Today’s industries are usually fast-paced, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of becoming a workaholic. Successfully juggling work with your hobbies and social life seems to be so difficult these days that it could qualify as an Olympic sport.

Paradoxically, this obsession with work makes a person counter-productive. Studies suggest work-related depression and anxiety is on the rise, resulting in lower productivity levels. A survey about the British workforce revealed that 12.5 million business days were lost in 2017 due to work-related stress, depression, and anxiety, and burnout from workload was one of the main causes.

In other words, a lot of employees know how to work hard, but not all know how to work smart. Maintain your productivity with these tips and get your work-life balance in check.

1. Make sleep a priority

Most goal-getters would think getting enough sleep is expendable. In truth, however, performance soars when a person gets a good night’s sleep, and Leesa has listed the reasons why sleep is important: well-rested people are less stressed, more creative, and more likely to enjoy healthy habits like exercising.

Generally, people with sufficient sleep are happier; and happy people prove to be better workers. Media strategist Danielle Sabrina delved into the correlation between the positive emotion and productivity, stating that a happy organisation has mutual respect, support, and appreciation among its members. All of this results to a collaborative work culture.

2. Start the day right

A good start is the best way to a good finish. Taking control of the first few hours of the day carries out into how the rest of your day will go. Forbes revealed that the most successful people start their day with a personalised routine, motivating them for the day’s work and improving their mood even during the toughest of work days.

3. Stop trying to do everything in a day

A good way to plan the day is to identify and/or write the top tasks that must be accomplished and commit to completing them, with no excuses. By applying priority levels to your tasks, the mind can concentrate on what’s important without being frazzled by an overload of other lesser responsibilities, leading to more work is done in less time.

4. Do work at the workplace, and nowhere else

One of the most crucial rules for the best work-life balance is to not take work home. Separating professional from personal spaces gives you that much-needed room to breathe once out of the office. Simple habits like turning off all work notifications on devices after business hours, or removing all work-related items from a home space, keep you more relaxed. This way, you’re eliminating the unnecessary stress from the visual reminders of your job. It also helps you focus more on accomplishing work within the designated working hours, and ultimately prevents burnout.

5. Remember to invest in a social life

It’s important to have consistent reminders that there’s life outside of work. The Muse suggests scheduling recurring social activities, such as weekly dinner dates with friends, or a monthly book club. Planning a social life around work instead of the other way around provides a person with a source of enjoyment from something other than work-related success, and an avenue to blow off steam if the work week didn’t go as planned.

All things considered, achieving a good work-life balance has a lot to do with perspective. Things like adequate sleep, morning routines, and leisure spaces might be simple for some people, but the combined impact of these minute details can effectively boost work productivity. Ultimately, success in your profession not only lies in how much work you can accomplish in a day but also in how you improve yourself on a holistic level.

For More Articles on Stress-Free Lifestyle Tips Click Here: Balance

Start Your New Stress-Free Lifestyle

This year it’s all about health and happiness, trend forecasters are expecting clean living to explode in the coming months. If you want to grab this year by the horns and be the best you can be, step outside your comfort zone and give some of these trends a try.

Have Protein in the Morning 

Mornings in winter can be tough to start right especially when rising in the dark. Start your morning right with a simple shake to give you all the nutrients you need to kick-start your 2018 and nourish your body to keep it stress-free in the morning.

Vega is an incredible plant-based protein that helps build and maintain muscles with healthy eating, active living and protein.

Vega® Clean* Protein is a complete, multisource blend of premium plant-based protein made from pea, hemp, alfalfa and pumpkin. Protein is one of the bodies main building block and essential for concentration.

Reduce stress levels and start 2018 as you mean to go on.

I simply wake in the morning, head to the kitchen, grab my blender and put one scoop of Vega® Clean Protein Blend in with water or a nut milk (I use Pip N Nut Coconut Almond Milk) with ice.

Introduce Stress-Free Décor

Decor trends will take on a health-centred approach and embrace them.

My top purchases for de-stressing my decor are;

• Candles: Starting the day in low lit and beautiful smells completely zen’s me out rather than the bright lights
• Amazon Echo: The latest gadgets that can wake you easily into the day, inform you of the weather to help assist in outfit choices and put on your favourite morning playlist to bring you into each day refreshed an organized.
• Dyson Air Purifier: Pollution is a body killer. If you live in the city then I would definitely recommend purchasing an air cleaner. This air purifier pulls out pollutants, allergens and nasties to give you cleaner and fresher air. This will help you to breathe easier, be better for your skin and make your environment cleaner.
• Plants: Fill your room full of nature. Plants not only are proven to relax you but they also soak up Co2 and emit Oxygen back into your room providing you with better air.

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Plan Your Goals For Year but Make them Bite-size

New years resolutions are great but most people find them stressful and can end up making you feel like a failure before you have even begun.

Make your new goals bitesize, achievable and timely – like micro goals.

For example; Your goal is to eat more Plant-Based Food.

Instead of worrying about every meal being vegetarian or worrying about what to cook for you or for your family/friends – simplify the goal and make it stress-free.

Set a goal that every day you will pack your lunch and include 3 vegetables.

Then for your dinner, you will include 3 more.

That equates to six portions of vegetables without the stress of worrying about what to cook or catering for other people who are eating with you and you have put your goal first!

Re-Nourish Your Body

Your body detects the slightest changes and stresses and adapts to it by releasing hormones. Fight or flight is one of the body’s first responses to any situation, and if the body is not fuelled correctly, can lead to either under or overeating due to stress.

To enable a balanced reaction to stressful situations, eat nourishing food regularly throughout the day. Healthy, simple and full of nutrients.

My simple Stress-Free days includes (but not limited to):

• Greek Yoghurt with Spoon CerealsBerry Fix Museli and Blueberries for Breakfast
• Veggies with Homemade Healthy Hummus 
• A Tasty Salad loaded with;
  • Good fats like avocado or nuts
  • Lots of colour; tomatoes, beetroot, broccoli, carrot, sugar snap peas etc.
  • A protein eggs, fish, chicken, or tofu
  • A drizzle of olive or argan oil
  • Sprinkle with herbs for micronutrients (chopped basil and mint is delicious)
• Delicious Goddess Bowls inspired by Bowls of Goodness

Simplify Your Self Care

This year take the stress out of all those products and simplify your skin routine.

Find your skin type, select the most natural skin regime for you and keep things simple.

My go to’s are;

• Therapi Honey Skincare for cleanser and toner
• Arganic argan oil for face moisturiser and hair masks
• Coconut oil for makeup removal, body moisturiser and pretty much most other things!

Hydration, good fats and a healthy diet are what keeps you looking younger, therefore, your products should only really be to take makeup off, cleanse your skin and re-hydrate.

Apart from that – it is all about diet.

For more ideas on how to introduce more stress-free tips into your lifestyle read more here on:

Balance

Nourish 

Exploring

Style

Too Many Tabs Open

Are you guilty of your screen looking like this?

To some of us, it may feel like we are super organised and make sure we don’t miss something but, in fact, having this much going on at once on our screen limiting our ability to succeed?

With attention spans getting smaller by the day and stress levels going through the roof – there is some consideration that having all your tabs open on your screen as your digital to-do list is actually inhibiting you from performing your best and stressing you out.

Top Reasons Why You May Be A Tab-Aholic;

It Makes Me Work More Efficiently And Faster:

Well, there is a fundamental floor with this argument already. Having lots of tabs open on your computer actually makes your computer slower AND if you ever get the dreaded shutdown – you could end up losing what you have been working on.

In fact having that many tabs open often leaves you getting distracted by something flashing up on another tab (we all know you can get desktop WhatsApp now) and therefore end up not completing a task you were already doing

Top Tip Number One:

Turn WhatsApp off. Fact. Set yourself allocated times you will check it in the day – no-one needs to be online all the time!

Make a rule that if you are working on something that you only open tabs related to that task. Maximum of three.

I am Multi-Tasking and being More Productive:

Hmmmn. When you are jumping from tab to tab your brain is releasing dopamine receptors that are giving you the illusion that you are being more productive. Having multiple tabs open isn’t making you more productive, it’s actually just making you scatterbrained, thus decreasing your ability to remember any single piece of information.

You are effectively are making yourself believe you are being more productive than you are when in fact your are completing small bits of each task yet convincing yourself you are doing more.

Dozens of open tabs signify either procrastination on a truly epic scale or a chronic inability to focus on an immediate task at hand. Either way, it’s not the sign of someone working efficiently.

Top Tip Number Two:

Bring out the old faithful to do list. Set the task and the associated to-dos for that task and prioritise as you go through. If a pen and paper are too pre-historic for you there are some amazing online to do lists such as Wunderlist and Trello where you can work through your to do’s and set reminders to your phone and email.

I Get Stressed Out That I Will Forget Something:

Having lots of tabs open can make you too reliant on your memory rather than training yourself to be organised and tackle each day with a balanced approach.

The reason why this doesn’t work is if the dreaded RESTART or CRASH happens and your browser shuts down… what then. Your reliance on the tabs for your work and to do’s has now caused your stress levels to skyrocket. Thus coursing your body with stress hormones which will have a big impact on your body and frame of mind.

The memory is a wonderful thing and we need to rely on it more take us through the day. Plan effectively, execute accordingly and you will be able to approach each task with the energy required.

Top Tip Number Three:

Keep balanced at work. Work out your priorities for the day. You know the things you have to do by x time, the deadlines and then the other day to day bits. Once you start doing this you will begin a routine of being able to prioritise and tackle each task with 100% effort as it comes.

Conclusion:

• Be kind to yourself, your computer and your stress levels and kill those tabs.
• Plan effectively
• Prioritise like a boss
• Rely on that beautiful mind of yours to keep your day ordered

 You work hard, try to be at the best of your game, spend extra time reading/ learning/ researching, get celebrated for successes but still feel like you are a fraud? Fooling everyone around you? Having no faith that your decisions and convictions mean anything? You may have Imposter Syndrome.