Stress in everyday life

Some days are completely impossible. To do lists are long and numerous, the phone rings, important emails pop up that need a quick response, the mobile phone beeps countless times, daydreams take over, meetings interrupt the writing when it's flowing best etc etc.

The ability to focus and be present is the key to good productivity, at work and in everyday life. To focus is to narrow your attention to something specific, to keep your eyes on a specific goal. It is the key to concentration, efficiency and clarity. The problem is that attention is a limited resource and distractions are all around us. There are many different things competing for our attention all the time, and that poses a bigger problem today than ever before. The brain is not built to "have too many balls in the air" all the time.

You can use your gut in many different ways, but one thing is for sure, you should never defy it. That's one of my basic principles.

A simple example from earlier today was when I came back after leaving the kids at school and preschool. As I entered the kitchen, my gut told me to check the bags from the US one more time, because that's where the missing Manuka honey lie. I don't know why my intuition was giving me these signals at the time, but I did what my intuition told me to do. And sure enough, at the bottom of one of the bags in another bag lies the honey! Just like that. As I had thought and searched before without getting anywhere. And how appropriate that it turned up just today, as the girls and I are struggling with a sore throat.

The biological evolution is going on all the time, albeit at a very slow pace. We humans, like all other living things, change over time by natural selection whether we like it or not.

Another type of evolution that is more evident in today's society is the cultural one, how we learn new things and how we use our bodies and interact with each other based on learned information. This is also a type of evolution that affects us greatly.

This is the third week in a row that I am home with sick children. Nothing serious, but still so much that it doesn't work to be in school or kindergarten. Combining VAB (short for taking care of sick children in Sweden) with starting up the business here in Sweden is not optimal. It's not easy to tick off meetings and phone calls when the youngest has a fever of 40 degrees. The idea is to be able to stay at home in Sweden when the children are sick, but unfortunately I haven't gotten into that system yet, and will be completely without income these days. And now there are a lot of VAB days coming up, we seem to be catching every autumn virus that exists in our vicinity.

This is part 6 of 6 in my blog series on the 6 basic principles of a healthy lifestyle - the following articles are also included in the series: Introduction (1/6), Diet and Hydration (2/6), Sleep (3/6), Positive thinking (4/6) and Movement and Breathing Techniques (5/6).

The 6 basic principles work very well when building your health from within. To find the balance between yin and yang, you need to work as much on the basic yin principles: diet, hydration and sleep as on the basic yang principles: breathing techniques, positive thinking and movement. Of course, this is easier to do in theory than in practise. As I wrote earlier, it's easiest to start by making sustainable changes where you feel your resistance is easiest to overcome and then keep working from there. And again, don't make too many changes at once, let it take time!

It's time to boost my energy for autumn! During my Detox Light, I not only focus on diet, but I also make sure that movement, meditation and sleep are priorities. Every day for 3 weeks, the following is on the schedule:

Movement: 30 min

Meditation: 15 min

Sleep: 8 h

I do not specify the type of movement or meditation or when during the day this is done. I try to listen to the body and adapt to the mood of the day. A detox should not be too difficult, because then it is easy to give up.