Here’s a link to the Happynote app I’m referring to.

Before I answer the question it’s important to ask one more: WHY are you so tired? Are you not getting enough sleep? Is the quality of your sleep the problem? Got small children who think nothing of waking you up or getting in your bed in the middle of the night? It makes a lot of sense to fix the sleep problem so you don’t have to choose between sleep and exercise in the first place.

Here’s my answer: If you’re just feeling a little bit snoozy or sleepy you should probably do the workout. In fact, you’ll feel more energized right after as well as for several hours after by getting exercise. However, if you’re feeling so tired you want to cry or die, get more sleep!

Consistently not getting enough sleep can cancel out the good you’re trying to do by exercising. There’s a strong correlation between lack of sleep and an increase in body fat as well as the consumption of high carbohydrate, low nutrient foods. (Thanks to hormones like leptin and grehlin – which control appetite and satiety – that get all out of whack). No amount of working out can negate poor food choices.  Also, a high level of fatigue means your workout is probably not going to be very good.

Regular exercise improves the quality of your sleep. People who exercise consistently fall asleep faster and go into deeper levels of sleep, which are more restorative. Because of this, people who exercise regularly typically need less sleep (sort of ironic, right?).

Tips to avoid having to ask yourself sleep or exercise:

1. GET ON A SCHEDULE – BOTH FOR SLEEPING AND EXERCISING.  Healthy adults need about 7-8 of sleep per night (I personally function best on 9).  Yes, it’s possible to “get by” on less sleep each night, but who wants to go through life “getting by”? You also just learned your hormones work against you when you’re not getting enough sleep. Go to bed the same time every night and wake up at the same time every morning – yes, even on weekends. It’s easy to get distracted at night by doing email, watching tv or surfing the web, so set an alarm as a reminder to go to bed if you need one. Schedule your exercise for when it’s most likely to happen. If you’re not a morning person, don’t exercise in the morning! Squeeze it in during the day or do it after work.
2. GET UP WHEN THE ALARM GOES OFF. Sometimes you’re so tired you hit the snooze button or turn off the alarm clock without being awake enough to realize what you’ve done. If your goal is to workout in the morning, set another alarm clock across the room so you have to get out of bed. You get a few moments while walking over there to wake up and remember why your commitment is important. You could also get a workout partner who’s waiting for you (accountability!).
3. GETTING FIT HAPPENS MORE IN THE BED THAN THE GYM. Exercise is what stresses your body, but during quality recovery is when the body actually grows stronger. Sleep is your #1 tool for recovery, which makes it critical for improving fitness. Make it just as important as your workout.
4. PULL OUT THAT CARPET SQUARE. Naps are a fantastic tool for recovery and performance. Ten to twenty minutes is all you need, not necessarily a couple of hours. Naps not only make you feel better, they also improve cognitive function, performance and reaction time.
5. SHORTEN YOUR WORKOUT AND GET A FEW MORE MINUTES OF SLEEP. It’s not the time you spend working out that really makes a difference – it’s the intensity you bring to the time you have. Shorter, more intense workouts are almost always superior to longer, lower intensity workouts. Interval training is a great way to get more work done in less time.

I’d love to hear from you – what do you typically do when you’ve got to choose? Anything you’ve found that helps?

For more tips links to previous posts on getting good sleep are here and here!

Another project just got added to your pile, you still have to finish your quarterly report, and an emergency meeting was added to your calendar for today.  Because of all this you decide you have no time for lunch and to skip your workout.  You manage to get through the day and can’t wait to get home and veg out.  You have a couple of drinks, eat a big
dinner (you’re starving – you missed lunch!) and watch several of your favorite TV shows as your reward for making it through another stressful day.

You know what’s wrong with this scenario?  The choices you made to skip lunch and your workout as well as having a few drinks, a big meal and zoning out in front of the TV for several hours – they’ve actually ADDED to your stress and made you less resilient!

SKIPPING A MEAL:  When we go too long without eating the stress response is stimulated.  Our bodies releases stress hormones like cortisol that result in us overeating later on high fat, high sugar foods and much of it is stored as fat around the midsection. (Read more about this here.)

INSTEAD: Eating a small meal or snack about every 3-4 hours throughout the day ensures you’re not kicking the stress response into gear.

SKIPPING A WORKOUT:  Exercise is one of the best ways to deal with stress – especially when it’s cardiovascular interval training.  It mimics the fight or flight response, which in turn burns off the stress hormones, and releases a new set of hormones that make us happy and calm. We’re hitting the reset  button.

INSTEAD: This type of exercise raises our overall threshold for stress as well as teaches our bodies to recover from stress more quickly and efficiently. I’ve created a simple tool to get this burst of activity any time, any where, with no equipment needed: click here to get it.

HAVING SEVERAL COCKTAILS:  Sometimes it feels like they’re the only way to unwind after a stressful day. And you earned them, right? Unfortunately having several of them can stimulate the release of cortisol and the stress response. It also decreases the quality of your sleep, which is another great tool for stress resiliency.

INSTEAD: If you’re going to consume alcohol the recommendation is no more than one drink for women and no more than two drinks for men (sorry ladies – it’s based off body size).

EATING A HUGE MEAL:  A big reason we stress eat is the stress hormone cortisol. One of its jobs is to replace all the energy you spent fighting or fleeing by making you hungry – only you were stuck at your desk all day and didn’t get exercise.  Now you’re starving – and for high fat, high sugar foods.  Eating a huge meal also spikes blood glucose levels and your body has to work harder to process all of it.  Oh – and you’re now in a food coma, stuck on the couch.

INSTEAD: Eating small amounts of food all day long keeps you from getting too hungry or too full and ensures you’re not adding stress to the system.

WATCHING SEVERAL HOURS OF TV:  Watching TV has become one of the top ways we deal with stress (from Stress in America report). I’m not saying watching your favorite show is a bad way to deal with stress – it’s when TV watching becomes a marathon. The average American watches 4+ hours of TV each day, which means more time spent sitting on top of the sitting most of us do at our jobs each day. From a health perspective sitting is one of the most dangerous things you do each day.

INSTEAD: Exercise is one of the top ways to deal with stress – get up and move! Connect with your loved ones. Meditate. Journal. Spend time on a hobby. Listen to music. All of these are healthy ways to mitigate stress.

Pick just one of these things to do the next time you’re stressed out (or all of them if you’re an overachiever). Instead of making things worse, you’ll be improving your resiliency, performance and health!

To have Jenny Evans come and speak to your organization on stress, resiliency, performance and health, contact her here.

Size matters. (I want to make a sex joke here so bad it’s not even funny.) Research shows if we’re given the option of ordering a small, medium or large size we’re most likely to pick the medium. (Interestingly the same goes when we’re presented with choosing something based on price – instead of picking the cheapest or the most expensive, we go with the price in the middle.)

I just learned Starbucks actually has a smaller size cup they don’t put on the menu.

Why?  So you’ll order the size that’s actually the medium thinking it’s the small!  This also means the “large” is actually the “extra large”.  I’m a huge fan of Starbucks – LOVE the coffee and as a traveler I appreciate they offer healthy food options – but this is sneaky.  Especially when some of their drinks are high in calories and sugar.

Moral of the story: When eating/drinking out order the smaller sizes when possible, and ASK if even smaller sizes exist.

Physical activity increases circulation and boosts blood flow to the brain resulting in:

• Improved cognitive performance
• Sharpened thinking
• Enhanced memory and learning
• The production of new brain cells
• Increased focus and alertness

It also:

• Improves mood
• Provides more energy
• Helps fight fatigue
• Increases resilience to stress
• Improves sleep

These are the things you need to have to be on top of your game and they’re essential for today’s fast moving, highly competitive, demanding business environments.

Considering these significant benefits, regular movement is something that MUST be part of normal corporate culture.  If your company offers standing or walking tools, take advantage of them.  I’m not saying you have to stand or walk the entire day, just don’t sit for longer than 1-2 hours without getting some movement.

If your company doesn’t offer them, the good news is movement doesn’t have to cost any money:

• Conduct standing meetings
• Have one-on-ones while walking
• Use a headset for your phone to stand and talk
• Make Wednesdays Sneaker Day
• Encourage the use of stairwells

What are you or your company doing to encourage more movement and performance?

As a stress expert I probably think about how I respond to stress more than most, but the statistic about how our children are affected by our stress really caught my attention.  I like to think I deal with my stress well, but here’s what usually happens when I get stressed out:  I retreat into myself.  I get quiet.  I internalize.  I pull away from people, including my family.  Even though I may not be losing my sh*t, crying, or freaking out, I’m still negatively affecting family.  My daughter KNOWS when something’s bothering me even though I’m not yelling or flipping my lid.

I guess that’s one of the things that’s insidious about stress.  Even though we think we’re dealing with it well, we’re probably not.

Building your resilience to stress isn’t just about you.

It’s also about how you interact with others – your children, significant other, work team, friends, etc…  Making a difference in the lives of others – especially our children’s – is at risk when we’re not at our best.

It’s not possible to be completely immune to stress, but we need to be diligent about dealing with it in the best way possible.  Here are four common mistakes we often make when dealing with stress and remedies for each.

A plan.  One plan.  Plan A.

Without backup plans B, C and D.

For instance:  I commit to exercising 4 times each week at the gym.  I’ll go in the morning before work and alternate cardio and resistance training each time.

Sounds like a solid plan, right?

It is until it isn’t.

What happens if I have to travel for work?  What if I oversleep?  What if I didn’t get good sleep the night before and I’m too tired to go?  What if the weather’s bad and I can’t get there?  What if my child walks into the bedroom at 4:30 AM and vomits all over the floor?  What if there’s a zombie apocalypse and it’s too dangerous to go?

Often times the answer to all of these questions is the same:  ”Well, it looks like I’m not going to get my workout in today. Bummer.”  The reason this happens is we only have ONE PLAN in place for when all the stars are aligned and it’s easy to do.  We haven’t come up with a list of possible deal breakers and what we’ll do when they happen. Because obstacles pop up….all the time!

If you truly want to be successful over the long run, take the following steps:

1. Identify your new behavior
2. Plan when, where and how you’ll execute this behavior
3. Make a list of obstacles or deal breakers you know you will encounter
4. Create at least 2 other options (Plans B and C) for each obstacle

Let’s go back to the workout example. Alternative plans to these obstacles include:

YOU’RE TRAVELING

• see if the hotel you’ll be staying at has a gym and pack exercise clothes.
• if there’s no gym, bring an exercise DVD or do some body weight exercises in your room.
• plan on going for a walk or run outside.

YOU OVERSLEEP

• squeeze in a few minutes of exercise during your lunch break.
• workout as soon as you get home from work.
• workout after dinner.  Could you include family or friends?
• move around as much as possible during the day – take the stairs, stand at your desk, do a few body weight exercises, go talk to people instead of calling or emailing.

YOU’RE TOO TIRED

• make today your day off and choose another day this week to make it up.
• do a lighter workout.  Maybe you just walk.

YOU CAN’T GET TO THE GYM

• if you have your body and gravity is turned on, you’re good to go.  Do some bodyweight exercises.
• pop in a DVD or find a workout online.
• exercise outside if possible.

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

• running from zombies = the fastest you’ve ever run in your life = BEST. WORKOUT. EVER.

Yes, you read that right. NOT eating often leads to weight gain and there are both physiological and psychological reasons for this happening.

PSYCHOLOGICAL:  Being on a diet often means using willpower to not eat – food restriction and going extended periods of time without eating. This depletes blood glucose levels (energy broken down from food) and there’s a strong link between glucose levels and self-control: no glucose = no willpower. Self-control requires energy from your brain in the form of glucose.  As the body uses glucose, it starts craving sweet things to eat to replace used glucose.

What to do:  Eat a good breakfast of protein and carbohydrates every morning, have low glycemic snacks, and don’t let yourself get too hungry throughout the day.

It also seems that willpower is a muscle that fatigues very quickly.  Each act of self control taps strength from this muscle, so choose wisely!

What to do:  Stick to only 1 or 2 new behaviors that are small and manageable.

PHYSICAL: Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version: No food = survival mode = decreased metabolism = hang on to as much body fat as possible.  If there is no energy coming in to the body, your metabolism (the rate at which your body creates/uses energy) slows down in order to conserve energy.  Fat is the most precious energy resource your body has to keep you alive, so it will hang on to it as long as possible and will break down stored protein – YOUR MUSCLES – and use that as energy instead.  Loss of muscle mass makes the metabolism run even slower.  In survival mode your body wants to store as much fat as possible, so by the time lunch rolls around, guess how much food you’re going to eat?  Too much!  Where will those extra calories go?  To the fat cells.  My previous post – The Sumo Wrestler Diet – tells you more.

What to do:  Spread your total food intake over the course of the day by eating several small meals and snacks instead of only 1 or 2 larger meals.  Aim to eat a little something every 3-4 hours.

I thought I’d also post links to a couple of topics relevant to this time of year:

Why New Year’s Resolutions Are a Load of Crap

Six Goal Setting Tips

Hope your New Year is off to a great start!

You may be wondering why I was going to hear someone talk about shame and vulnerability….I heard about Brené from a friend, her name popped up again when I heard something about Oprah loving her or something, and then I saw the Center for Spirituality and Healing was bringing her in to speak at the University of Minnesota.  I don’t know about you, but when something keeps popping up repeatedly in a short period of time, I pay attention.  I decided to go hear her speak.

I went out to lunch beforehand with my sister-in-law, who also happened to be going, and shared with her that I had skimmed through Brené’s book called “I Thought It Was Just Me” because I was interested in her theory about how much shame we all operate under.  My first comment to my sister-in-law was “I read through the book and realized I have no shame.”  And we both laughed out loud.

Although I didn’t laugh when Brené said in her talk “the only people that have no shame are sociopaths”.

You’re dying to be my friend right now, aren’t you?

Now on to the vulnerability piece:  according to Brené “its the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness, but it appears that it’s also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love. “

What I really meant by the comment of having no shame was that I was not raised using shame as a punishment or parenting style, and I’m not Catholic (I’m told by my Catholic friends that guilt and shame are learned at a very early age).  I’m also pretty up front and honest with people – what you see is what you get.  I hope you like what you see, but I can’t help it if you don’t….I’m not everyone’s flavor….and I can’t change who I am to try and please others.  In a word, I think I make myself pretty vulnerable.

Or so I thought.

Vulnerability can be a pretty scary thing, so we often hide behind perfectionism, we may “put on the mask”, act like everything’s great, or give off the vibe that we’ve got it all together.  I started to wonder about the image I’ve created over the years.  It’s sort of a weird thing when you’re your own brand and you’re selling yourself.  You’ve got to be strategic about what you’re selling, come across as professional, and be an expert.  I started to question whether I was perpetuating the phenomenon of perfectionism – especially among women – as the person who’s got it all together.  I speak on stress and resiliency, but am I communicating a message of perfectionism that creates and adds more stress?  As someone who loves speaking to women on leadership, what’s the subtle message I’m communicating beyond the words I speak?  Is it healthy?

The answer was made very clear to me last night.

My ex-husband was over and we were talking with our 12 year old daughter about some things – school, communication between households, and body image.  While we were talking about creating a healthy body image I shared with her that I struggled with food and body image while in high school and college.  She turned to me with a completely stunned look on her face and said “WHAT?!  You?!  Miss exercise physiology and nutrition?  I thought you were perfect!”  And she wasn’t being sarcastic.  She really meant it.

That hurt.  I’ve been careful to talk about what it means to be healthy, how it’s important to eat good food, but to also enjoy treats, to exercise regularly, and have strived to be a good role model to her.  I feel like I share at home when I’m struggling with something and talk quite openly about my feelings.  Clearly, the story she’s hearing is different from the one I’m trying to tell.

I can’t control everyone’s perceptions, but I think I could add a bit more “human” to the mix.  I don’t want to perpetuate the myth of the “woman who has it all”.  Because it’s just that: a myth.   It’s not what I want other people to think and I most certainly don’t want it to be what my daughter thinks.

The balance between leadership, performance & vulnerability can be tenuous.  What’s your experience?

An easy way to make change is to sneak a new behavior past our caveman brains without it noticing.  You literally have to make it a “no-brainer”.  By making a new activity simple, easy, and non-threatening it’s more likely to be adopted.  Using Optimal Defaults are a fantastic way to do it.

I first learned of Optimal Defaults from a conference I attended at Yale University.  An Optimal Default is a system of making a desired behavior easier to achieve.  For example:

• In Austria organ donation is the set default (you have to opt-out if you don’t want to participate) and they have a 99.98% organ donation rate[1].  In contrast, the donation rate in the U.S. where you have to opt-in to participate is closer to 40%.
• In 2009, New York City banned the use of trans fats – a type of fat that increases the risk of heart disease – in restaurants.  Everyone has “opted out” without having to think about it.  According to a study just published in the Annals of Internal Medicine there has been a “substantial and statistically significant decrease in the trans fat content of purchases at fast-food chains.”[2]

Start thinking about how you could make change a no-brainer for yourself.  How could you set yourself up to be successful without having to think much about a new behavior by making it your optimal default?

FOOD

• This week is Halloween and there’s a lot of candy around – don’t keep a bowl of it on your desk.  Brian Wansink, who is a researcher around environmental cues and food intake, found that if a dish of candy is right next to you, you’ll eat about 9 pieces per day.  If you move it six feet away, you’ll only eat 4 pieces per day.
• Trying to eat more veggies?  Keep a bowl of them on your desk.  You can use the opposite strategy of the candy dish!
• Wansink also found if you eat off a smaller plate or bowl you’ll eat up to 22% less.
• Many studies have found your peer group can affect your level of health. Hanging out with or surrounding yourself with people who have healthy behaviors may positively influence your lifestyle choices.

EXERCISE

• Commit to only 10 minutes of exercise.  If after 10 minutes you really don’t want to be doing it, stop.  However, odds are once you get going you’ll realize it’s not so bad and keep going.
• Keep your gym bag packed and at the front door.  If you’re going to work, keep it within eye sight.
• If you’d like to workout in the morning, sleep in your exercise clothes so all you have to do is roll out of bed and go.
• Set a timer to remind yourself to get up, move around and stretch periodically throughout the day.