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How to create an 8Wise™ Self-Care plan

Tools that can help you meet your self-care plans are the 8Wise 12-Week Journal. This helps you to focus on a goal that you can achieve in the next 3 months.

The 8Wise 12-Month Planner which can help you set:

Milestone 1: something you can achieve in 12 weeks.

Milestone 2: something you can achieve in 6months and

Milestone 3: something you can achieve in 12 months.

The planner gives you the space to capture your full year of Living the 8Wise Way and developing optimal mental health and wellbeing with your self-care plan.

What is a self-care plan I hear you say.

It is simply an 8Wise Transition plan that focuses solely on creating your own self-care routine.

Self-care has always been important. Studies continue to prove it boosts your confidence, productivity, and happiness, and can benefit your physical health, too.

Self-care literally means taking the time to nourish yourself. There’s a whole spectrum of self-care needs: from the most basic, like making sure you’re eating healthy food, cleaning, and making your bed, to more advanced self-care, like practicing mindful eating, skipping the latest fitness trend for lower impact sustainable options that suit you, or studying for personal and professional growth. Overall self-care is anything that boosts your mental health and wellbeing and improves the quality of your life,

For more information on self-care, and practical tools and tips on how to make self-care a part of your wellbeing routine, head to my resources page and check out the blogs and podcast episodes there that will help you develop your 8Wise self-care plan. 

So, are you ready?

You have the tools, all that’s left is for you to commit to yourself and do the work.

It’s time to start living the 8 Wise Way and boost your mental health and wellbeing for a better quality of life.

If you have recognised that your frazzled burnt-out mind is becoming a constant part of your life rather than a rare part of it, then the 8 Wise™ Wellness Programme could be for you.  It is available as one to one coaching sessions, training, through our book resources and podcast and through our new membership platform, launching soon.  Through the programme you can develop the knowledge and skills needed to ‘Live the 8 Wise Way’ and develop optimal mental health and wellbeing for an improved quality of life.

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How to Develop Your 8Wise™ Map

Are you ready to start developing optimal mental health and wellbeing for an improved quality of life? Before getting to work on developing your 8 Wise™ Map lets first recap each of the eight key elements of the approach.

Emotional Wellness: involves your ability to cope with stress, express emotions, and feel positive about your life. People with healthy emotional wellness feel confident, in control of their feelings and behaviours, build satisfying relationships with others, can handle life challenges, and can love themselves and others.

Physical Wellness: is about healthy habits regarding physical activity, a nutritious diet, adequate sleep, appropriate health care, practicing safe behaviours, and overall physical health.

Spiritual Wellness: is related to your values and beliefs that help you find meaning and purpose in your life. Strong signs of spiritual health include having clear values, a sense of self-confidence, and a feeling of inner peace.

Intellectual Wellness: is when you recognize and accept your own talents seek out new knowledge and skills in creative ways for mental growth and personal development. Intellectual wellness can improve concentration, memory and critical thinking skills.

Environmental Wellness: relates to your external surrounding; your social environment and your natural environment play a part as both are entwined with each other. Our environments can impact how we feel, think and behave.

Social Wellness: focuses on how we connect with others, how we interact with others, and how we develop and maintain healthy relationships. Optimal social wellness also requires you to know when to distance yourself from those relationship that are no longer healthy for you.

Occupational Wellness: involves balancing work and leisure time, building relationships with co-workers, and managing workplace stress to develop a sense of satisfaction and achievement in relation to your job, your employer and your career.  This includes finding work that map to your values, interests and skills. 

Financial Wellness: finances are such a common trigger for stress, being able to minimize that worry and stress through feeling financially satisfied will enhance overall wellness and wellbeing.

The key to developing optimal mental health and wellbeing using the 8Wise™ method is to assess yourself against each of these eight key elements and create your own 8Wise™ Map.  The map is how you navigate your wellbeing journey and like all maps you need to start with your coordinates, which in this case are identified using the 8Wise™ Evaluations.

When you have your 8Wise™ Map ready you then need to decide which of the eight elements you want to start developing first, and from this decision start to develop your 8 Wise™ Milestones and Steps to build your 8 Wise™ Transition plan.

 The Evaluations + Milestones + Steps = Transition Plan which is the main tool to follow if you are wanting to ‘Live the 8 Wise™ Way’ and develop optimal mental health and wellbeing for an improved quality of life.

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8 Wise Ways to Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone

According to research, once we’ve learnt and adjusted to the best way of doing something, and can comfortably repeat it, our brain’s learning centres essentially shut down. This allows us to go into ‘autopilot mode’, so that we no longer have to put as much effort into the things we do … this is known as your comfort zone, a space where we feel comfortable, and can usually predict what’s going to happen next.

Because we know this space well, we often don’t need to be as engaged there, and can essentially relax. It can make us feel safe and secure and this can make us not want to leave it very often, if at all.

Sadly, this makes personal development difficult to achieve because moving forward and achieving goals needs us to step outside of our comfort zone and open ourselves up to new knowledge, opportunities, and experiences.

So, if you are needing to step outside of your comfort zone then here are 8 Wise Ways to help you do that.

1. Change up your routine

If you always eat lunch at the same time every day or in the same place, have the same evening routine, or always walk the same route to work, why not switch things up a bit?  Changing small things about your routine can help you to engage more with your surroundings and give you the confidence to challenge yourself in other areas of your life too.

2. Introduce yourself to someone new

Meeting new people can open your eyes to new perspectives and help you gain new knowledge and ideas.  Often, what holds us back from getting to know new people is fear of judgement. But it’s important to remember we’re often our own worst critics and usually judge ourselves far more than anyone else will.

3. Move towards your fears, rather than away from them

Naturally, we tend to retreat away from the things that scare us and move towards what we perceive to be safer spaces. But one of the best ways to deal with fear is to move towards it and tackle what you’re afraid of head-on.  When we overcome or defeat the thing that scares us, not only do we feel a great sense of reward, but we also increase our resilience and feel more confident in our ability to tackle whatever challenge comes our way next.

4. Buy some different food at the supermarket or try some new recipes

If you usually stick to the same shopping list every week, why not spice things up by adding at least two or three things to your shopping basket that you’d never usually think to try?

Your meals and snacks can instantly become much more exciting when you start exploring different tastes.

5. Have some open and honest conversations with the people around you

Sometimes the conversations that feel the most awkward or difficult are the most important. For example, asking your employer for a pay rise or speaking to your partner about issues in your relationship.  Often, we avoid conversations like these because we’re worried about what the other person might say. But ultimately, it’s better to speak up, find out where you stand, and work out where to go from there.  Remaining silent can leave you wishing you’d the courage to ask for what you really want or to say how you really feel.

If you have recognised a need to break free from your comfort zone, then the 8 Wise™ Wellness Programme could be for you.  It is available as one to one coaching sessions, training, through our book resources and podcast and through our new membership platform, launching soon.  Through the programme you can develop the knowledge and skills needed to ‘Live the 8 Wise Way’ and develop optimal mental health and wellbeing for an improved quality of life.

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8 Wise Ways to Stop Overthinking

Did you know that because each of our brains functions differently the way we think and overthink is different too? What is common amongst us is the flurry of negative emotions overthinking can bring, leaving us feeling like we are drowning under them all and that there is no way out. Instead, we just keep spiralling and spiralling and spiralling into mental chaos and in some cases misery.

Overthinking is a subconscious act and to stop it requires us to make conscious changes. Here are 8 Wise Ways you can start to do that.

1. Track Your Thought Patterns

Know what you feel when you are overthinking, aiding in knowing yourself better. This in turn will enable you to observe a pattern in your behaviour when you are ruminating and understand your emotions better. Do you feel anxiety or fear when you’re overthinking? Or is it anger or a combination of innumerable emotions all at the same time? Knowing your emotions takes you one step closer towards identifying the cause(s) that’s pushing you towards overthinking, enabling you to treat the problem from its roots. Journaling is a powerful to tool to support with this.

2. Sieve Out Your Thoughts

Our brains are always at work unless we are asleep. And, hence, so are thoughts. They keep coming throughout the time we are awake. But it is up to you to decide whether you really want to entertain them. You needn’t accept every thought that comes your way. Instead, you can choose to sieve them out according to their priority, keeping the ones that are important, stashing the not-so-important ones in the waitlist, and disposing of those that aren’t essential at all or are expected to do you more harm than good. Let the power stay with you in such cases, rather than allowing your thoughts to overpower you.

You can use a journal to create three lanes/files. Lane 1: Priority, Lane 2: Waitlist, Lane 3: Bin.

3. Train Your Brain

Your brain does switch off when you are asleep. But here’s the fact – it doesn’t stop working completely. The parts of it that specialise in problem-solving remain alive and active even when you’re asleep or in a state of rest. So, when the brain is left on its own, it’s wired to go helter-skelter, overboard, and all over the place. This means that you need to know how to always keep it under check. And this you can do only by training it not to go on an overdrive, especially when you’re in a state of rest – the ideal time for it to overwork. An empty brain is a devil’s workshop, remember? Keep yourself diverted with activities that you love, so you don’t give your brain a chance to think beyond what is truly required. Creating a list of self-care stimulating activities is a great way to do this.

4. Focus on Your Body Over Your Mind

Very similar to keeping yourself busy with activities that interest you, but with a slight twist. Here, the focus is more on your physical self and its various sensations. Practice mindfulness by putting your thoughts on the back burner first. Then, do things like placing your hand tightly on your chest to feel your heartbeats, or close your eyes and feel each point of touch of your feet on the floor. You can also try dancing and while doing so, focus on every body movement, listen to the music, and feel the vibrations.

A PMR is a great exercise to use for this – you can find hundreds on Google.

5. Practice Meditation

Easier said than done but try it and there’ll be no looking back. Initially, opt for a few guided meditation sessions to get you in the groove and help you understand how you can navigate your way through it. There are innumerable such classes that you can find online, some of which are even free of cost for the free few sessions. You can contact 8wise for more information.

Apps like Calm and Headspace offer free or low-cost options for guided meditations. 

6. Hyper-Focus on Your Daily Chores

If meditation is not your thing, you can pick up any mundane activity like folding laundry or putting your clothes out to dry and complete the chore without letting your mind wander. Make sure you stay hyper-focused and be in touch with the sensations that you feel throughout the activity.

Creating a list of go-to hyper-focus activities is a great way to think of what to do in the moment.

7. Take the Help of Nature

Nature is always rewarding. There is no problem that Nature cannot solve. Go for a walk or a jog amidst Nature or simply take some time out to stare at the greenery around you. If you are a city person with no or insufficient greenery in proximity, grow some greens at your home and reap its endless dividends for your overall health – mind, body, and soul. And when there’s Nature’s bounty to floor you, there’s no scope for futile overthinking at all.

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8 Wise Ways to Boost Your Productivity

Feeling unproductive can be stressful and frustrating. If you’ve been struggling to be productive, here are some steps to help boost your productivity levels.

Tidy space: Getting rid of clutter and keeping tidy spaces improves your environmental wellness which can give you mental clarity helping to improve your decision-making ability, productivity, and overall well-being.

To-do list: Organisation and Time Management skills are essential for boosting intellectual wellness and including ‘to do lists’ as a written plan of action have been shown to increase productivity. It’s especially helpful to organize your to-do list in order of priority, so you know what to tackle first.

Simple Focus: Try doing one task at a time rather than trying to do multiple things at a time. We might like to think we can multitask bit the human brain is simply not wired todo it, so you’ll be more productive if you focus on one task at a time, rather than trying to switch between multiple tasks and causing your brain added stress and confusion.

Block out your diary: Start designating specific amounts of time to focus in specific tasks and block that time out in your diary. This technique is known as time boxing and it can be used for work-related tasks or even household chores that you’ve been putting off. You can use an online diary or a paper based diary for this task – whatever you choose.

The Pomodoro technique: Have you ever tried the Pomodoro Technique? It involves dividing tasks into 25-minute intervals, known as ‘pomodoros’, with a 5-minute break in between each interval.  You can use a timer or an interval trainer app to help you stay on track.  This again helps to boost your intellectual wellness because it is a great activity for improving organisation and time management skills.

Limit interruptions: Distractions and interruptions can be one of the biggest issues when trying to be productive so try to limit them the best you can. This could mean switching off your email notifications while you’re working or signing out of your social media apps so you don’t get tempted by them. You could also designate one or two days of the week for uninterrupted work and avoid scheduling calls or meetings on those days.

‘No’ is a complete sentence: If you want to boost your productivity you have to learn to say No to other requests that take your time, focus and energy away from what you actually need it for to meet your desired productivity goals. Failing to do this can leave you feeling like you’re always busy but never able to complete anything you need to get done.

Meditation: Give your brain a break through Meditation and help boost your productivity by improving your concentration, motivation, creativity, memory, and emotional intelligence.

Remember: You want to stay in the side of positive productivity and not venture across into toxic productivity which causes you to work all the time and not give yourself adequate time for rest and fun.  Toxic productivity can lead to burnout and that is something we all want to stay away from if we want to have optimal mental health and wellbeing.

These tips and many more resources and tools are available as part of the 8 Wise™ Wellness Programme which is available as one to one coaching sessions, training, through our book resources and podcast and through our new membership platform, launching soon.  Through the programme you can develop the knowledge and skills needed to ‘Live the 8 Wise Way’ and develop optimal mental health and wellbeing for an improved quality of life.

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Stress Eating

Stress eating is the consumption of food in response to stress, worry, nervousness, or other unpleasant emotions. When we stress eat, we’re using food as a coping mechanism to try to regulate our nervous system and feel better. More often than not, we reach for high-sugar, high-fat foods to soothe our stress. And it’s easy to overindulge, since those foods stimulate the brain’s reward center…which can lead to more stress or other unpleasant emotions, such as guilt, shame, or despair.

Stress eating once in a while won’t immediately damage your health but, over time, too much of it can be harmful to your body. It is associated with obesity and difficulties losing and maintaining weight, as well as other health problems, such as diabetes and heart disease. However, many people who are not struggling with weight problems also stress eat. This behaviour cycle is prevalent in all kinds of people, body types, and situations.

There are fundamental, biological reasons why people stress eat–but you can unlearn this habit. The key is having the right tools, such as a science-based approach to mindful eating that teaches you how to cultivate increased awareness around your habits.

The Biological Link Between Stress and Eating

When stressed, your body produces high levels of the hormone cortisol, which can increase your appetite and cause cravings for high-calorie, high-fat foods. And the more stressed you are, the more you may eat–especially foods that are high in sugar.

Sugar and other high-energy foods cause the brain to release feel-good chemicals–especially dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps us learn patterns and behaviors, and drives us to repeat those behaviors. So it’s understandable if you reach for high-sugar, highly-palatable foods when you’re feeling stressed.

In the past, when humans experienced an extremely stressful situation–or a physically dangerous threat, such as seeing a bear or other wild animal–the body would stop producing cortisol and return to a relaxed state about 90 minutes after the threat passed. In modern times, while we’re rarely running from bears or tigers, our bodies often react to non-life-threatening stressors, such as an approaching payment due date, project deadline, or conversation with your boss in the same way.

The brain perceives these stressors as threats, and the amygdala sets off an alarm system throughout the body, leading to the release of adrenaline and cortisol. Depending on our genes, personality, and life experiences, the brain may perceive these threats to be ongoing danger (chronic stress,) and our bodies continue producing higher levels of cortisol. This “flight or flight” mode can become so common, we may stop noticing that we’re on “high alert” and remain in this state–even though we’re not in acute danger. You can use these tips to begin to rewire your brain and learn to make new behaviour choices that feel good.

Explore the result:

With a sense of honesty and kind curiosity, notice all of the results of your stress eating. This helps your brain update the reward value of your habits. Maybe the food tasted great for a few minutes and your initial stress decreased, but after overeating, you felt nauseated, ashamed, or lethargic for hours after. You can contact 8wise for more information on any emotional and mental health problems.

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Way to Calm Stress in 5 Minutes Or Less

From minor challenges to major crises, stress is part of life. And while you can’t always control your circumstances, you can control how you respond to them. When stress becomes overwhelming or chronic, it can affect your well-being. That’s why it’s essential to have effective stress relievers that can calm your mind and body.

I call this Living the 8 Wise™ Way and here are some tools to help you manage your stress and improve your emotional wellness for a healthier happier mind.

1. Acknowledge your stress

Acknowledging your stress can really help lift the weight off your shoulders and could be the first step to asking for help.

Facing stress is an opportunity to reset your mind and take it as a chance to grow. Researchers say the brain is rewiring and trying to learn from the experience so you can handle it differently next time.

So, think about whether the stress is a buildup or related to a more long-term issue. If it’s unrelated to anything, maybe it’s a sign your mind and body need a break.

If it’s tied to a more long-term problem you can’t immediately solve, try another one of the quick relaxer tips below.

2. Chew gum

Chewing is a great form of stress reduction. If you have gum on hand, particularly scented gum, chew it for at least three minutes. One study of 101 adults found that people who chewed gum during work had a lower stress response.

But don’t chew half-heartedly! It may be useful to take out your pent-up energy on the gum. Another study found that vigorous chewing was required in order to achieve stress relief.

3. Drink stress-reducing tea

There are several supplements that can help reduce stress and anxiety, but many of these supplements may take a few weeks or months of intake before they have an effect.

However, the act of stepping away for a few minutes to make tea can be therapeutic. So why not also make a stress relieving drink?

Although tea takes at least an hour to take effect, just stepping away can signal to your body to relax. Plus, once you get back to your desk, time may fly faster than you know it.

4. Inhale essential oils or invest in a diffuser

Inhaling essential oils may help calm the mind. may in times of stress, anxiety, and insomnia. This popular technique, also known as aromatherapy, focuses on using scents to holistically balance your physical, psychological and, emotional health.

Popular essential oils for combating stress include:

* lavender

* rose

* vetiver

* bergamot

* Roman chamomile

* frankincense

* sandalwood

* ylang ylang

* orange blossom

Choose scents based on your personal preferences. For example, if the smell of peppermint reminds you of holidays at home, use peppermint.

To use essential oils for stress, apply three drops onto a cotton pad and breathe it in deeply 10 times. You can also purchase a diffuser for your room or desk so that it constantly releases a calming scent.

5. Stretch at your desk

It’s incredibly important to take breaks during work, even when you feel like there’s a rush to get your task at hand done. For the times when you can’t leave your desk, you can still stretch while sitting for five minutes without intervention.

Stretching can also help with discomfort and work related pain injuries. The simplest stretch you can do is the upper body and arm stretch.

To do this:

1. Clasp your hands together and push upward with your palms facing the sky.

2. Stretch and hold the pose for 10 seconds.

3. Try twisting your torso left and right for 30 seconds, then repeat. For more information on how you can live the 8 Wise™ way to achieve a healthier happier mind and optimal mental health and wellbeing browse this website.

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Forever Fearing Fear

Today we are talking about fear, and every single human on the planet experiences fear from time to time. So today it’s about forever fearing the fear.

It’s one of the big questions I ask an awful lot of my clients when they come and see me for the first time, especially those clients who come to me experiencing things such as anxiety and I will ask them straight out, do you know what the fear is? And a lot of people will say to me “I don’t know, I don’t think I’m scared of anything, I just feel anxious”.

So I thought it’s really important to go through fear with you guys today and make sure that you understand the link between fear and your mental health and how it can trigger certain mental health responses as well, and then for some of you who might be experiencing some of these mental health responses, what I’m going to do in the next episode is I’m going to go into a lot more detail with regards to coping mechanisms for how to manage fear and how to manage some of those mental health conditions that link to it as well.

For me to really, really be able to help people, I think it’s really important that you understand what sits behind the thing you think something is. So, for me, if somebody comes to me with anxiety, it’s important for them to understand that it’s what sits behind the anxiety that’s the issue, not the anxiety itself. The anxiety in the present can feel like it’s the most dominant thing in your life at that time, for example, but actually, when it comes to managing the anxiety or overcoming the anxiety, we really need to understand what sits behind it. I’m a firm believer of understanding the why behind everything, and I say that an awful lot in these episodes, it’s about understanding the why.

When you understand the why, you have more knowledge, you have more data to deal with or to work with when trying to resolve what the issue might be. And so today, one of the big whys for many mental health conditions is fear.

So, what is it? Let’s have a look at what fear really is, well, let’s get rid of some of the myths as quickly as we possibly can. Number one, fear is really healthy for us because fear is a killer king emotion. It’s an emotion that’s telling us that we might be in danger, or we are in perceived danger, and it’s that fear that lets us respond to whatever we think that danger might be so it’s actually really healthy to experience fear.

Fear itself comes in lots of different shades. There’s no such thing as black and white when it comes to fear. It’s not like you’re not scared, and you are scared, it comes in many shades. Some are not great for us, some actually are really good for us and some we love, some we chase, some we go for the thrill. You imagine ever being scared when you go on the rides at the fairground and it’s fantastic. You absolutely love that fear, it’s the adrenaline that comes with it.

For those of you might be addicted to a horror movie, fair play to you, I’m absolutely petrified of horror movies, but that fear that you get there gives you a buzz, it gives you an adrenaline rush.

So not every fear is really bad, not every fear makes you feel incredibly uncomfortable. Some fear we chase because it actually is fun and then on top of that, it’s not as simple as one minute I’m scared and one minute I’m not or one minute I’m not scared and the next minute I am, fear is not as automatic as that.

A lot of other emotions can happen really quickly and with regards to fear, in some cases it can come on really, really quickly, but in other cases fear can build up over a period of time. Sometimes that can be hours, other times it can be months, other times it can be years.

So, fear isn’t black and white. It isn’t simple. It isn’t something that you can go, right it’s here with us right now, it’s very different for lots of different people and although fear, in theory, is connected to this perceived danger, this perceived threat, perceived is the word to focus on here really, you do not necessarily have to be in danger to be scared.

For example, watching a horror movie is a classic example. Again, you’re watching a horror movie, you know you are not in danger, but you can still be scared at the same time, and that’s what fear is. Fear can be nothing, it could be nothing in front of you, and you can still be scared of something, you can still be fearful of something, you could still feel that you’re in danger of something even when there’s no danger there.

Read the full article here at 8wise. For better mental health and wellbeing and a healthier happier life check us out.