Are you feeling worn out?

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How many times have you thought:

“I’m exhausted….....come the end of next week I will have got stuff out of the way and will take an afternoon off to sit and do nothing. That will recharge my batteries.”

By the end of the next week of course your to-do list has had loads of things added to it and there are still jobs on there that you haven’t got completed yet....

You are left exhausted.

There can be lots of reasons why we feel exhausted.

Extreme tiredness or overwhelm should be checked by your GP so let’s assume you’ve done that.

Tiredness and overwhelm can be purely down to physical demands on us.

You get up in the morning and are running all day to get everything completed. You flop into bed, late at night, only to get less sleep than you need before getting up and repeating the process.

It can be down to emotional factors.

You're not in a good relationship. Your kids are having problems at school. Your finances are a worry.

All of these things will drain your energy.

There may be health factors involved.

You may have a condition that depletes you of energy or enthusiasm…… or both.

In order to get a grip on our feelings of overwhelm, exhaustion and ultimately unhappiness which is what it will all lead to, we need to take a look at ourselves.

The bottom line is that we need to address the cause of our feelings; whether that is having a manically busy time all day every day, being miserable in our relationships or helping our children to resolve their problems.

Getting to the bottom of things may take a bit more digging but in the meantime, be good to yourself.

If you need a day off, organise that now.

You know that with the best will in the world, if you leave it until next week when you’ll have some time, things will have changed and that time won’t be available.

What would happen if you took the rest of today off?

You would use a half day holiday from work?

The dinner wouldn’t get prepared?

The phone call to sort out your electricity bill wouldn’t get made?

And what would be the consequence of these things happening?

On the minus side:

· you may not have enough holiday to take all the Christmas shopping days that you usually take. You may have to spend a Saturday morning shopping instead come Christmas.

· You wouldn’t have the special meal which you always make on a Friday. Instead you may have to have a pizza out of the freezer, phone for a take-away or treat yourself out to dinner.

· The error on your electricity bill wouldn’t get sorted until the following day.

On the plus side:

You will have a lovely relaxing time, doing nothing, or doing something but that something being a thing that energises you and makes you feel great.

Not something that ticks off an item on your to-do list.

You may be surprised at what ideas and solutions come to you when you give your mind time to rest and relax.

Whether you come up with a brilliant plans to resolve things or not, you will feel so much better for it.

You will be much more effective the next day for having had a rest.

Taking some time off for you isn’t a naughty treat. It’s a necessity.

If you continue to push yourself, you may find that you start getting more colds than normal. You start catching every bug that’s going around. You start to suffer from headaches, stomach aches, indigestion, muscle ache.

Whilst you need to get your GP to check these things out, the chances are that it is your body shouting at you to give yourself a break.

Listen to your body.

Disease.

Dis-ease.

Your body talks to you about this un-ease it’s experiencing by sending signals that you know mean to rest.

Take heed.

You are worth it.

I’m always here to help if you need it, but otherwise, take time out for yourself, relax, and ENJOY IT!