves of we're not listening to ourselves, we're not acknowledging ourselves, we're not hearing ourselves, which is wounds that so many of us have from childhood that we're just now inflicting on ourselves in present day.

And so for me, it can't just be okay, add in some gratitude because honestly, I think most of us we're doing that. We are really grateful. We do see what beautiful aspects and factors we have in our life, our family, our kids, our home, whatever it might be. I think most of us are already doing that gratitude piece, but it can't be on its own.

It can't be gratitude as a form of like punishment and shaming ourselves for the emotions we're feeling. It needs to be gratitude with emotional attunement and so yeah, don't just jump straight into gratitude when you're feeling a certain way. Now look, maybe it can help you get out of that place. Like if you're really going in a downward spiral and you're like, okay, I just need to put the brakes on here.

Maybe we can shift into some gratitude just to get us out of that downward spiral. But the important thing is that we don't stop there. We need to let ourselves. Acknowledge, validate and express the emotions that are coming up for us. What am I feeling? Yes, I'm so grateful for these things. Now that I've done that, now that I've stopped this, maybe this downward spiral, can I come back to those emotions from this more grounded place and start to let some of those flow, process them a little bit, acknowledge them a little bit?

So that was the rant that I went on, is gratitude. As emotional bypass. That's not what I'm about over here, and I don't think that's actually very helpful. Or restorative. Gratitude with emotional attunement, I do believe can be incredibly, incredibly impactful. And what does that actually look like in real life?

For example, let's say. I've just had a bunch of family over for a holiday gathering. It was wonderful, but I was really stressed out. I had a lot of work to finish beforehand, so I felt like I was just going, going, going. I'm still feeling pressure cuz I have more gifts to get and I'm going to a wedding next week that I need to prepare for, and I'm just feeling like overwhelmed, exhausted, anxious.

Any number of different things, what that would look like, what gratitude paired with emotional attunement could look like in that moment is, okay, I'm feeling all this way. Yes. I'm so grateful that I get to host these events. I'm so grateful that I have the finances to put on a wonderful meal. I'm so grateful that I have loving friends who wanna come over, but I could see how it's totally validated for me to be exhausted. Look how hard I'm working. Look how little time I've had to really rest and restore. It's okay for me to be feeling anxious and can I actually dig into that a little bit more? What is making me anxious deeper down? Is it that I'm worried I'm not gonna get to rest enough during this time off, and I'm gonna have to go straight back into work totally depleted? Is it that I'm worried about people pleasing and disappointing people during this time, so I'm pushing myself too hard? That is the emotional attunement. It's first, can we just acknowledge and identify what is in inside me, what is currently going on inside me? Sometimes the acknowledgement is all it takes to help let that flow through us.

Sometimes we can start with that acknowledgement and then go into, some more inquisition about it, asking about what is this anxiety about? What is this sadness about? Any number of things and see if we can chisel away at it a little bit more if there's that need there, but that's what it looks like. Can we pair the gratitude with the emotional acknowledgement and attunement?

Yes. On that note, there's two other things I wanna talk about in relation to stress, especially during this time, and it's kind of tagging along with what I was just saying about being inquisitive about what is caused the anxiety, the sadness, the fear, et cetera, because definitely just acknowledging, Ooh, I have anxiety.

Ooh, I have a twinge of sadness today. Ooh, I have a twinge of fear coming up within me. That is a great, great start. And by the way, we have to start there so that we can then go and do some deeper digging, but I do wanna encourage all of us. If we can do some of that deeper processing because when we start to understand I have anxiety, great, that's, that's great to know that.

And we can already bring in some tools to help support the reduction of that anxiety. But if we can start to understand even more what that anxiety is about, then we can make even more intentional decisions to counteract some of that. So for example, kind of like what I was saying earlier, let's say we've identified, okay, there has been a lot of anxiety recently.

Okay, can I get inquisitive about that? Is that anxiety about the people pleasing about not wanting to disappoint anyone, about wanting to put on the best holiday gathering? Or is it about not being able to rest enough during this time and we can already start to see how. The anxiety could be about so many different things, and what that anxiety is actually about deeper down will really affect how we approach that.

If I have anxiety about people pleasing this holiday season, can I then go do some deeper thinking, do some meditation, do some prayer, whatever it might be, journaling around this people pleasing mentality, this fear of disappointing people. Can I give myself some affirmations that. Actually, my loved ones don't want me to be perfect.

It's okay if I don't, if everything doesn't go perfectly at this holiday gathering, et cetera, et cetera, right? Whereas if I'm having anxiety about being depleted and not being able to rest during this holiday season, having to go back to work, totally fatigued. Understanding that, then I'll be able to go, okay, so what can I do to bring in more rest during this time?

Does it mean saying no to some certain commitments? Does it mean nourishing my body in a better way? Does it mean handing off certain tasks, asking other people in to help with certain things, et cetera. So that's really important. Can we get even more inquisitive about our emotions so that we can be really, really intentional in addressing them going forward?

The last thing I wanna say here in relation to holiday stress is can we be preventative? Now, I know we're a week out from Christmas, so maybe I'm bringing this to you guys a little bit late, but what I mean by this is, It's kind of like, oh, I have anxiety now. Let me go meditate now. Let me go do some EFT tapping.

Let me pray. Let me go on a long walk and process this, and that's all wonderful. Absolutely. Let's bring in those resources when we're in the midst of anxiety, when we're in the midst of sadness, depression, fear, et cetera. But being preventative with that can actually reduce the likelihood that we get into those intense places, and also make us feel so much more prepared to deal with them when they do arise.

So what that looks like is instead of waiting to do any of those things, once the emotions come up, can I today? Or knowing that this season is gonna be a little bit more stressful, it's gonna be a little bit taxing. Can I just make a commitment to myself to choose one of those resources that I really love and do that every single day for the next two weeks, even if I'm not feeling anxious?

And that's what I mean with the prevention of it is, you know what, actually, like I'm okay right now. I'm not feeling too stressed about the holidays, but knowing that there might be some things that come up, Can I go? You know what? I love the EFT tapping so much, so I'm gonna make a point of doing 10 minutes of EFT tapping every single day just to be on top of my emotional wellbeing during this time.

As I was saying that, I realize there's one final thing that I wanna tag onto this holiday stress piece is I think a big part, and I see this time and time again with clients is oftentimes when we're in these situations as adults, because of past experiences, because of past environments that we grew up in, past trauma, past adverse experiences, a big, big thing for a lot of people is that inner child or that wounded part of the self that's still unresolved.

When we're in these situations as adults, honestly, we're reverting back to that childlike self that feels completely powerless. That feels like I have no autonomy in this situation, and something I love letting clients know is. For example, if they know that they're gonna be with family over the holidays and there's a couple people who really rub them the wrong way or make them feel incredibly stressed or powerless, can we remind ourselves in those moments that actually I have full autonomy and if something is going on, and I really want all of us to give ourselves this permission because I don't think we do this enough, if something is going on, that is not sitting well with me or is making me feel unsafe or is crossing a boundary,

I have full autonomy to stand up for myself with my words and say, you know what? This isn't a conversation I'm comfortable engaging in. You know what? If we're gonna, be talking to each other in this way, then I don't wanna have this conversation, you know, actually, it's not okay with me that you're talking to me like this.

Right, using our words. We absolutely have the autonomy to protect ourselves in that way. But I'll take it even a step further to say, can we remind ourselves that we have full autonomy, that if we've done some of those steps and things still aren't changing, we can leave. We can leave and I think sometimes we forget that.

It's like, oh, I've just got a grit and bear this. I've got to go into like full tense armor mode and just get through this no matter how bad it gets. No, we don't have to do that. We don't have to do that. If you are really feeling unsafe, unprotected, you can leave a dinner, you can leave a gathering, you can leave a party.

And sometimes just reminding ourselves of that as we're arriving to the event is enough to like quiet that fearful inner child cuz they just wanna feel protected. There's that part of ourselves that just wants to feel protected and has so often maybe in youth felt powerless and unprotected. So that is something I remind myself all the time, if I know I'm going into a bit of a stressful situation, I will literally have that conversation in my head of, "you are not a powerless child anymore. You are an autonomous adult. You have permission to defend yourself, to protect yourself, and you have permission to leave if it's becoming too overwhelming or too unsafe for you." And I'm telling you, that could reduce my stress levels by 80% sometimes. So I just wanted to add that in there because I think that can be really powerful for us.

Okay, moving on to fatigue specifically, I wanted to bring this in cuz at first I was like, oh, I, I'd like to record an episode on stress and what to do for stress. But then having some different individuals message me about, okay, what can I do for my fatigue? Like I am depleted, depleted, and stressed on top of that. It made me think that that might be a really interesting thing to add into this episode as well, because again, they're a little bit different and when we're talking about fatigue, this is the body saying, I am maxed out my energy output, like my energy reserves are gone. And so what I think of when it comes to fatigue is, okay, how can we begin to restore those energy reserves and also not continue to deplete them at such a quick rate? And so some of these sound really, really simple, but they can be so impactful.

And the first one that I wanna start with, and I think there's gonna be a lot of people out there who are like, no, is the intense exercise. I get it. Exercise can be wonderful for stress, for anxiety, for helping us get that nervous energy out. But if you are fatigued, if you are feeling depleted, chances are you have been stressed as well.

Your adrenals have been running at full tilt for who knows how long you've been pumping out adrenaline, you've been pumping out cortisol. And the thing with intense exercise is it causes the adrenals to produce even more of that so that we can get through a really hard workout. And what happens with that is, when we're in a really depleted place and we're adding, we're continuing to push ourselves with really grueling, intense exercise.

It's actually making the fatigue even worse because it's forcing our adrenals to continue to produce all these hormones that it's already been maxing out anyways, so it can actually get us into a really nasty downward spiral that it's just so hard for our body to physically recover. And so when I'm feeling depleted, I really try to switch from super intense exercises, like a long run, like a hit workout, like hard weight lifting, whatever it might be into much more gentle restorative movement. And I get it, a lot of us want to feel dead at the end of the workout, cuz that makes us feel like, oh yes, I worked out hard. I'm so worthy. Like I did such a good job today.

I did something hard. And that's wonderful. But can we start to see that? When it comes to fatigue, we aren't doing ourselves any favors. In fact, we're actually making that fatigue a lot worse and probably making that fatigue last a lot longer than it needs to. So, restorative exercise, it's things like yoga, like a barre workout, like Tai chi, even.

A stretching, a long walk, all of these things that you're still moving your body, you're still activating your muscles, but we aren't pulling upon the depths of our reserves to get through that exercise. We're not forcing our adrenals and our body to continue to pump out adrenaline, to continue to pump out cortisol, just so that we can get through the activity.

And I'm telling you. You are gonna start to feel so much better, especially if you are the type of person that's like, Ooh, I wanna get in an hour workout. I wanna get in a 40 minute super intense workout that I'm breathing super heavy. Give it a try. You're not gonna feel like I killed myself today. Of course not, but.

It might surprise you how good it feels, first of all in your body to do some gentler restorative movements like that, but also actually how restorative it can be. How you do a simple, gentle exercise like that and the next day notice your energy levels. You might be surprised at actually how much more restored you feel.

The next thing I think when it comes to fatigue, is, okay, exercise, nutrition. Can we give our body a little bit of a break when it comes to our nutrition by eating foods that are easy to digest, but still very nutrient dense? What I mean by this easy to digest is usually. Cooked foods, raw foods are wonderful.

They're very nutrient dense, but raw foods require a lot more effort from our digestive system to break down. And again, when we're in a place of fatigue and depletion, we want to ask as little of our body as possible. And so one of my favorite, favorite, easy to digest, nutrient dense foods is soup. You can pack a ton of veggies in there, but they're being cooked up, so it's still nutrient dense, but it's super, super easy for the body to break down and digest and then pull up the nutrients from that.

So can we think about that over these next few weeks? Maybe eating less raw foods and focusing more on cook foods? I like soup because first of all, You can get a ton of veggies in one serving, but it's also just really easy to make a big, big batch. And then you've got, you know, two, three days worth of meals that you don't need to keep planning out.

So soup is a really good go-to for me, but also anything cooked. It could be a stew, it could be any number of cooked foods, but again, if we're not doing a soup with a ton of veggies, focusing on bringing in the nutrients, bringing in the vegetables. Also, the fermented foods, which are so delicious and nourishing to the body, so easy to digest nutrient dense foods.

Okay. Two more things I wanna bring up in relation to fatigue is adaptogens. And this isn't new, but I think it's fun to just reiterate it because I have been taking more adaptogens in these last couple weeks because I have been feeling a bit stressed. I have been feeling a bit fatigued and adaptogens literally just help our body respond to stress better. And that doesn't just mean stress emotionally, that means physical stress as well, physiological stress. So adaptogens are wonderful, wonderful tools. And there's any number of varieties here. You could take an individual adaptogen like ashwagandha, like rhodiola, like reishi mushrooms, just all on their own, but you could also take some kind of blend, like an adrenal support tonic.

Lately, I've really been loving the brand Cymbiotika . I wish I had a discount code for you guys, but I don't. But Cymbiotika has a great liposomal adrenal tonic supplement. Now I haven't tried it myself. It's on my list. I have an, I have an older adrenal supplement that I'm taking right now, so I wanna finish that up before I get a new one.

But can we bring some adaptogens in just again, to add some of that additional support? I have to say, I pulled out this old bottle of an adrenal support supplement that I hadn't finished from who knows if probably a few months back at least. And I have to say, I noticed within a day of taking that adrenal blend, my anxiety was way down.

I felt myself recovering better. So I do think the adaptogens can be really, really supportive, especially during a time of stress. So I will link a couple products in the show notes below, just if you guys want suggestions. But again, there's so many. If you do a search for adrenal support or just adaptogens supplements, there's gonna be a whole list of ones coming up for you.

And then the last thing I wanna say here is back to basics. And no, everyone's gonna roll their eyes and shake their heads at this because it's not fancy. It's not cool. It's not high tech or anything like that, but we can't get by without looking at are we covering the foundations of health? If you are depleted, if you are stressed out and you're not, getting 20 minutes of sunshine a day and you're not hydrating your body adequately with water and you're not nourishing your body with good foods, but you're trying to look for the supplements and the high tech products and the fancy modalities that are gonna restore you.

That's great and those can definitely help, but you're not, you're still not covering your foundations of health. So those things are only gonna get you so far, and you're gonna need to utilize those other things more and more and more because you're neglecting the foundations. The other thing I wanna hone in here is the foundations of health guys are so simple and most of them are free or relatively cheap and affordable. So, and I think Diana and I talked about this in our episode about like the wellness junkie mentality and wanting to buy all the latest supplements and technology to support our health, but the foundations of health. When I say that I'm talking about sunshine exposure.

I'm talking about movement, I'm talking about hydration, nutrition, and emotional wellbeing. So let's go through this in order. Number one, are we getting 20 plus minutes of sunshine a day? Yes or no? If the answer's no, boom, that's a foundation that we have. Got to check off our list, and that's free. Great.

Number two. Movement. Are we getting 20 plus minutes of movement a day? And this, it could literally be a 20 minute walk around the block, a 20 minute walk around your office again. Free. Wonderful. Moving on. Am I drinking at least half of my body weight in ounces of water per day? Now, water's not always free, but most of us have access to water in some form, so that's a super easy one to begin to integrate.

What's your body weight? Divide it by two. That's how many ounces of water you should be drinking a day. Most of us are not doing that. So again, that's a super simple thing we can bring in. And remember, we are 90% water. Water is essential for every single function of the body. So if you are dehydrated, you are gonna be fatigued, you're gonna be moody, you're gonna be low energy, you're gonna be brain foggy, forgetful irritable, any number of things. Am I nourishing my body with nutrient dense foods or am I eating a lot of what we would call in the holistic world, dead foods, foods that don't have a lot of nutrition to them, they're, they're caloric. We're putting calories in our body, but there's not a lot of nutrients in them.

And with that, we're thinking just heavily processed foods that are coming from a package versus whole foods, fresh foods that we're having to cook or make up in the morning. Another option here, if we don't have a lot of time, is bring in some kind of whole food type. Smoothie or protein powder, that's a really great option as well.

And then emotional wellbeing. Am I supporting my emotional health on a daily basis? Again, this can be something that doesn't need to take up a lot of time and can be absolutely free. You don't need to have the best, coolest meditation app. Go on YouTube, search for a meditation about whatever it is you're dealing with, and sit through that meditation. Search for an EFT tapping meditation.

Go on a walk, pray about it, journal about it. But are we tuning into our emotions on a daily basis? Giving ourselves that acknowledgement and that validation. So really simple things guys, but again, I just wanna reiterate, we can only get away with not maintaining the foundations of health for so long.

And I totally understand how when we're in that place of fatigue, We want to, it makes us feel good. I think it satisfies that anxiety, it satisfies that part of us when we get to go buy the supplement, when we get to go do the special treatment or whatever it is. And again, I'm not saying don't do those things, but I'm saying.

Can we be sure that we're checking off those foundations of health first, or at the very least in conjunction with bringing in those supplements, bringing in those modalities, services, et cetera. Your body is going to notice such a difference. By the way, I should add in as well, sleep is a really core foundation of health too.

So am I getting adequate sleep or am I staying up until. 11 until midnight, until who knows? How late am I optimizing my sleep environment such that I can get good sleep? How's my blue light exposure before bed? I love the 3, 2 1 rule or just guidelines rule. Sounds a bit harsh, but three hours am I stopping eating three hours before bed?

This is really, really big. Cuz if we're eating within three hours of going to bed, it's gonna be hard for us to get super deep sleep because our body still needs to be awake to some extent so that we can digest that food. So, Am I stopping eating within three hours of going to bed? Am I stopping drinking within two hours of going to bed and am I stopping blue light exposure within one hour of going to bed?

The body is taking all of that energy to go kickstart all of these detoxification pathways within the body. And so a lot of people don't know this, but when we get that second wind, that second wave of energy that then keeps us up later, that wave of energy was actually meant for this detoxification process.

So not only have we stayed up later, we're not getting enough sleep, but we've also lessened the amount the efficiency of the detoxification that we would have gotten that night during sleep. Sleep is the primary detox time for our body. It is so important to give our body that time to process different toxins, all of these different things.

And so for me it is so, so, so important. That I am not only in bed by 11, but in bed and asleep by 11, so that when 11 o'clock rolls around, my body can dive into that detox phase uninterrupted. And I have to say, since paying attention to that, now I go to bed early anyways. But I've noticed now that if there are nights when I do stay up until 11 or I'm not quite asleep yet at 11, I wake up and I'm a bit groggy the next day, even if I got technically eight hours of sleep.

So those are just a couple things that I wanted to share. I am absolutely going to be integrating some of these things for myself. I mean, we all need a reminder. I need a reminder too. There's some foundations of health that I haven't been as intentional about getting in, especially for me, the sleep and the cell phone use before bed.

For me, that hasn't been great recently. So, I need to record this episode as much for myself as I'm hoping to be able to share this information with anyone else who's needing it as well. So I hope that was helpful. I hope you can try some of these things going forward. As a reminder, check out Tuesday's episode with Diana and submit a question.

We would love, love, love, love to hear from you. I cannot wait to see what you guys send in. Have an amazing weekend everyone, and until next week.