How to Beat Exhaustion Syndrome

How do I renew? Doing what I love energizes me! I love being a legal nurse consultant which helps to keep me going. But it requires a great deal of effort (and diligence) to overcome inertia and to get this business moving. It also requires a lot of tedious tasks. So, I dance!

I started dancing for exercise, but found that the socialization aspect of dancing kept me dancing even when I was too tired (and stressed!) to put one foot in front of the other. It is also a great stress reliever (as is any exercise). The secret is to find time for it every day. In order to do that I decided to take dance lessons and expand my repertoire. Now I dance ballroom, latin (my favorite!), country and western, contra, and belly dancing. Dancing enables me to take time out of my day and STOP! Otherwise I would just keep doing “one more thing” until I drop (around 1 am.)

So if you love to dance or have been putting off taking those dance lessons, now is the time to do it. You may not end up on “Dancing with the Stars,” but who cares? You’re dancing! Oh, and one more thing….
you’ll enjoy it!

Great post! I remember being told by a minister once that he had a burn out syndrome and I remember thinking “What the heck is that?”. Then he explained about the counseling, death and dying, business to run and such. I regret not conversing on the topic at length with the man, but he was a patient.

I’m not a morning person. Thank goodness I am a CLNC^® consultant and don’t have to face people in the morning if I don’t want to. Good grief! I worked years of midnights and afternoon shifts. For me, the night time has always been appreciated when it is quiet and there are no phones and well…to me, it just smells better!

I also read. It makes me happy. I have a variety of things I read. I love the magazine Mental Floss. Its fun and avant-garde. Albeit, it’s not for everyone. Seems I have many moods and what I choose to read is reflected there. Sometimes it’s case law. I can become very engrossed in that. Especially if it’s a good murder case or perhaps it is a case that was paramount in changing the world views. I like Mark Twain other times. Sentimental and quotes worth keeping. Thick descriptions of the simplest things!

To unwind and to keep my marriage healthy, for the past 25 years, my husband and I walk every single night. At precisely 10:30, with a glass of wine. We talk about his day mostly. Though he listens to mine, this is actually our alone time and we have shared it since we met. When we turned 45 or so, we started adding red wine or Port to our walks. There have been nights we walk for hours. Other times, it’s just a few minutes. But we always walk and talk. I guess we can say things in the open outdoors that aren’t always comfortable inside the house. So, the time I spend with him is for me too. Listening to him talk about his day, takes my mind from the troubles of my own. His world is so much different than mine. It either calms me or bores me to death, we won’t say which, who would know?

Anyway, I guess it’s just another example that it’s in the giving we receive. Sort of like Vickie.

Vickie, I appreciate the reminder about relaxation. I’m not consistent, nor persistent at it. I’m going shopping for some green tea, perhaps that will get me to sleep before 0200. Just before going to bed, I’m planning my morning. Am I going to call an attorney later this morning, and if so I need to be up in a little while. Next I’m wondering what kind of marketing can I do today (I’ve been at it a little less than one year). I look forward to my five year successful anniversary. For now, I pray, read my Bible, meditate, and in addition, I’m vowing to enjoy green tea and exercise! To us relaxed CLNC^® consultants!

They way morning people feel when they wake up ready to start their day, tackle to-do lists, see the sunrise and spill their enthusiasm and smiles wherever they go is the way I feel in the evening. When 7:00pm hits, all of a sudden I want to research on the computer or clean out a closet; I want to talk to my husband, who is a morning person, about deep things; and I want to call CLNC^® colleagues about exciting things. The clock is my enemy and I watch it close because by 9:00pm any activities that I plan to do will be solitary ones.

Alone in my office at night, I can be as noisy as I want and disappear into a case with no distractions or experiment with marketing pieces. I love looking out my office window into the night. At 2:00am when I make the short walk back to the house, I stop and look up thinking to myself, “Is anyone else seeing and hearing this?” The thickness of the stars stretch across the Milky Way and I try to indentify constellations and planets. The sounds in the silence are sounds that I rarely hear during the day: the kitty purring at my feet, the moo of a cow in the distance, the pumpjack across the field, our dog snoring in the doghouse. The chill in the Colorado night air feels good because I know a warm fire is a few steps away.

I like to read, also. After returning to the house at 2:00am, I go to the library which is actually the guest bathroom. I soak in a hot tub of water with a late night snack and read and read and read. I don’t always get to stay up this late. Unfortunately, the world is set up for morning people so I have to go to bed at midnight or 1:00am.

Thanks Vickie for reminding us how important it is to rest and re-energize. What is the end of the day for many is the beginning for me. Life can sneak up on me and rob me of time that should be spent caring and nurturing myself. Whether that time is early, mid-day, evening, or night, it is just as important as anything else we do for our attorney-clients or family. We will then be ready to meet our obligations healthy and whole.

Caring for myself is the only way to succeed at anything in the long run and no one else is in charge of that but me. How I handle this can be the determining factor in how I handle everything else.

I so appreciated this topic and want to share my morning start…my nourishing book is the Bible and this is what I read this morning: “I was unsure of how to go about this and felt totally inadequate – I was scared to death, if you want to know the truth of it – and so nothing I said could have impressed you or anyone else. But the message came through anyway. God’s spirit and power did it, which made it clear that your life of faith is a response to God’s power, not to some fancy mental or emotional footwork by me or anyone else.”

My plants are my renewal time. Plants in the house, outside in the landscape, anywhere and everywhere! Nothing relaxes and centers me like a little time playing in the dirt, admiring the blooms, and making sure everyone is watered and fed! Nurturing plants to their blooming best nourishes my soul in a world that too often travels just a little too fast.

Slow down! Take time to smell the flowers!