#216. 7 Ways to Improve Your Week & Cure Monday Blues50 Amazing Moms With Dr. Christiana Stephen

Hi Moms,

It’s been a while since I’ve published on my blog, and in all honesty, I’ve missed it! Sometimes life just runs away with you and it becomes easy to lose track of habits, but here I am! How have you all been?

With life slowly turning back to normal, and it all becoming chaotic again I thought it necessary to provide some tips on how to tackle the normal ‘week’ of a mother/entrepreneur/student/wife/everything under the sun! For most of us, it’s probably been a while since we’ve been this busy, and as I mentioned before, this can cause us to lose focus and overlook the important things.

This is how I re-centre myself:

Make Time for Yourself

Taking time for yourself is not necessarily an easy task, this is why we often forget to exercise it! Learning to limit ourselves – including learning to say no when we need to say no – can allow us an opportunity to identify what is important to us (family-time, regular sleep, healthy diet) and determined what can be put in place to achieve this. These periods of self-reflection are crucial for individual growth, so I challenge you to make time this week for yourself.

2. Create a Helpful Evening Routine

A helpful evening routine can set you up for a stress-free nights sleep and a comforting morning. Ask yourself what your day-to-day tasks consist of, are there moments whereby you could prepare the day before to help yourself? A perfect example of this is preparing your clothes the night before so you feel put together, making the kid’s lunches so you don’t overlook the importance of a balanced diet, or placing your workout clothes on your bedside table to give you no excuse.

3. Create a Natural Morning Routine

Your evening and morning routine come hand in hand, meaning that where possible they should complement one another. Morning routines should feel organic in the sense that we want to avoid feelings of urgency and anxiety where we can – now obviously this isn’t always possible, maybe the little ones kept you up all night and you’ve woken up late, we’ve all been there – but this is where your carefully crafted evening routine gives allowances for hiccups such as this.

Here are my 9 top tips for How I Make My Morning Rush Bearable!

4. Focus on What Is a Priority

At the beginning of a week, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with the tasks and errands that have to be completed by the week’s end, but we must learn to face this rationally to avoid unneeded stress that could filter into our week. I love to remind myself in times such as this that ‘life is a matter of priorities’. This means that I actively try to fill my days with both tasks that must be done, but also activities that I enjoy. Finding this work-life balance is key – not everything has to be done in one day, space tasks out and make them manageable.

5. Have Something to Look Forward To

Organise something for towards the end of the week that you can get excited about – this will be your driving force to help you get through the never-ending emails, washing pile and meetings. Consider going on a date night with your significant other, or planning a picnic in the park with the kids – think different! What have you not done before, and if there is not a reason for why you have avoided it until this moment then be spontaneous and pencil it into your calendar!

6. Try Something New

Linking on from this, attempting to master a new hobby, or trying out something that intrigues you can be a great way of freshening up a week. It doesn’t even have to be anything big! That Interesting and alternative recipe you have seen online? Give it a go! Here are a few that might take your fancy…

Dared to Make Puff Puff – Christiana Stephen

My Yummy Vegetable Yam Porridge – Christiana Stephen

Nigerian Melon/Egusi Soup – Christiana Stephen

7. Practice Gratitude

Research shows that actively practising gratitude improves both your mental and physical state. Now I know it’s not easy, actually, it’s not natural to many of us – this is because the brain has a negativity bias, meaning it holds onto experiences that provoke uncomfortable emotions such as anger, sadness or stress. Through challenging this innate reaction we can not only improve our week but someone else’s, what could be better than that?