by Tasha Shayne
Today’s women are more powerful than ever before. With over 73 million of us in the United States workforce, we’re dominating technical and professional operations, inspiring future generations, and being taken more seriously than ever in any every industry we take on — from startups to politics. We should be proud. We’re functioning as superwomen. There’s only one problem that inevitably plagues all of us who lead our superwoman lives: The stress and exhaustion catches up with us. How could it not? We may be superwomen, but we’re not superhuman. We need a whole food source of vitamin B and we need it stat!!
Despite our accomplishments, expectations for us, in our traditional roles, aren’t lower. In fact, we’ve figured out how to excel as entrepreneurs and professionals at the same time as we manage to raise children, keep peaceful homes, and stay active and fashionable. We’re performing at a capacity that supersedes what even we thought was possible.
That’s why it doesn’t hurt to remind ourselves that we should add one more task to our long list: We must take care of our health. After all, if we lose our health, we can’t be productive anymore, anyway. We’d forfeit our edge, face setbacks, lose momentum…
So before the stress and exhaustion lead us to burnout and sickness, we need to tackle them as we would tackle any other project — head on. The first thing to do is understand what causes the stress and exhaustion, and what they do to our bodies:
Stress and exhaustion come from a number of different sources, most of them boiling down to juggling tasks, problem solving, worrying over issues large and small, and simply not having enough brain power to think clearly.
While these things are daunting, they become “too much to deal with” when our bodies run out of fuel to support them as functions.
What many of us refer to as “running out of steam,” is the same thing as running out of energy to deal with what’s on our plates. So we have to ask ourselves, Where does our energy come from? How is it produced?
The answer in large part: B Vitamins.
B vitamins are necessary for creating more energy, enabling cognitive function, and manufacturing serotonin to boost your mood (giving you the will to keep going). We need a lot of them so desperately, just to keep up with the status quo we’ve set for ourselves. Unfortunately, the body’s store of B vitamins is depleted by a lack of sleep, a grab-and-go diet, and all of that physical and mental stress and exhaustion.
It’s a battle: We want to keep building our B vitamin supply, but all the chaos of daily living drains it. We have to do everything we can to keep our supplies high so we don’t run out and burn out. This means we have to make some lifestyle shifts to keep ourselves in peak condition by feeding our bodies b vitamins and protecting the levels we already have.
These 5 pointers will make a huge difference in how much of a toll stress take on your mind and body:
1. Limit caffeine intake — sure, many of us depend on caffeine for instant energy, but we all know it’s a drug: It gives us a high, and then we come down and feel more exhausted than ever — that’s because it burns through our stores of B vitamins. Fast. For many, caffeine leads to blood sugar imbalance that causes anything from dizziness and light-headedness to irregular heart rhythm.
2. Limit sugar intake — Same thing as caffeine. Sugar eats through our B vitamins at lightning speed, leaving us down and out.
3. Get enough sleep — When we don’t renew our energies through sleep, our bodies have to rely much more on B vitamins to just make it through the day.
4. Eat foods rich in vitamin B — Think eggs, lean meats, lentils, brown rice, avocados, and more.
5. Take the correct Vitamin B supplement — You don’t want just any vitamin B you find on the shelf. Get the entire vitamin B complex (you need all of it) from a good whole food source, so that you don’t have to deal with side effects of chemicals. We recommend BFood, by NutriPlex Formulas. You can order it online here through this special link: http://nutritionresearchcenter.org/shop/bfood-complex/?ref=2.
We can’t just expect more from ourselves — more work, more responsibility, more hours of productivity, more problems — than ever before, and not give our bodies the extra support they need to handle it all. We’ll suffer major consequences. So be kind to your body. Take the sleep you need, the diet that nourishes you, and the vitamin B supplements that refuel you. Then take on the world.
http://nutritionresearchcenter.org/healthnews/vitaminbdeficiencies/
http://www.lifeextension.com/Magazine/2011/3/The-Chemistry-of-Calm/Page-01
http://bebrainfit.com/unhealthy-lifestyle-brain-vitamins/
ABOUT THE WRITER
Tasha Shayne is a multidimensional writer from Denver, Colorado, specializing in natural health care. She is also the editor of The Super Foods Diet and other books. She is available for social media and writing projects by contacting her through her company, Copy Edit, tshaynellc@gmail.com.