Mommy Needs Her Beauty Rest

Arlene Pellicane, author of several “31 Days” books for wives and moms, offers a Parenting UPGRADE to help moms get that pep back in their step. 

“Often when children come into our lives, getting a good night’s sleep becomes an unattainable dream,” Arlene says, “Moms need to prioritize sleep because ‘mommy needs her beauty rest!’ Not just for outward beauty, but for inward strength.”

Oh, how I (Dawn) remember needing that sleep as a mom of young toddlers. When I didn’t get it, I was a Mama Bear—and not in the best sense!

Arlene continues . . .

When I’m running ragged, existing on little sleep, I am not a happy camper. But if I get enough sleep – and I’m talking about a solid eight hours here – I am even keeled, productive, and much more reasonable to myself and others. 

Somehow we’ve bought the lie that it’s nobler to do more and sleep less. Go ahead and take a hit on your personal health and survive on a few hours of sleep. You can catch up on sleep later, but your to-do list is now.

But I say, sleep more and be a nicer person.

My friend author Kendra Smiley says,

“For goodness sake mom, take care of yourself and get rest! I hear too many moms say the kids went to bed and then I stayed up until midnight to clean the oven and the kitchen. Stop it! The kids will not remember that your oven was clean. The kids will remember that you were cheerful when the day started.”

Isn’t that liberating and helpful to put things into perspective?

Being physically ready to start the day is more important than having a clean, sparkling kitchen.

Phew, that makes me feel better.  I’d much rather sleep than clean.

Here are a few benefits of a good night’s sleep:

• Less risk of heart disease, heart attacks, diabetes, and obesity
• More energy for an enjoyable sex life
• Improved memory
• Stronger immunity
• Better mood
• Clearer thinking

Plus, you can lose weight after catching your Z’s. Researchers from the University of Chicago and Stanford University found a lack of sleep causes changes in hormones that increase appetite. After just two nights of sleep deprivation, their research subjects had a 24 percent increase in appetite and craved high-sugar, high-salt, starchy foods. Sound familiar?

Yet for many moms, getting a good night’s sleep is not as easy as it sounds. According to a National Sleep Foundation survey, more than half of Americans report at least one symptom of insomnia such as being unable to fall or stay asleep.

These do’s and don’ts will help you get your beauty rest. 

THE DON’Ts

1. Don’t drink caffeine late in the day. Caffeine provides a boost of energy and stimulates your brain – not something you want happening before bedtime.   

2. Don’t stare at the clock. If you haven’t fallen asleep after about 20 minutes, get out of bed and do something relaxing like reading in a different room until you feel sleepy. 

3. Don’t watch TV in bed. Set a curfew for all your screens one hour before bedtime.  The light from TV, tablets and computers alerts the brain and makes it harder to fall asleep. 

4. Don’t pay your bills or do work in bed. Use your bed for relaxation; not for a desk. 

THE DO’s

1. Do go to bed at a decent hour. Start getting ready for bed nine hours before you have to wake up.   

2. Do dim your lights. Turn off the lights you’re not using in the house and dim the lights in your bedroom a few minutes before bedtime. 

3. Do have calming pre-sleep rituals. Establish a routine such as reading a few minutes or journaling before lights out. 

4. Do keep a list handy. Write down those flashing thoughts of to-dos running through your brain. Once it’s written down, forget about it.

So are you ready for a good night’s sleep tonight?

Sleep is good! The Psalmist says, "... he gives to his beloved sleep" (Psalm 127:2, ESV).

Give yourself permission to dim the lights early. After all, you need your beauty rest and your kids would truly benefit from a nicer mom in the morning. 

Which of these do’s and don’ts would help you get a better night’s sleep?

Arlene Pellicane is a speaker and author of 31 Days to Becoming a Happy Mom. She is also the co-author of Growing Up Social: Raising Relational Kids in a Screen-Driven World (with Gary Chapman). She has been a featured guest on the Today Show, Fox & Friends, Focus on the Family, FamilyLife Today, The 700 Club, and Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah. Arlene lives in the San Diego area with her husband James and their three children. Visit her website at www.ArlenePellicane.com for free resources to help you have a happy home.    

How to Stop Being an Adrenaline Junkie

Joan Webb’s intentional living so aligns with my desire to make wise choices. I invited her to write this Attitude UPGRADE because she puts her finger on a big issue with so many women.

“‘You really love this, don’t you? You’re so animated when you’re busy working.’ Although my client meant this as a compliment,” Joan said, “I gagged when I heard her words.

OK. I (Dawn) will get totally honest here. Joan pegged one of my huge struggles. I live with the stress of busyness, and some of it is self-imposed. Oh, how I needed to read this! Maybe you do too.

Joan continues . . .

To me, my client’s words represented a lifestyle I’d tried to ditch. Anything that reminded me of my excessive behavior felt like a punch in the gut.

I get a high when rushing, working and finding solutions. I am an adrenaline junkie. 

What do I mean by “adrenaline junkie”? 

Experts say action-addiction is both a process and a substance addiction. We get a high when we over-do, over-rush or even over-help. As long as the chemical keeps flowing, we medicate our past or current distress. 

Incidentally, some action-addicts appear motionless at times, but their minds are racing.

Normally, hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline release when we sense there’s a threat to our well-being. It’s the “Fight or Flight Response,” and it produces a shot of energy, giving us strength to cope with frightening situations.

With this response, heart rate escalates, digestion slows and blood flow forces to our muscles. Our bodies return to their natural state of relaxation when the real or perceived threat passes. 

When we’re addicted to action, we remain in chronic stress-mode, causing damage to our bodies. 

Initially, symptoms are fairly mild, like chronic headaches and lowered resistance to colds. Eventually we can develop depression, panic attacks, gum disease, unexplained weight gain, diabetes, stomach problems and even heart disease. 

Who wants THAT?

Doctors agree there is a pandemic of action-addiction in our world today. Author Anne Wilson Schaef writes:

“What belief have we accepted that suggests that, if we are not rushing and hurrying, we have no meaning?” 

An often-effective treatment for action-addiction includes identifying and modifying our negative thought patterns. For example, modification of the above misbelief can become: I am a valuable person, even when I quit working and helping to relax.

This all reminds me of something the wisest man who ever lived wrote: "Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 4:6).

When I continually run, chase, rush after stuff—even if it is very good and helpful stuff—I whiz past tranquility in the pursuit.

What are some wise, practical things we can do to shake hands with tranquility again?

1. Pause to breathe deeply.

Slow down. Breathe. Give yourself time to think and feel again.

2. Pause to enjoy God.

Reflect on who you are in Christ! He invites you to come and find rest. (Matthew 11:28-30.)

Pray—have an unrushed conversation with the Lord. Soak in His love; meditate on what He’s said.

3. Pause to enjoy yourself … and others (without trying to fix them).

Honor who God created you to be.

If you’re an introvert, schedule a re-energizing alone-time activity. (Maybe just to soak in a hot tub. Perhaps to enjoy an overnight personal retreat.) If you’re an extrovert, schedule a re-vitalizing activity with friends, uninterrupted by to-dos and work.

And repeat these steps at regular intervals!

Ahhhh. I can feel my shoulders relaxing and that constant adrenaline surge diminishing.

What helps you become friends with tranquility again? 

Joan C. Webb is a speaker and author who has written thirteen books including The Intentional Woman (co-authored with Carol Travilla), The Relief of Imperfection: For Women Who Try Too Hard to Make It Just Right and a four-book devotional series for children. As a Life Coach who specializes in working with writers and communicators, Joan helps set people free to become who they were designed to be and from what holds them back. For more information about becoming an intentional woman, visit Joan's website. 

Are You Flirting with Burnout or Action Addiction?

Joan Webb encourages women to breathe. She knows the stress our constant struggle for perfection can do to harm us, as she notes in this Attitude UPGRADE.

“Have you dreamed of slowing down,” Joan says, “but keep hearing your internal-bully whisper, ‘There’s no stinkin’ way you can do that!’”

      

Oh my. Joan, you’ve nailed one of my (Dawn’s) personal struggles. And you are pointing us to our true source of help.

Joan continues …

Perhaps you’re one of many in service-related careers or ministries who are on the fast track to burnout.

Just in case you wondering, here’s a good definition of burnout. 

Burnout is the type of stress and emotional fatigue that occurs when a series of (or combination of) events in a relationship, mission, way of life or job fail to produce an expected result.

Awareness is an important step in changing this self-defeating lifestyle of overworking, overdoing, over-helping and over-committing.

The following questionnaire can help you identify your need:

• Do you have a difficult time relaxing?
• Are you crankier than you used to be–even though you try hard to keep it to yourself?
• Do you rush from one project to another?
• Are you tired on an ongoing basis?
• Do you feel increasingly depressed, anxious or hopeless?
• Are you increasingly angry and don’t know why?
• Do you spend less time with friends and family or in doing what you previously enjoyed?
• Do you work hard and long, but accomplish less?
• Is life (and/or your ministry) becoming a drag?

If you answered “yes” to several of these, you may be headed in the opposite direction of real life.

I know the prospect of changing is frightening and overwhelming, yet there is a way. Really.

The Bible says, “He [God] gives strength to the weary … those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:29, 31).

I felt positive that my commitment to hard work would bring me what I desired and was flabbergasted when I ran out of energy, enthusiasm and faith. Disillusioned, I asked: “Is there any hope for renewal?”

“Yes, Joan! Assured my loving Creator. “Though you stumble, you’ll one day soar on wings like an eagle, run and not grow weary, walk and not faith. Trust Me. I’ll renew your lost strength.”

I didn’t feel it or foresee it. I didn’t even have the strength to believe it, but since I couldn’t do it anymore, I stopped trying and left my stuff with God.

Miraculously, when I stopped striving, God took over.

There is HOPE … in the Lord.

(1) Admit your need.

(2) Ask God for guidance and insight.

(3) Seek help and resources.

(4) Take active steps to reshape your thoughts and behavior.

Then show someone you love (preferably a healthy, supportive person!) your responses to the questionnaire, above. Get honest, and then don’t back down.

God honors truth-telling, even if that truth—the reality facing you—feels negative.

There is life on the other side of burnout!

What do you do, where do you go—who do you seek—when you’re experiencing burnout? Have you sought the Lord, the source of hope?

Joan C. Webb is a speaker and author who has written thirteen books including The Intentional Woman (co-authored with Carol Travilla), The Relief of Imperfection: For Women Who Try Too Hard to Make It Just Right and a four book devotional series for children. As a Life Coach who specializes in working with writers and communicators, Joan helps set people free to become who they were designed to be and from what holds them back. For more information about becoming an intentional woman, visit Joan's website.

Note: Part of this post is an excerpt from It’s a Wonderful (Imperfect) Life, p. 24.

Graphic adapted, Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Survival Kit for 'Overwhelm City'

Dianne Barker lived in a "city" none of us likes to visit, but she found ways to survive, as she shares in this helpful UPGRADE post.

“Lord, please!” Dianne prayed. “Not Overwhelm City again!”

Overwhelm City. I (Dawn) hate that place. I keep finding myself there. But like Dianne, the Lord is teaching me how to choose wise responses in the midst of struggles and stresses I can't avoid.

Dianne continues . . .  

I didn’t see this coming. Over-commitment teamed with complicated circumstances and carried me kicking and screaming back to this place.

One, I could control. The other—not so much.

Saying “no” is a hard choice—but it is a choice . . . and the only fix for over-commitment.

Circumstances are life in action, piling stress upon stress:

crumbling marriages, prodigal children, career adjustments, financial difficulties, relationship issues, care-giving responsibilities, health concerns, assorted calamities, grief, terrorism, and fear.

Most of us relate to the Psalmist’s cry: “Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck . . . the flood sweeps over me” (Psalm 69:1-2).

My husband and I have been taking care of people we love for our entire forty-nine year marriage—our parents, other relatives, and even friends who were close as family.

After leaving a successful journalism career to be a stay-at-home mom, I continued writing. My 1986 book Twice Pardoned was a number-one national Christian best-seller. The ink had barely dried when God led me from my public life as author and speaker to a secluded life—caring for our parents as their health declined.

I spent the next fifteen years in Overwhelm City, struggling to keep my head above water.

Routine housework wasn’t at the bottom of the list . . . it didn’t make the list. I did the gottas: cook, wash dishes, make beds, clean bathrooms, do laundry.

My priorities: driving our parents to medical appointments, grocery shopping, cooking and doing laundry for our three families. One week I made three trips to the coin laundry due to plumbing problems at home and washed a total thirty-two loads. Attending school functions involving our children and attending church completed my schedule.

During that complicated period, the Lord gave me an amazing gift:

• peace that I was exactly where He wanted me,
• purpose, doing what He designed;
• and a promise that someday He would expand my life again.

If this fresh New Year finds you at the outskirts of Overwhelm City, a few tools from my Survival Kit will help you make the most of the experience and sweeten the stay.

1. Simplify life. Eliminate non-essentials.

“He has told you. O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).

2. Draw near to Jesus.

He said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

3. Accept that you are here by God’s design.

“But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold” (Job 23:10).

4. Believe God has a purpose. We don’t have to see it to believe it. If nothing else, He’s developing endurance.

“For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised” (Hebrews 10:36).

5. Keep a teachable heart. Ask: Lord, what do you want me to learn?

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you” (Psalm 32:8).

6. Encourage yourself with truth.

“Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you” (Jeremiah 32:17).

7. Rejoice. If I rejoice today, I rejoice in these circumstances.

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances…” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

How will you spend your time in Overwhelm City? (It’s a sweet community of broken people. Visit me anytime. I’m right next door!)

Dianne Barker is a conference speaker, freelance journalist, radio host, and author. This post is adapted from I Don’t Chase the Garbage Truck Down the Street in My Bathrobe Anymore! Organizing for the Maximum Life, which won the Christian Authors Network Golden Scrolls 2014 third-place award for non-fiction book of the year. Her forthcoming book, Help! I’m Stuck and I Can’t Get Out! The Maximum Marriage Maintenance and Repair Kit, will be available at www.diannebarker.com.

How to Turn 'Tough Things' into Treasure

Lisa Copen has lived for nearly 21 years with degenerative rheumatoid arthritis. Out of her struggle, she created an entire ministry to help people cope with chronic illness. I wanted her to encourage us in a Life UPGRADE.

“Living with illness,” Lisa says, “is like sitting on a pottery wheel as a soft lump of clay,” Lisa says.                             

I (Dawn) think Lisa’s insights about illness can be applied to all of our lives, no matter our circumstances. Whatever our "tough thing" in life, God can transform it into treasure on His potter's wheel; He delights in redeeming us and making us "new" (see Jeremiah 18:3-5; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Revelation 21:5).

Lisa continues…

“It doesn't matter how long we sit on the pottery wheel or what shape we are, as long as the hands of illness keep touching our life, we will be reshaped into something new.”

Here are the top things I have learned through 21 years of illness:

1. Do it – whatever your “it” is – even when you don’t feel well.
There will be a million times it will be tempting to cancel. Don’t. Learn to push through.

The memories of the times I said “yes” and did something despite pain are the joys I treasure.

2. Utilize tools to live as fully as possible.
Whatever your limitations are there is likely a tool that can help. Don't use the tools to compare who you once were with who you are now.

Be grateful someone came before you and was determined to not let their limitations stand in the way, making it easier for you.

3. Get out of the house.
We all need a change of scenery. Seeing the same dirty dishes and dingy walls can quickly send you into depression. Walk outside and sit on the patio. Go to the local coffee house and check your email. Go to a movie, even if it’s alone.

Will it cure everything? No, but it will put you back into the world and make your bed look even more appealing at the end of the day.

4. Practice communication.
No matter how wonderful you think your relationships are, there is room for improvement. Facing day after day of pain can make any relationship tense, and people make be reluctant to talk to you about your attitude or how you constantly speak of your symptoms.

We can easily blame our circumstances for our temper, attitude, and outlook and expect people around us to just accept it and cater to our needs and moods. This is a perfect storm brewing. Ask close friends how you can improve your friendship. Make sure your marriage is safe from underlying resentments that are buried that can one day shatter the relationship.

5. Practice taking care of yourself.
The more you do it, the easier it will become.

Pride, shame, and not wanting to be a burden by asking people to accommodate our needs gets in the way of our well-being – both physically and emotionally. As you accept yourself for who you are, others will do the same.

6. Determine the purpose of your life and what you will rely on.
Obviously this is a big one! But what is going to hold you together when you have little support of friends, your body is falling apart, and all the feel-good-tips no longer work? For me, it is my faith. I have great faith in God and I believe He not only has a purpose for my life, but I have seen how He has used my disease in many ways.

This has given me the strength to hold on when there is no reason to hang on. It gets me up out of bed each day, and without it I would quickly wilt on my own strength. You are going to need a foundation of strength. Start seeking now.

7. Consider what you want your legacy to be.
What kind of person do you want to be, and what do you hope people will recall about you someday? Were you one who was always sighing and complaining about how no one understood your circumstances? Or did you show grace and character that taught those around you how one can be faithful through the fires?

Rather than overcoming your circumstance, make it part of your character.

My illness is intertwined with every part of who I am. Yet, life is good. I must choose to make it that way each day.

The words "chronic illness" don't bother me. I embraced them long ago, because I don't see them as a curse, but rather as the largest chisel in my life that will determine who I am.

Some days, it isn't so pretty. I am hopeful, however, that at the end of this life my legacy will be, "She fought to live each day with so much joy... and encouraged others to do the same."

How can these suggestions help you develop the tough things in your life into the treasure it is meant to be?

Lisa Copen began Rest Ministries to encourage those who are chronically ill through daily devotionals, small groups called HopeKeepers, and other support. She is the author of a variety of books including Beyond Casseroles: 505 Ways to Encourage a Chronically Ill Friend. She has lived with rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia for twenty years and resides in San Diego with her husband and son.

Graphic in Text, adapted, Image courtesy of dan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.