Please remember that every person living with environmental sensitives has their own journey. There are many paths up the same mountain. Please take what resonates with you, listen to your own body, and please don’t do anything that doesn’t feel right for you in the present moment.
Why is it important to maintain balance?
Congrats – you’re at Goal #8! I really hope you’re feeling better and enjoying life more. Once you start feeling a little better, it’s easy to get swept away in the hustle and bustle of life. It’s important to continue to do the work to calm your nervous system and take care you your body to ensure that you keep feeling as well as you do in this present moment.
Remember, the body is like a bank account, every stressful experience takes money out of the bank account while every calming or restorative experience adds money to the bank account. You need to keep your bank account topped up to maintain your sense of well-being.
Tips for maintaining balance
Here are some tips I’ve found helpful for maintaining balance:
- Prioritize sleep and rest (at least 8-9 hours per night)
- Prioritizing key activities that fill up my body’s bank account (e.g., two trips to the forest per week, daily walks in nature, etc)
- Determine who the key people in my life are and connect with them regularly
- Be present in the moment, and limit talking about the future or the past
- Talking and moving slowly
- Taking a day or two to reflect before saying yes to an invitation or new commitment to give myself time to think about:
- what I am giving up to do this new thing, and
- what I need to do before and after the activity to re-balance my nervous system
- Limit activities or outings to a maximum of one per day (on weekdays, or up to two things per weekend) to ensure that I am not over-scheduling my life
- Slowing down and calming down my nervous system when I feel worn out or feel stressed out
- Implementing a daily reflective practise in the evening to reflect on:
- Gratitude
- Generosity (both given and received)
- Positive actions taken
- Areas of improvement
- Overall sense of health and well-being and energy
- Leaving myself lots of time to get where I need to be so that I can enjoy the journey and not rush
- Accepting that I cannot do everything perfectly – I can only do my best for today and that’s good enough!