The Wellness Scoop - 10 Ways to De-Stress Your Life

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

Our September back to school special is on how to de-stress and de-clutter your life, looking at how we can bring more joy, ease and efficiency into our every day. We talk to author of Life Skills Erin Zammett Ruddy about morning routines, skipping the snooze button, boosting our energy in three minutes, organising the house, creating a positive working from home environment, streamlining our overflowing inboxes, de-stressing in less than a minute, meditation, saying no and walking into a room with confidence with tips from wellness leaders like Arianna Huffington and Dr Oz. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Hi, and welcome to the Deliciously Ella podcast with me, Ella Mills. So this week, we've been filming a lot for our app, which has been exciting. We've had such amazing feedback on the new exercise content that we launched a few weeks ago. So we wanted to add more and we've been filming this week. So we're going to have a big batch of new videos coming to you a little bit later this month, including a new stretch and mobility section. And we have also just launched our sharing bags of salted chocolate and chocolate orange dipped almonds into the Waitrose free for a while. So two big things for us at Delicious

Yellow HQ this week, as well as getting baby ready. And I'm not sure how anyone else feels about this time of year, but I always find that the first week of September kind of feels like back to school. You know, you've just had the last long weekend of the summer, which was absolutely heaven for us. Although it actually all feels a bit nostalgic at the moment, thinking that we've just got a few weeks left as the three of us before we become a family of four. But anyway, I've really noticed how this time of the year, so many of us, and I definitely see that with our readers and our listeners seem to feel that same sense of September being a month for kind of new healthy habits, new goals, new plans, new energy for work after the summer. And there's a sort of almost like a slight second January sense about this time of year. So I

thought we should really go with that today and look at life hacks for those goals and the things that we all need in our lives when we're just trying to be that bit more efficient, that bit less stressed, and generally just bring that bit more ease and fluidity and joy, most importantly, into our lives. So our guest today is a journalist called Erin, who has just written a really lovely book called Life Skills. And she's basically interviewed hundreds of leaders in their fields about all those little changes that we need in our lives, from how to de-stress in less than a minute minute to how to really keep on top of our email inbox, how to work from home effectively, how to sleep better, you know, top tips for decluttering and tidying our houses and getting rid of the junk that we all keep saying no, walking into a room

with confidence and so much more. So big welcome to Erin. Thank you so much for joining us today for our September Back to School special. And I've got to start by asking of all the hundreds of hacks and brilliant experts you spoke to, which were your favorites and the ones that resonated the most? Thank you so much for having me on. I'm so happy to be chatting with you today. I think one of the things I love the most, there's so many great little quotes. And one of them that came from the tidy a room expert was, don't put it down, put it away. And as we've all been home for many, many months, I'm trying to do that. I'm trying to when I walk in the door, just not kick off my shoes, just put it away. When I wake up in the morning, just put things away. Because saying you're going to do something later is how clutter begins, right? And so for me, that little mantra, and I can tell my kids that as well, just putting things back where they belong. And it's also something that's incredibly doable, which were the tips I looked for in the book. I didn't want anything that created more problems. It was about

solving problems, not adding things to our to-do list. And the expert, Gretchen Rubin, has this one-minute rule where anything that can be done in one minute, you should just do it right then. Whether that's quickly responding to a text or an email or RSVPing to something or putting that dish in the dishwasher, something I have to remind myself a lot. But the idea of don't put it down, put it away is something that I feel like I have been able to really implement in the past few months. And it makes such a huge difference because then you never have like a giant task of cleaning everything up. So that's one that I really love. And then believe it or not, my expert who talked to me about offering condolences was one of my favorite conversations I had because that, to me, was something that was always such an awkward, tough thing to do.

And she just laid it out so plainly and simply that it's something that for 40 years tripped me up and made me anxious and now no longer does. And that's sort of the idea of this book. That's just like taking these things that may have caused anxiety or made us frazzled and just making them simple and streamlined. And so those are a few of my favorites. I mean, it's tough to pick a favorite. It's like picking a favorite child, which some days I can. Depends on the day. I love what you said about don't put it down, put it away. I think there's so much in that. And I feel like all of these, they have a spiraling impact on your life, don't you? You know, tidy house, tidy mind, and it makes you more efficient in everything you do. And I imagine you've seen that each of these small changes that you can make to your life

actually end up adding up and all kind of blurring into one to create, as you said, a kind of more efficient, less stressed life. Absolutely. And, you know, like with cleaning, the cleaning experts have all said, like, the more often you clean, the less you have to clean. And a lot of, there's a lot of like setting timers in this book to realize like how, like emptying a dishwasher, for example, the first step in that task was ask yourself what you're going to do with the next four minutes of your life. It's really not a huge task, but we all, I mean, I know I put it off, like I opened the dishwasher, I'm like, oh, it's full. I don't want to have to empty it, you know, and everyone in the house just kind of walks by it all day.

But if you just stop and take care of it right then, you can move on with your day and it no longer taunts you. Yeah, absolutely. I think procrastination is such a huge part of our kind of modern lives that they're kind of too busy that we don't make time for anything. So I picked 15 of your tips, because there's so many good ones, but there were 15 that I felt would probably resonate the most with our audience and that I was particularly interested in. And so I really wanted to go through those. And I guess there's a kind of real selection of different things in here that hopefully, you know, if you just start putting some of them into practice, you can maybe bring a bit more calm to your day, because I don't think there's anyone probably out there in the whole wide world who doesn't need a little bit more

calm. And it feels like the most obvious place we should start with is how we're starting our day and how we should get out of bed. And I know it sounds quite prescriptive, but this was really the interesting thing for me here was about not hitting the snooze button. And I wondered if you could tell us a little bit more about that. Well, I think, you know, what the sleep expert is Michael Bruce, and what he told me about alarm clocks in the first place is we're really supposed to be going to bed around the same time at night and waking up around the same time every morning so that we almost have an internal alarm clock, we don't really need to set one. But

if you do, and even if you don't, when you wake up, you're supposed to wake up, you're supposed to immediately get out of bed, because we've all laid in bed longer than we should. And you never feel good after it, right? You just stay kind of groggy. It feels so good to just hit snooze and lie there. But I feel like you always wind up regretting it. Your eyes are puffy or you just feel like 10 steps behind all day. I love this tip too. And I think about it all the time. This idea of just get your legs around the side of your bed and onto your floor, just plant those feet on the floor and you're halfway there, you know? And the thing that I found so fascinating with, with how to wake up in the morning is this idea of getting outside into

the sunlight so that you can stop the melatonin drip in your brain. You know, there's something in the sunlight that just tells our brain that it's time to wake up, that sleep time is over and it helps you feel more alert. And so that's something that I've really been trying to do. Like I go outside and my girls follow me and we water the plants and just trying to get out there like within 15 minutes of waking up. But of course, you know, in the colder months, you can get by a window for that sunlight. But I think, you know, it's about setting yourself up for a good day. And how you wake up really does matter because we've all woken up late and scrambled and trying to get, you know, get ready for the workday or get your kids out the door, whatever it is. And it's hard to recover from that. So if we can kind of think about how we want the rest of our day to go, and it seems like you

said, it seems kind of prescriptive to think, oh, this is how I have to wake up and I have to have a glass of water and I have to do this. But if you do those things, and you can kind of get into that routine, it really sets you up for a great day. And you start to just like crave that morning routine. That's so interesting about the sunlight. I can totally see that. It's so interesting since I've got a one-year-old at home. So she's obviously up early and we have the whole of the last like four or five months since we've been at home because we're up quite early with her at like 6.30 or so. The first thing we do is go for a walk in the morning. And it's not necessarily

within 15 minutes, but within 30, we're out the house and we walk our dog and we walk for like 30, 45 minutes every single day. And it's been the most energizing, uplifting, refreshing, brilliant thing I have ever added to my daily routine. And it's only been possible because of the fact we've working from home, but it has literally been life changing. And even I'm pregnant again, very pregnant at the moment. I may have even had the baby when this comes out, who knows. But, you know, even those nights where you don't sleep well, and you're up to pee every 10 minutes, and you wake up really tired when you get up and you get out of the house, which having a tiny makes you do.

It's unbelievable how much more energized you feel. It is. It's 100% agree. And I like another life skill in the book is watering your garden. And, you know, you're supposed to do that before the sun comes up. So a lot of these kind of intertwine. So I go out and water my garden and that's sort of what gets me outside and keeps me out there. But it really is like the science behind it is fascinating.

This idea of this like slow melatonin drip that you just need to turn off. Like you need to say to your body, like wake up. And that's what, you know, the blue light and sun does for us. So it's pretty cool. Yeah, it's a, it makes complete sense. And then one of my absolute favorite ones, which I guess actually links into this really nicely, is boosting your energy in three minutes, because I'm sure that's something that we all kind of constantly need in our lives. Yeah, this comes from Parvati Shallow,

and she's a big yoga instructor and just like an all-around cool person. And it's about using your breath. You know, breath is a huge part of this book because I think that it is a life skill, but boosting your energy, that one's for basically like any time in the day when you just start to feel groggy. And a lot for me, it's, you know, after lunch in the afternoon and I could totally roll up in a ball and take a nap, or I could have a big cup of coffee. But sometimes coffee makes you really jittery in the afternoon. And this is just about using your fingers on your nostrils and going in and out with

your breath. It really helps you kind of reset. Of course, you have to be in a private place to do it because you're breathing really fast in and out of your nostrils. But it's very cool. And it's a great way to give yourself that energy boost without needing to have that afternoon cup of coffee, which I also enjoy. How do you do it? What's the exercise? So you put your right thumb on your right nostril, and then you put your pointer finger on your left nostril breathe in with your left and then you release your thumb and breathe out and you breathe in and then you breathe out

alternating your fingers blocking it so you're going to go basically breathing in one nostril and you're breathing out the other nostril and you do it by blocking the nostril with one of your fingers so it's in out in out and out just through your nostrils. And it's really shallow breathing. You set a timer for about a minute and then you switch hands and you do it the other way. And it just kind of gets your brain kind of going. And it definitely works. I highly recommend it. You might get a little dizzy at first, so be careful, especially if you're pregnant. Amazing. Yeah, I love that. We actually did a whole episode on breath at the beginning of this series. And it's unbelievable how powerful it is for your body and for your health. And I think it's so underrated, as you say, we might be very quick to turn to like a big bar of chocolate and a cup of coffee, which nothing wrong with. But it's interesting, these kind of easy, free, little, very portable tools that we have on our body at all times that we can look at as well. Absolutely. Yeah. And just taking that beat too, I think is so important, you know, just stopping

and taking a breath, taking a beat, getting some energy. It really does. It helps. And we forget so often. I forget. It's like, just go take a deep breath. My goodness. You know, I think maybe the past few months has helped everyone realize that, you know, we've all had a little more time to take deep breaths. So maybe that's one silver lining. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think it's really interesting as we go through these and we pick up, there's such a common thread for me here with everything that you've shared and all the experts that you've spoken to, which is really whether it's your breath or how you start your day

or how you tidy your house, it's all about taking like a slightly more considered and conscious effort into your day and being more mindful of your actions in order to kind of give yourself more of what you need. Exactly. And I think the thing that I, what I've realized, which was another common thread is like, it's not doing these things so that you can do them better and faster and get finished. And so you can go watch Netflix or whatever. It's doing these things better and being more considered about it because this is life, right? So you may as well enjoy the grocery shopping and the sending the emails and the making of your bed and all of that. And if you do kind of slow down and take your time and do it, you know, yes, more efficiently and more considered, but also like you can find joy in that, right? Even, I mean, you know, with cooking

and pantry and all of that kind of stuff, like that should be enjoyable. You know, food prep shouldn't be like a chore if you do it properly and you try to enjoy it. I mean, emptying the dishwasher used to send me into spirals. But I mean, I'm not saying it's my favorite part of the day now, but when you can do things properly and slowly and efficiently, you kind of, you do, you start to realize that like,

okay, this isn't so bad. I totally agree. And I think what you said is really, it's so spot on, which is that that is life, is the reality of most people's every day. It's like relatively monotonous in the sense of like making your bed doing the laundry making dinner and so that is such a huge

part of your life and yet one life it's relatively short and if you can't enjoy any of the mundane then life's really a kind of daily grind and that that's such a shame and obviously not a positive thing for our mental physical health either and so actually I love your idea of just trying to find ways to enjoy and to get the most of of what we have to and need to do every day and when we don't do it we berate ourselves for thinking oh our house is a mess oh yeah berating yourself is no good. No, absolutely. Actually, one of the life skills in here is like be kinder to yourself.

How do we do that? Just trying not to beat yourself up, trying not to second guess. One of the great tips and this idea of just how to review your day at the end of the day, every day you kind of look back and say, okay, like what was good?

What was bad? What could I do better? But, but the first step is basically to come at it from a place of gratitude and compassion for yourself, you know, because life is hard for everyone. And just because you didn't get to the gym today, or, you know, maybe you, you yelled at your kid and you feel good, you know, it's like, tomorrow's a new day. And, and I love that idea of just like, we're all kind of works in progress. And tomorrow's always another day to try a little bit different and to master some of this stuff. Absolutely. And I guess on that, one of the things that you talked about a lot, and obviously the Marie Kondo way of life has taken off. And I think it's an area that people are really interested in, especially when our homes are so multi-purpose at the moment, like an office, a school and a home.

Decluttering, organizing the junk drawer, kind of deciding what you need and what you don't need, sorting your cupboards. What was it you really took away from the kind of tidying experts? The thing I loved so much about decluttering was that you should focus on yourself. It's not about the stuff, it's about you. And this idea that if you look at a room, you have to think about the vision you have for your life and for that room. Not, oh, I want curtains here and I want a couch here, but, oh, I want this room to have a real Zen feel to it, or I want this to be a place where I feel creative. And then you kind of go about filling it with things rather than just saying, oh, I love this pillow, so I'm going

to buy it. And the other thing that I think is so interesting, and I'm going around my house, like on the daily now looking at everything I own, because there's two types of clutter. This expert, Peter Walsh said, who I love, memory clutter, which are things that we save because we think, you know, they remind us of someone or there was an achievement or an event. And then it's, I might need it one day clutter. And that's like, could be like a fondue pot or, you know, your skinny jeans from college or a random piece of lumber. You know, my dad growing up, like he had so much scrap wood and scrap this. And like, I mean, my parents never threw anything out.

But this idea of saving things for an imagined future that you may or may not have can cause us a lot of anxiety as we're looking around our house, you know? And memory clutter as well. Like we feel like, oh, we can't get rid of this silly trinket that my mom brought home from her trip to Spain

that I don't ever want or going to use because it would feel, you know, I'd feel bad doing it. But also every time you look at it, it gives you anxiety. So really you should just get rid of it. So that's, that's one of the things that I loved from Peter Walsh. And then with the junk drawer, you know, we all have that drawer and, and Shira Gill is the expert there. And she talks about curating your own personal general store in your drawer and also rebranding it, which I think is so important. Don't call it a junk drawer.

Call it a utility drawer. And then you're going to be less likely to drop in the random hair rubber band that's half broken that you should just go in the garbage, right? There's so many more things we should be throwing out, I think, or donating. And so I love that idea of organizing the junk drawer. And she also does a 15 minute timer. She calls them 15 minute wins. And that's all the time you should spend cleaning out your junk drawer. So you just take 15 minutes, dump it, quickly sort it, put some dividers in, put back what you need and put everything else where else it, quickly sort it, put some dividers in, put back what you need and put

everything else where else it belongs in the house. Because most of the stuff in a junk drawer doesn't belong there. And most of it's actually junk, like old receipts and gum wrappers and dried out markers. And a lot of it can be tossed. But I love this idea of just clearing your space. And when your space is clear, I feel like your mind can be clearer. Absolutely. We moved house a few months ago and like, it's unbelievable what you find in drawers. And it has like no purpose. You don't even really know where it came from or what it does. Like we had this whole bowl of keys. I do not know what they locked or unlocked. We've never used them. Do we not keep them?

Do you bring them all with you? Because that's what I do. I just put it all in boxes when I moved and brought it all and it's still in my garage. No, I'd been watching Marie Kondo on Netflix that week. And I decided I would take a pretty brutal approach to the move. And actually, it felt really good because you realize it's been five months and I haven't needed any of that really, really, really, really random stuff that I have no idea what it did. It feels good. And I guess one of the other things that you've included in here, which feels very relevant to right now, but also kind of taps into the idea of creating a tidy space so that your space can create a kind of tidy mind and a calm sense for us is working from home and top tips for that because we all need that right now.

Oh my goodness. The work from home is so funny. So I'm a writer. So I've worked from home for about 12 years. And I was laughing with my expert, Lauren McGoodwin for that one, because when we spoke, she was giving me all these tips and I was literally like breaking all of them. I was like still in my pajamas. I was working from some random room. I was, I had no boundaries whatsoever in the house. But she talks about these great ways to kind of set yourself up. Again, it's about setting yourself up for success. It's taking a little bit of time to give yourself a specific area to work.

You know, preferably you can close the door to it, right? But if it's a small apartment, you can just create a corner that's your workspace so that you know that that's where you work. And then the rest of the house is where you live. And so there's not so many blurred lines, because I think that's what happens when we work from home. And she also recommends not starting work the second you wake up, right? Don't wake up, open your laptop and start answering emails. You should have a morning routine like you would if you were going into an office. And I think that's like really important. And showering, I mean, that's showering and getting dressed. I think pre-pandemic, that was probably more important, but now I feel like, you know,

you don't have to put on a suit, but I think putting on some clothes and feeling like you're working. And one of the things that I thought was great for that one is getting dress signals to everyone else in the house that you are working, right? If you're walking around the house in your pajamas, people might assume that you're available to be talked to or asked favors of. But if you are in some sort of work clothes and in your little workspace, then people know you're working. And then, you know, this idea of not multitasking, which I thought was so important. When you work from home, it's always like, oh, I'm just going to go throw in a load of laundry,

or I'm going to do some chores. But she says, it's really important to treat your work day like a work day. And when you need a break, go take a break, go take a walk, get outside, do something for yourself. And to give your brain a rest, don't take your break and go clean your house or do laundry. And I think that is very important because we can, you know, we can get really distracted by our personal to-do list when we're working from home. And in order to do it effectively, I think we need to kind of set boundaries for ourselves. And that's something that I think we all have been working on, right, for the last few months. But for me, it's been especially tough and important to try to set those boundaries and close those doors and ignore the children,

the interruptions. Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure anyone else who's been working at home with their kids feels that. I definitely find it so so challenging whenever I can hear my daughter just like dying to like rush out of the online meeting and like go and see what she's doing following on from that you just spent in there um about kind of to-do lists and and what we've got to do and get done you've got one which I feel like we we all need some help on is how to write a to-do list that will actually do. Because I can't tell you how many things just sit on my to-do list. And sometimes I go back through the list when I'm like really reading it properly, thinking what I need to do that day. And there's things that I think that have been on there for like months and months,

and I'm not even really sure what they are anymore. Well, I think that's step five or six in that is don't put things on the to-do list that you don't, that you know you won't do, right? Because then they just make you feel bad. Like I for years would put on there, like organize this photo album or, you know, whatever. And I think that we have these lists, right? That kind of sit on our desks and taunt us. But what we need to do is transfer those lists into our calendar so that we know like rather than putting on like pick up dog food, we need to put it in our calendar at like Tuesday at five o'clock on your way home from work or whatever. That's when I'm going to pick up dog food. And then it releases your brain from thinking about it because when we don't have things written in our calendar, we just kind of keep, it keeps popping up into our brain, right? Oh, I have dog food. Oh,

I need dog food. So putting it actually into your calendar, I think is really key. And then putting some of those like items, some of those, like the other 5%, this expert calls it, which is all those annoying tasks that we don't really want to do, but we have to do. And putting those together, like scheduling like a 20 minute block where you're going to be like, okay, I'm going to bang this out. I'm going to call this person. I'm going to make this doctor's appointment. I'm going to organize that email or whatever it is, and just doing those things and getting them done. And another expert calls it eating the frog, which is like from Mark Twain. It's like, if you have to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning, which is like from Mark Twain. It's like, if you have to eat a frog,

it's best to do it first thing in the morning, get it out of the way. So I think like that goes back to getting up early, being productive and knocking some of these things off. Because as much as you find a to-do list that you haven't checked off and you feel, oh, but when you see a to-do list and you can check it all off, there's no better feeling, right? Yeah. Oh, it's the most satisfying thing in the whole wide world. It really, really, really is. And I guess just one more in this theme that I feel like is of a similar ilk, but feels again, something, well, that I definitely need help with is staying on top of our inbox. Because it's so funny. My husband and I, we actually went out for dinner last night and we were talking about this. And I was saying about how my grandpa, we went to see them at the weekend and like,

they would start work at nine and be home at 5.30 every single day. And then when they were home, they were actually home. And I feel like emails are a blessing because they allow us to communicate really freely. And that's amazing. But at the same time time it feels like you have such like inbox anxiety of like trying to stem the tide that is everyone's inbox and the busyness of it and the kind of overwhelming nature of it at times where it feels like you cannot get on top of it and I wondered what your experts tips there were on dealing with it so Justin Kerr is our is my email expert. And he had such fantastic tips about everything involving email. But just in order to get caught up, he says to start your day or get to work or get to your computer 10 minutes early and spend those 10 minutes just reviewing and answering all the new emails, get those out of the way. And then, you know, we all have those five minute bursts of time throughout the day, right? Like in between meetings, in between calls, whatever it is, just jump on and respond, respond, respond, get, get some emails out of your inbox.

But I think the key, the part that I found most fascinating that he said is the reason people wind up working so long and getting inundated by their inboxes is because we're not very good at writing emails. So what we need to do is focus on writing clearer emails where the ask is right up front, where people know exactly what they can respond to so that we're not spending our day waiting for a response in an email, right? So being very clear in the subject line, starting with your conclusion, what it is you want right up front, and using bullet points and white space in your emails. Because most people are looking at an email on an iPhone, right, or on some kind of device. We might write it on a big laptop, but they might be looking at it quickly. And if we want to get the response we want so that we

can get back to them, we kind of have to write really good, solid emails. And then he talked about replying all, which can often wreck our inbox, right? When people just reply, I'll reply, I'll reply all. And I always thought I was doing a favor by not replying all when someone put me on a big chain. And he says, actually, if you're put on a chain, you should reply all because then everyone else knows that they have your buy-in. They're not sitting around waiting to say, oh, well, did Aaron respond? What did Aaron say? So you should reply all. But when you're sending an email, be really careful who you CC, like only CC people who need to know, because then again, you're not being kind to your inbox. But the idea of just getting

in a little early each day, he said, you can back it up by 10 minutes a day if you need to. So by the end of the week, you should be completely like caught up. And again, it's about thinking about, it might be uncomfortable for, you know, a few days, but it's about thinking about that feeling you'll have when you feel completely caught up and you're not looking at all those unanswered emails. You know, I think that's what you have to kind of focus on. And also, you know, one other thing that he said, which I loved was, if you need something from someone, give them a deadline, but don't give them, don't say end of day Thursday, right? Say, can I get this back by Thursday at 322? And he said, you know, this sets your deadline apart from others, and it helps people respond to you and kind of keep things moving.

Because he called end of day Thursdays like the white noise of offices because everyone's end of day is something different. And if you really need a response from someone, you can kind of give them an odd deadline. So, again, it comes back to like writing efficient emails. And then and I've learned anytime I email this guy now, I'm like, oh my goodness, am I doing this right? Am I, am I bold certain things? Oh yeah. He says to bold certain things, you know, and I think we spend so much time like, hi, how are you? You know, it's just like, get to the point. Like people just, you know, need, you know, you can be kind, but to the point. And I think you want to be writing emails that are easy to respond to. It's basically just bringing efficiency to every part of your life, as you said at the beginning, which I love. So moving

on to a slightly different topic here, there was one, I think it was from Dr. Oz on how to de-stress in under a minute, which I think is something that sounds absolutely brilliant and probably would be a skill that we'd all take so much from. I love this one. Yeah, it's from Dr. Oz. And it's this idea that we all hold a lot of stress in our face. And I just wanted things in the book that were really doable for people. And this one is one you can do at your desk, you can do at a red light, you can do at a family dinner, Christmas time, whatever.

And you just, you know, you put your thumbs on each side of the bridge of your nose and, you know, you push in and count eight to 10 seconds and you breathe. And again, it's, you're breathing, you're, you're taking a beat and you're resetting yourself, but just, it feels so good to like push those like pressure points on your face. And then again, above your brow bone with your index fingers and your thumbs, like sort of squeezing around your brow bone and closing your eyes and breathing. It just takes you out of whatever moment you're in, whatever stress you're feeling and helps you reset, right? Whenever you come back to whatever it is you were doing, you're going to feel different. It's just interrupting your brain a little bit,

like just enough, hopefully to reset you. It completely works, especially if you're getting, you know, if you're looking at a screen all day and you're feeling like you start to get that like headache. I use it a lot, especially lately. It's really interesting. You know, we're starting to understand what a huge impact on our wellbeing stress has. And I think it's, you know, it's so easy throughout the day for something to kind of rattle you or throw you. And I think it's, you know, it's so easy throughout the day for something to kind of rattle you or throw you. And I think finding like really manageable tools like that, you can genuinely maybe just go to the bathroom if you're in the office or something, or just go and sit quietly, you know, on your sofa and just literally do it for a minute. And then, as you said, you can go back to what you're doing, but you're probably going back to what you're doing in such a different headspace to then be able to kind of deal with whatever the stressor is so much more effectively and with so much less stress and I think so often and I'm

so guilty of this we can react to stuff so much you know something stresses us out and we instantly reply to that message and we're like no no, no, no, no, no. And actually doesn't necessarily help with anything. Oh my goodness. Yes. We're all supposed to take a breath and pause before we pounce. That was another expert's phrase, which is so important and it's so hard, but like often, like you said, if you walk away for a minute and then you come back, you probably won't write the text that you initially were going to write, right. Or, or send the email when you can kind of take yourself out of that space. And again, it's just, like you said, it's just a reminder that we all get wrapped up and we all need these little breaths throughout

our day. Absolutely. It's amazing. As you said, just taking the emotion out for a quick second. And what about meditating? Because I think that's something our listeners are very interested in, but I think a lot of people have a bit of a kind of mental block of it's not for them and it's difficult. And you've got some really nice tips in how to approach this in there. Again, thinking about just, you know, even if it's like two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, I did a five minute one this morning. I couldn't sleep. I was up at like 4.30 this morning and I did one and it just created so much more calm and energy for the day. Yes, exactly. The meditation. And that's exactly what my expert said is even five minutes in the morning, like if you want to set your day up for success, do five minute meditation in the morning and like you will have such a better day.

What I love about Susie Yaloff Schwartz, and she started a studio in LA, it was meditation for people who don't think they can meditate like me, right? And sounds like some of your listeners who might feel like I want to do it. It's something, speaking of to-do lists that we don't actually do, I put it on my list like almost every day, like meditate, meditate. I'm like, oh, darn it. I didn't have time. It's like, of course you have time. You can meditate for one minute. And I love what Susie says. It's one of my favorite quotes in the book. She says, if you want to make your body stronger, you have to move it. But if you want to strengthen your brain, you have to keep it still. And she really just suggests trying like

closing your eyes and quieting the mental to-do list that we all have going on in our brains at all times. And just being aware of your breath and, you know, putting your hand on your chest can help when you're breathing, like just kind of like focusing on your breath and then trying to stop thinking about your breath and then being in the moment, right? Which is what we're all, we all struggle with being in the moment and listening to whatever it is, the birds chirping or whatever's happening around you and not thinking about, you know, what you're making for dinner or that text your friend just sent. And the thing I loved most about this for meditation was what she said is people think they have to clear their minds completely to meditate and they don't. It's impossible unless you're like some huge guru. You're not really going to be able to clear your mind and sit there in silence.

It's this, it's this dance between the thoughts that wander in and then focusing back on your breath. And, you know, they are going to wander in and then you can kind of, they say, name it to tame it.

You know, you can say, Oh, I'm stressing about this right now. Or, Oh, I'm thinking about, you know,

my daughter's dance recital later and whatever it is, you name it and then you move on and you go back to focusing on your breath. And she says, if you can do that for even like one minute, going back and forth, like the dance between your breath and these thoughts wandering in, that's meditating. She was like, congratulations, you're meditating. So I think we make it harder than it has to be. And I'm one of these people who has always thought like, well, I can't do that. I can't sit still.

I can't quiet my brain. And I love this idea that like, you don't have to. And that's not the point. The point is to notice what's happening in your brain and then go back to your breath and keep trying. And eventually you'll be able to do it for longer and longer stretches. Yeah, it's such an important way of looking at it. And I think when you can get past that, it can become incredibly calming and also amazingly like portable and you can do it anywhere. And so

continuing the calming theme that we're on at the moment, and this is something I definitely need tips on because I'm so bad at it. My husband is the best napper ever. He can nap anywhere and everywhere, any time of day. I am so rubbish at it. Give us Arianna Huffington's tips on how to have a nap. It's so funny. And you have a little one and you're pregnant. Like people used to say, when you have a baby, like nap when they nap. And I was like, I can't nap. Like I could never nap. I don't think I ever napped even when I had little ones. It's really tough. But again, similar to meditation and what Ariana Huffington says is we make it harder than it has to be, right? We kind of overthink it and we get in our own way when we're trying to take a nap because we think like, you know, oh, everything

has to be perfect and this and that, and it should be, and you should try. And I think the biggest thing that gets in our way when we're trying to nap is noise. And so really, if you can put yourself in a room where it's quiet and remove your devices from the room, that is huge. And then she also talks about keeping the room cool. And I think that was so interesting because even like a slight drop in body temperature signals asleep to your brain. So if you can think about how you would want your nighttime to be, like when you're going to sleep and set yourself up like that, like any sleep aids you use, like a mask or white noise or whatever it is. And then again, meditation can help. One thing that she mentions and that I try to do is having a piece of paper there just so you can write something down. Because a lot of times when I

try to lie down for a nap, I think, oh my gosh, I forgot this, or oh my gosh, I forgot that. And then my brain just goes around and around and I never fall asleep. So getting things out onto paper really quickly so that you can kind of focus on sleep is important. And then, and this is, I think what, you know, something like my husband can fall asleep in the middle of the day at the most random times easily. And I think it's because he's able to just go with it. And that's sort of what Arianna Huffington says is the best time to take a nap is when you feel it, like you need it. And then you're able to like, just fall asleep. If it's, if it's happening, like, don't try to like, be like, Oh, I have to have perfect this and perfect that and do this first. Like,

you know, those feelings you have when you're getting really tired, like just lay down right then, you know, just do it. So I love this too. And I think napping is like so important and such a life skill that certain people have. You're right. Like certain people are so good at it and other people are terrible at it. And I will say I'm not great at it still, but I'm getting there. And it's, it's a great tool to have in your, uh, in your back pocket. Absolutely. I think my husband and I were talking about that the other day. It's amazing how productive you can be when you take 20 minutes to eat a proper meal or rest if you feel exhausted, because then you go back to your desk with such energy and focus and productivity as opposed to just kind of try and

like slog it out when you're just sitting there with your eyes drooping. I feel like it's been one positive of the last few months is a slight deconditioning of exactly how the day has to look and how the day has to be structured. And a slight increase in flexibility, because of working from home more that certainly has made me much more productive. Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of people are realizing like, wow, this doesn't have to look a certain way. Like every, you know, there's people who are, they're like, wait, I don't have to commute on a train for two hours each way.

And it's definitely opening up everyone's eyes to like maybe some more positive wellness and, you know, taking better care of ourselves. And some of that includes a nap in the middle of the day, which is great. Definitely. you know taking better care of ourselves and some of that includes a nap in the middle of the day definitely and um i think this is something that's i mean it's naturally been easier this year because there's not been so much going on and i i think we've probably all realized and it's literally my husband and i were talking about exactly this this weekend like how nice it's been not to have to try and make up terrible

excuses to not do things that you don't really want to do. There's obviously lots of things that we talked about at the beginning that we don't particularly want to do like household chores, but like you need to do, and there's no two ways around that. But then there's the kind of things that you don't actually really, you don't need to do them. You know, it's some sort of acquaintances drinks party for this where you don't really know anyone. You don't really like anyone and you don't, you really don't have to go, but you feel a kind of moral obligation.

And we end up saying yes to all these things that we don't really want to do. And we just exhaust ourselves in the process and we just end up taking on too much. And then we're rushing, rushing, rushing. And it has such repercussions on our life. So tell us, how do you say no? It's so funny. It's true. At this point, I feel like most people would say yes to anything right now, right? Like, oh, I remember when we used to have to make excuses. I totally, my husband and

I have that conversation a lot too. But I loved this one so much. And I think it's so important for women, especially because we have so much guilt around saying no, you know, to helping, helping at our children's school or work things that we don't necessarily need to do, or even like drinks with friends on a Tuesday night that, you know, it doesn't really fit in our schedule. And I think Laura Vanderkam, who's a great efficiency expert, she talks about this and it's ask yourself, would I be willing to do this thing tomorrow? Because it's easy to sign yourself up for something, you know, a work event in April or a trip with friends in September or whatever it is. But if you think about what's on your calendar tomorrow and what I want to do this thing tomorrow, it's easier to kind of visualize because you know where you're going to be

headspace wise tomorrow. You know what you're going to have on your plate tomorrow. And I think we often forget about our future self. We kind of sign our future self up for things that we wouldn't necessarily want to do today because we think, oh, like that future version of me is going to be so productive. She'll totally be on it and be able to take this on. Or we just think like, whatever, that's her problem. I'm not going to worry about it right now. Right. But if you think about would I say yes tomorrow, it helps you come up with, you know, it helps you understand like, okay, here's what's my typical schedule is going to look like, because you may not have anything on your calendar when you're asked to do this thing, but you will when it comes to that point. And so the question isn't like, would I rather do this

thing or nothing? It's would I rather do this thing or everything else that's already in my packed life? And just to remind yourself that that time is valuable. And once it's spent, you can't get it back. And you might need to save that time for something that means more to you, whether that's time with your family or whether it's a bigger work project. Just thinking about how you want to spend your time, being careful about that is really important. And I think so many of us don't do that. We just say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, because we feel like we have to be seen being productive and conquering and always doing. But being busy is different from being productive. And you don't want to just appear busy. You want to be filling your calendar with things that are actually like really deeply important to you or to

your family, or again, like certain things you have to do. And the other part that I think is important with saying no is as soon as you know you're going to say no, say no. Don't leave people hanging, but also don't leave yourself hanging, right? Like a lot of times I'll get asked to do something and I try to like hem and haw and think, how can I make this work? And oh, I really should do it, should do it, but I don't want to. And the second you say no, you can kind of, you let them off the, you let yourself off the hook, you tell them it's not going to work and you can kind of move on because you really want to, where's all your attention going? You know, you don't need to be spending your mental energy thinking about this. And so that also like helps you to like assuage

any guilt if it's not something that you, that you need to be doing. Yeah, a hundred percent. And I guess there's one, I had 15, but we're going to, we're going to settle on Dan because there's been too much to talk about with each one. 15 was ambitious. So let's have this as the last one, which I think feels like a really good one, which feel quite nervous walking into a room, especially if we don't know people or, you know, trying to sort of do something at work and present ourselves in a certain way. And I know for me, I certainly get self-conscious and insecure and nervous at these moments. And how do you walk into a room with confidence? I feel like that's a life skill and a life hack that we all really need. Absolutely.

And I think it could be any room, right? It doesn't have to be a big work meeting where you're about to present. It could be a room of family members. It could be a room at your child's school or a room in a university. It could be anywhere. My expert, Lydia Fennett, says come up with an opening line, right? Whatever your opening line is, think about what you're going to say when you get in that room. And it could be, I'm going to talk about my commute over because it was interesting, or I,

you know, the weather or something you saw on the news or whatever it is, but just knowing what you're going to say when you walk into a room. And I now do this, even when I'm going like to my family's for dinner to my parents' house, like, I'm just like, you know what, I'm going to walk in. And it's also a way to like, think about how you want to, what energy you want to bring to a room and then checking yourself out in a mirror. And this isn't about vanity. It's about being able to know that you're, you know, you have nothing in your teeth or your hair's in place or your buttons are buttoned properly. So that way you can stand tall and walk in and not be fidgeting or thinking about, oh my goodness, did I, you know, did I have a piece of salad in my teeth? And then again, here's another breath, right? We're taking a deep breath and kind of thinking about letting that

adrenaline that's going through your body, like energize you instead of giving you jitters, just letting it energize you. And this, this I love, she says, she wants you to say, I've got this out loud, you know, and again, maybe you don't need that when you're walking into dinner with your family, but maybe you need it if you're going into, you know, a big work meeting or something, but saying it out loud is just a good reminder. And maybe it's a little embarrassing, but you know, you got to remind yourself that, that you do. And again, it's just like taking that pause and taking that minute. And then standing tall, of course, shoulders back and, you know, walking in and smiling. But I love having an opening line. And it's interesting to try that with anything, going into drinks with friends or whatever you're doing, just have an open line.

And it can also set the tone for whatever you're going into which um which i really like so do you feel like there are any kind of key themes and takeaways that run between obviously you've looked at so many different things and we barely scratched the surface of all the work you did on how to kind of bring a bit more kind of joy and efficiency and and into your life. But do you feel like there are any kind of key takeaways that actually really summarize actually so many of the different hacks? And there are kind of a few key things that we could just bring into our thought patterns every single day to create kind of less stressful, happier life. I do. I think that one of the things that really is like a

through line through the whole book is this idea of being considerate of your future self. You know, whether it's waking up, whether it's spending money, my finance expert talks about thinking about yourself as an old woman or man and giving that person a persona and a name and thinking like when you make a purchase or doing anything with finances, consider your future self and how she is going to be living and is buying this 12th faux fur pillow that you don't really need a good choice for, you know, her down the road. But it's this idea of thinking about your future self, thinking about before you go to bed at night, straightening the kitchen, getting the sink cleaned out.

So that way, when you wake up, you can start your day a little feeling a little bit like a clean slate. And being considerate of our future self, I think, is something that we often forget about, especially when we're plowing through the day with all of this stuff. And even with, you know, with our food, with our groceries, with our what we're eating and what we're buying. I think all of that is so important. But I think for me, the goal with writing this book was not to do these things so that you can be perfect or have a great Instagram post or whatever it is. It was just little kind of tweaks that you can make throughout your day that are not going to cause you great stress to do. You're not going to have to go out and buy things or try new things. You're just going to have to go out and buy things or try new things. You're just going to have to rethink the way you're doing things.

Anyway, these are all things you're doing all day, every day. And if you can kind of make little tweaks here and there, you're going to find that you feel really good about yourself. And who doesn't want to go grocery shopping and say, well, that was easy or fold laundry and say, wow, like that was more pleasurable than it usually is. And so it's these little wins, I think that are what I needed in my life, because that's really why I wrote this book is because I, at 40 years old, realized I still

wasn't doing things the right way or a way that made my day kind of run smoothly. I felt like, often felt frazzled and like I was shooting from the hip at all times and unable to have that sense of like peace and calm with which to bring to these tasks. And so I think you said it earlier about just being considered and thinking through some of this stuff,

taking a beat, taking a moment and really focusing on how we're doing these things instead of just doing them, being more mindful and finding the joy in these areas of our life that are our life, right? So I think that that's definitely one of the best parts that I find in the book is just, you know, it's nothing too overwhelming. I'm not, I couldn't do a full overhaul of every aspect of my life, but I can make small, little small incremental changes that have big, big payoffs in terms of my mental wellbeing

and just how my house runs and how my life runs. Yeah, I love that. I think that's definitely my takeaway from it. And I definitely noticed that in myself, just bringing a little bit more mindfulness and conscious thought into all the tiny actions you do every day makes such a huge difference. The impact, as you said, on your self-esteem is actually really high, more so than you would think that your self-esteem could be linked to stacking or non-stacking a dishwasher.

But actually, when you do things properly it just gives you like a little spring in your step and you feel like you're doing life properly and it just makes you feel good and it has such a knock-on effect the next task and so I think your idea of thinking about your future self and as you said like tidy in the kitchen so you wake up in the morning and it feels fresh and you can start your routine afresh it's more powerful than than you think and and our kind of big big focus at delicious yellow and on the podcast they're like all these tiny parts and some some bigger but just all the little bits that add up to our well-being and our health and our happiness and i think you know actually you never think about the dishwasher being a part of that but it actually

really is so it's been really nice to focus in on like what life actually is and how we can get more from that today. So huge thank you for your time. The little book of life skills is out in a couple of weeks. And it's it's absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much. This was so fun. Really appreciate your time today, Aaron. And thank you guys all so much for listening. We will be back again next Tuesday. I'll put the details for the book in the show notes below as well. Otherwise, if you've enjoyed it, please do rate it, review it, share it with your friends. Hopefully it's a very good kind of September boost back to school, new habits kind of podcast that you've enjoyed today. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada. Reach great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads.

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