As I write this blog I’m justifying my need to take a break today. This week has been intense to say the least and while next steps are still in the air I know that I still have to plan time to start to take breaks. Not extended lunch hours or less work time necessarily just making it an intentional effort to take a breather from my day.
I found this quote in an article by Fast Company:
“When demand in our lives intensifies, we tend to hunker down and push harder,” says Tony Schwartz, head of New York City-based productivity consulting firm The Energy Project. “The trouble is that, without any downtime to refresh and recharge, we’re less efficient, make more mistakes, and get less engaged with what we’re doing.”
How many of us do this? Quite a few people that I know do and all of us justify it because we have an on-demand lifestyle. We work from everywhere which means we work all of the time unless we put our phones down and actually live in the moment.
Complex concept for workaholics to digest.
Speaking of digesting, my parents taught me from a very young age that food is our fuel and we can handle anything in life if we are doing it with with a full stomach. When I was little I didn’t ask for scientific proof but as an adult I go on a seek and find search with most things that creep into my mind. Such creeping prompted me to find this medical article:
“There is definitely a connection between the brain and the gut,” says Francisco J. Marrero, MD, a gastroenterologist with the Digestive Disease Institute at the Cleveland Clinic. “The gut is called the little brain — it’s the largest area of nerves outside the brain.”
With my IBD diagnosis of Crohn’s Colitis I believe that I’m in hyper aware of the impact food has on my body. I know that I can either handle things on an empty stomach and feel more stressed or I can eat and think about what’s going on so I can handle the day and all that it brings.
But is that why it’s comforting?
“The phrase “comfort food” has been around at least as early as 1966, when the Palm Beach Post used it in a story on obesity: “Adults, when under severe emotional stress, turn to what could be called ‘comfort food’—food associated with the security of childhood, like mother’s poached egg or famous chicken soup.”
While I’m on-the-go today, I cannot eat any comfort food. But I can give myself food that will fuel me through the testing I have and the impending news I’m expecting.
What about you? What do you feed your body to give yourself the fuel you need?