Highly Sensitive Woman

The experience of living as a highly sensitive woman in a noisy, busy and unrelenting world

The great little nap

catnapimages

The need to catch up on sleep is on every woman’s lips these days.  Between juggling kids, aging parents, home, chores, work, and who knows what else, the last thing we experience is proper sleep.

We hear many women laughingly talk about being forgetful, misplacing the keys, forgetting their own heads if it wasn’t screwed on straight!   All signs of little sleep and one of the symptoms of burnout.

So bring on the power nap!?  I read this little article in RealAge the other day and thought I’d pass it on.  Give the advice a try—I know one of my clients swears by napping!

Improve Memory with a Power Nap*

You could improve memory skills with this brilliant little habit: power napping.

In a study, people who took a power nap after learning a new task performed 50% better than the non-nappers when they were later given a test on the task.

Power Nap, Total Recall

The process of making memories is complicated. And new memories are the most fragile. But in the study, researchers discovered that nappers who got quality deep sleep (slow-wave sleep) during their naps learned new material much better compared with the sleep-deprived participants. Scientists think something about deep sleep helps new memories encode into higher brain regions where memories become more permanent.

Something About Sleep

Getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night is a good health goal. It boosts your immune system, helps control stress levels, and may even be essential in keeping your heart and other body parts healthy. And a power nap every now and then can be a good way to catch up on lost ZZZs — not only to improve memory and keep your mind sharp, but also to help you reach your immune-system-supporting, stress-reducing [optimum].

*(from Improve Memory with a Power Nap – RealAge.com)

Ps: at the end, not included here, it said proper sleep can trim 1.5 years off your real age!  I’m in, night-night ladies

The Burnout Queensxx

Thinking like Marlene Dietrich

marlene dietrich

Filling up your schedule because you thrive on being busy or you just don’t have another choice between the demands and challenges of home and work can wear you out and wear you down. 3 words come to mind:  exhaustion, irritation and burnout.

Making time for yourself, having solitude, is beneficial to both your physical and mental wellbeing. Spending time alone can improve stress and tension, enhance creativity, and aid problem solving.  Even personal relationships can benefit from you taking some time alone.

Obviously then, taking guilt-free downtime is definitely worthwhile. Miss Dietrich knew the benefits of ‘being alone’. Now let’s find ways you can benefit from your own alone time:

  1. Make solitude a regular part of your day or week. Schedule periods of time for yourself that you can count on.
  2. Maybe you already have times in your day when you are alone, taking a shower, walking the dog. Treat these as opportunities to relax rather than seeing them as “chores”.
  3. Taking the bus or tube instead of driving to work can offer a brief respite from stress and time to catch up on reading or listening to music.
  4. If you work outside the home, make lunchtime your digital downtime by leaving the mobile phone at the office

These easy solutions just take a decision to create less pressure and more ease in your life. Go for it.  All you have to lose is the exhaustion, irritation and burnout!

Grab life by the crown!

The Burnout Queens xx

Just let me nod off for a second

royal bed I feel there would be nothing better than a moment to put my head down on a pillow and slip fast asleep for more than half an hour at a time.   Sleep for women seems a very fleeting and often elusive pleasure.  I know most of you can relate!

I just read this article (so had to share) in the Huffington Post that talks about why sleep is SO very important for our brain.  Ladies, when we work hard, and juggle all that we do, our brains need all the help we can give them.  Right?

Have a read and then put your head down!    Click through to the article here:  “Why Your Brain Needs Rest”

The Burnout Queens xx

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