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How are you going to look after yourself this summer?

Guest blog from Natalie McCoy at Urban Sole Holistics - look after yourself.

So with the schools breaking up for the summer holidays, how will you make time for yourself and protect your well-being so you don’t get burnout? You don’t want to be harassed and stressed when the children return to school.

Many of us will be trying to plan the summer holidays down to a T to ensure that they run smoothly and without arguments or the usual “I’m bored, Mommy!” Well, this is definitely what happens in our house, and those of us with children have to keep the children entertained. This sometimes, for many, is their main priority, and they forget to think about themselves.

Well, there are several ways that you can incorporate well-being into your daily routine and for it not to interfere with the summer holidays themselves.

Balance family time with solo activities

Why not connect with nature and go on a family walk where all of you are getting exercise, and the endorphins are increased to allow you to feel mentally and physically better?

Set your alarm slightly earlier and make time to meditate to set you up for the day. Go into your day with clear intentions, and this will allow you to be more focused and refreshed.

Once a day, why not do a mindfulness practice with your family, and get them to focus on the here and now? Get them to look at a picture and really reflect on what is happening just in that moment. 

Be prepared

Remember, when planning for the summer, make sure to schedule you time in for yourself and don’t forget your own well-being. Make time for yourself by doing something solely for you, go with for a coffee, a walk, or even booking a treatment as a treat. 

Preparing healthy meals over the summer and sometimes meal prepping can be a godsend to stopping any of those emergency visits to the supermarkets when everyone is hangry. 

If you’re not feeling 100% in yourself, you will struggle to look after the ones you need to, and subsequently, you will end up exhausted. 

So the time is now for you to plan and prep to keep your sanity in check. 

Natalie McCoy teaching you how to look after yourself.

If you would like to learn more, then please follow my links below.

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/urbansoulholistictherapySolihull

Instagram – https://www.Instagram.com/UrbanSoulHolisticTherapy

Website – https://www.urbansoulholistictherapy.co.uk

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The Benefits of Using an Independent Travel Agent

Guest blog from Independent Travel Agent Lynne Page

Why should you use a travel agent when you can book everything so easily yourself online?

I can tell you several reasons why!

An Independent Travel Agent can help you find your ideal holiday

Using an Independent Travel Agent is a valuable resource and can save you so much time, and we all know how precious our time is.

We are experts in our field, can give you personal recommendations due to being well-travelled, and can help you with unexpected situations should they arise.

When you are looking for a holiday, it can be overwhelming as there are so many choices out there, and you may not know where to start. If you like to travel but spend all day at a computer, the last thing you are going to want to do is spend hours trawling the internet trying to find the best deal. The thing I hear the most from my clients is, “ I hate looking for holidays! “

This is where I come in. I can do all the research for you and find hotels and attractions that suit your budget and taste. I can find deals from my many suppliers that are only available to people in the travel industry. I am ABTA and ATOL protected, and you can check my reviews on Google, Facebook and LinkedIn.

My service is personal and flexible

I am a home-based travel agent, and I like to be accessible and personable. I like to build a relationship with my clients. You choose how you would like to communicate with me, whether by email, phone, WhatsApp or meeting locally for a coffee and a chat.

I don’t charge a fee; I earn commission directly from our travel partners upon booking. For example, if I booked your holiday through Jet2 or EasyJet, they would pay me a commission. You would have paid exactly the same as if you had booked it yourself online, but you have me for support. And you are supporting a small business.

I look after my clients before, during and after the trip. I can check-in for you and print your boarding passes, or you can do this yourself if you prefer. I can recommend places to visit or maybe avoid. If there are any changes to your flights or itinerary, I will be able to support you with this.

Whether it’s a family holiday to Greece or a solo tour of India, I will be able to help.

How you can get started

Before contacting your travel agent, it would be a good idea to have some information ready to give them. An idea of where you would like to go, a maximum flight time, and the airports you are willing to travel from? How many nights would you like to stay, and on what board basis? Do you want to be near a beach and local amenities, or are you happy sitting by the pool with a book and a cocktail? Are you willing to pay extra for a sea view and/or a private transfer? What is the minimum star rating you want your hotel to be? The most crucial piece of information is your budget. This is key as everyone’s idea of a ‘bargain’ is different, and it needs to be realistic to avoid disappointment.

So the next time you are thinking about booking your holiday, please consider using an Independent Travel Agent.

Lynne Page - independent travel agent

Find out more:

https://www.lynnepagetravel.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/LynnePTravel

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynnepagetravel

email: lynne@theholidayvillage.co.uk

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Fight, Flight or Watch the Flames – A Mindful Approach to Stress

Guest blog from Jo Round about mindfulness and stress

Hi, I’m Jo Round, Mindfulness Teacher and guest blogger.  It’s taken me ages to decide on the subject area for this blog.  That’s not because I’m indecisive (at least I don’t think I am 😀) but because mindfulness is so far reaching, I could have gone down any one of many different paths.

In the end I chose stress because it’s something we can all relate to so I hope this blog will be helpful.  Also, if I look back to what I believe was the very start of my mindfulness journey, it would be an appointment with my GP when he told me I was stressed and his advice was to take my foot off the gas for a little while!  Hmmm!  Ironically, that sent me into an even greater tailspin.  But here I am writing a blog about it as a fully qualified Mindfulness Teacher, so I guess it all worked out in the end.

Let’s talk about stress!

Feeling stress is normal. It’s the body’s way of preparing us to deal with threatening situations (whether real or perceived).  You may have heard of the fight, flight or freeze response.  This is where the body detects a threat and releases hormones so we can either stand up and fight, run away or be still until the threat has gone, at which time the body stops pumping the hormones and returns to its resting state.

Our stress can come from many sources – the workplace, family issues, financial difficulties.  A little stress can be beneficial to get us through a challenging situation – a job interview, that presentation you’ve been working so hard on, even trying to buy your dream home.  It’s when the stress becomes so great, persistent and left unchecked, where our body doesn’t adequately return to its resting state, that stress becomes a problem.

Spotting the dangers

Most of us recognise the types of stress highlighted in the examples above.  But in the modern world, perhaps the greatest stressor is psychological – coming from our own thoughts and beliefs but so subtle that we don’t realise the negative impact on our wellbeing. Maybe we wish things were different to the way they are or the way we think they should be.  Our thoughts and projections about a situation can often cause us more stress than the actual situation itself.  We start to believe the negative thoughts in our head “I’m not good enough”, “what will people think”, “I don’t like this”, “why does this always happen to me?” – trust me, these thoughts are not you and they are not reality. Yet this type of stress can be constant, like being on a hamster wheel going round and round and preventing our body from returning to the resting state.  The stress continues to build until we start to feel it physically as well as mentally and simple tasks become too much to deal with.

How mindfulness can help

Like I said, stress is normal and we can’t make it go away – life just isn’t like that. But practicing mindfulness helps us to learn how to deal with stress so that it doesn’t have a detrimental effect on our wellbeing.  Imagine stress as a fire and every time we have a negative thought or wish things were different or get too caught up in our thinking, we’re adding fuel to the fire and it grows, burns and consumes until we’re quite literally burnt out.  In mindfulness we learn to spot the signs, we learn to step back and we learn to watch the fire, as though we were watching it on a TV.  We don’t get involved or pass any judgement or think too much about it, and in doing this, the fire dies down on its own and eventually it goes out.  Mindfulness isn’t about changing things; it’s about accepting things as they are.  When we can do this, things no longer take a hold and we can live our lives with much more calm, clarity and contentment.

If you’d like to find out more about mindfulness, courses or working with me, do pop along to my website www.likeacircle.co.uk or drop me a message through the contact form on the website.

And finally, thank you so much to Kirsty for allowing me to be a featured blog.

Stay mindful

Jo x

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How to stay sane by using exercise at home

Being in lockdown and having restrictions placed on our movement is going to affect us all in different ways. If you’re like me just the knowledge that you can’t go anywhere is enough to sometimes bring on that feeling of suffocation. I might not have actually had any major plans but knowing I can’t spontaneously decide on a day out and then just go is a little stifling!

So what about all those really simple things that we took for granted before like visiting family, going to the shops or going to the gym or out for a run? We can’t do most of these things now either let alone those bigger outings or holidays.

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Up and down the UK gyms are standing empty and thousands of people are wondering how they can continue to stay fit and exercise on a regular basis.

The quick reaction would be to get out for a walk or go for a run during the one exercise period we’re each allowed every day but it’s not always as simple at that. Maybe you’re on the high risk register and you’re not allowed out at all, maybe you have been displaying symptoms and you need to fully isolate. Maybe you have seen floods of people all deciding to suddenly take up running so social distancing seems hard. Or maybe like so many other people I have spoken to you just don’t want to risk being out away from your home when you absolutely don’t need to be.

A group of people getting exercise running down a highway

Don’t panic, you can still exercise at home, stay fit and help to protect your mental health at the same time.

Here are my top 3 tips for being active at home:

  1. Put together a simple routine using only your own body weight, there are lots of moves you can do at home. Why not give this a try, repeat the whole routine 2-3 times.
    1. 15 squats
    1. 15 lunges (each side)
    1. 30 seconds star jumps
    1. 30 seconds high-knees
    1. 15 squat jumps
    1. 15 push ups
    1. 30 seconds jogging on the spot
    1. 30 seconds mountain climbers
  2. Turn up some music and dance around the living room for a crazy 20 minutes
  3. If you have a garden put a couple of things out to mark a set distance and then do shuttle runs between them, you don’t even have to just run. Try the following and aim for 20 minutes total.
    1. Run
    1. Skip
    1. Hop
    1. Jump
    1. Frog jump
    1. Bear crawl
    1. Side step

The key is to have some fun and create some variety. By still exercising at home you can stay fit, get fitter if that’s your goal and of course continue to support your mental health through the release of “happy hormones”. Let’s not forget that by creating fun and imaginative ways to stay active at home we can also keep the boredom at bay.

I’d love to hear how you are staying active – you can reach me at lbland81@gmail.com and of course if you need some support right now then head on over to my website for some more ideas and access to some very yummy healthy recipes www.laurab-fitnessmentor.com

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You need time off from your business at Christmas

Time off from your business at Christmas
Do you just need a lie in?

I know, when you run a business you’re never truly ‘off’.
Business related thoughts and ideas appear at the most random moments and if
you don’t write them down they’ll be gone forever. (Or is that just me?!) The
point is, that’s the reason you need time off. Random brilliant ideas rarely
appear when you’re sitting at your desk. They pop up on the school run or just
as you’re trying to go to sleep. There are, of course, plenty of reasons why
you need time off, especially at Christmas. Here are just a couple (plus some
ideas for helping you achieve it).

The life changing magic of taking time off

As reluctant as I am to use phrases like ‘out of the box
thinking’, that one is a useful shortcut. I embrace routine as a useful energy
saving tool. Routine means that you don’t waste brain space making decisions
about the fifty billion things that need to happen before you start work. The
only problem is that you can get stuck in the pattern and it takes a bit of effort
to pull out of it and look at your business with fresh eyes.

When you stop consciously thinking about work it somehow
gives new ideas room to drift in. You don’t even have to take a full scale
holiday for it to work.

Didn’t you used to have a life?

There’s no substitute for working hard if you want to
succeed in business, but that doesn’t mean working yourself into the ground and
never seeing your family. That applies all year round, not just at Christmas.

The benefit of taking a break at Christmas is that it allows
you to step off the world if you want to. Those days when no-one is working and
school’s closed mean you can do whatever feels good. Have a lie in (I know, I
have kids too), go on a day out or watch movies knowing that you don’t have to
be anywhere in particular. It’ll remind you why you started the business and
could even let your mind wander into some brilliant new ideas.

Taking time off – the practical bits

“But Kirsty”, I hear you cry “I can’t take a week off, what
about my customers?” If your customers know you’re a one person business and
begrudge you a holiday, you need better customers. If they’re contacting you on
Christmas Day expecting a response they need help. (Unless you offer a
Christmas Day emergency service, that is.)

There are a few business who genuinely need to be open over
Christmas. If yours isn’t one of them then you need to set some boundaries. Let
people know in advance when you’re closing for Christmas and when you’ll be
back. Put your out of office on – you can even make it funny if you want. Then
go.

Actually taking a break

Now, the hard bit. Switching off. There’s a lot of
discussion about self-care and wellness and it’s easy to offer a supposedly
simple solution. Personally, I love a hot bath but I know that many others
don’t. Sometimes the only thing that hits the spot for me is a long walk, it
depends on my mood. A lot of us feel that we must be productive. Even when we
take time off we have this urge to do something worthwhile.

I can’t tell you how to stop wanting to do something useful.
When I get a spare hour I’ve started asking myself what I actually feel like
doing. Sometimes the answer is ‘no idea’. Other times it might be something
that doesn’t seem like traditional self-care, but whenever I go with it I end
up feeling more relaxed. Let me know if you try it too.

Further reading

I’ve taken to listening to audiobooks in the last few months
– there’s something rather comforting about being read to. My latest is ‘C’est
La Vie’ by Fabrice Midal, which talks about his approach to meditation. Here’s
the link
if you’d like to have a listen.

If you’d like to start the New Year by making your marketing
less stressful, sign up to my mailing list for lots of useful hints and tips to
make your life easier. You’ll receive a copy of my free guide ‘Stop hiding your
business!’ as a thank you.