One of the biggest concerns entrepreneurs have is the need to be on the edge. In business, the early bird gets the worm, and therefore, you feel like when you are always “on” is where the results come. If you are constantly monitoring the competition and are thinking about ways to boost business through creative and dynamic approaches, it can certainly make you feel alive inside, but there is a darker side to this.
When you are constantly feeling like you’ve got to be on, feelings of exhaustion or fatigue can set in. Many beginner entrepreneurs can worry about their business, and therefore, they’ve got to give triple the effort. This means there is no time to unwind. But what are the best ways for unwinding or destressing as entrepreneurs? There are plenty of effective, but simple, ways to refocus.
Getting Back Into Nature
Heading out into nature can do a lot for your sense of self. Getting out in fresh air means that you are going to have more vitamin D, breathe cleaner air, and you can potentially lower your blood pressure and cortisol. Therefore, as a way to improve your abilities to relax, you could invest in woodland that is completely yours.
On a scientific level, “grounding” is something that can be incredibly meaningful. That feeling of the earth beneath your feet is something that many people say is nonsense, but on a scientific level, the earth has a negative charge, and as you walk around, you build up a positive charge in yourselves, so connecting yourself to the earth brings you “back down to earth,” which, in theory, reduces disease, inflammation, and calms your levels of stress. Either way, being out in nature always has, anecdotally, calmed people down. Being in nature can do a lot for you.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
People need quick tools in order to calm down. If you are someone that’s been on the go all day, it’s not going to be productive to ask you to unwind instantaneously, because it’s not going to happen. Therefore, finding the right tools to calm down quickly can do a lot for you. Many people love breathing techniques as a way to calm down, but if you really cannot focus and all the surplus energy is impacting your ability to calm down, one of the quickest routes to calm is progressive muscle relaxation.
- As the body can build up physical tension, you can use progressive muscle relaxation in the following way:
- Tensing one part of your muscles for 10 seconds and release with a count of 20.
- Do this with each muscle in the body, starting with 1 foot, and moving over to the other foot.
- Work upwards through all the major muscle groups towards and including your facial muscles.
- Practising this over time can help you to identify the sources of tension, so you can identify the components that are hindering your ability to relax.
Learning to Sleep Well
Sleep is one of those things that we all need enough of, the problem is nobody is getting enough sleep when they have a business to run. What we all need to do is have an understanding of what it takes to get to and have good quality sleep. These are some of the great tools you could try, and see how they affect you:
- Having sunlight in the morning for at least 15 minutes just after waking, and viewing sunlight in the late afternoon or evening to regulate your circadian rhythm.
- Exercising early in the morning, as this can help you to regulate yourself and be tired by the end of the day.
- Timing your eating. The time you eat can have a big impact on your overall ability to sleep well. Eat too close to bedtime and your body is going to be focusing its efforts on digesting. Have no solids at least 2 hours before you go to sleep.
- The right supplements. Supplements such as Magnesium Threonate and Theanine can help here. To further help fight fatigue iron gummies vitamins are also highly recommended.
When you have good quality sleep tools, this can make a big difference to how you sleep. Remember, it’s not about the amount.
The Things That Make You Happy
The hardest thing about running a business is the need to constantly be on. It might be the thing that gets you up in the morning, but there will be times when you feel the weight of expectation on your shoulders. It’s a very normal part of being in charge of an organisation, where people demand to be paid as well as be happy and productive.
Therefore, you need to start thinking about the things that will make you happier and increase those things in life. You can do this in terms of the right hobbies, but you can also choose aspects of your work that would be better off being outsourced. If you don’t like a certain part of your job, is it possible to delegate it? The benefits of delegation mean you can give your work over to someone else who feels a greater sense of responsibility but it also increases the level of accountability amongst employees. Gradually outsourcing some of these aspects can do so much for you, as well as your business.
Understanding Your Triggers
We all need to learn that ability to relax, but it takes practice. The more we do it, the more we can tap into it quickly. But the opposite is also true; if we find things that stimulate us, we have to understand that these are potential triggers that may cause undue stress. Recognising the things that are going to elevate our lack of sanity involves coping mechanisms to deal with them or outsourcing them.
Learning that sense of unwinding as an entrepreneur is something that may prove difficult for entrepreneurs that are trying to build up an empire. The problem is that after a few years, you may look back and realise that all you did was work, and therefore, you’ve lost all semblance of how to relax. Bring it into your life, and you will see a massive difference.