Nourishing Yourself While Nourishing Your Career

Between business trips stacking up, client project deadlines looming, team leadership duties calling, and meetings filling every free minute in your calendar, relaxing almost feels selfish. But for professional women especially, self-care is essential to thrive both personally and in competitive careers long-term.

Jenny is a marketing VP constantly toggling between work deliverables and family needs; she totally understands the simmering tension women feel in a million directions. But the truth also is – that the more senior your role is, the more vital it becomes to protect space to refuel the mental clarity and stamina that got you there!

With hectic schedules unlikely to ease up, her focus shifted to smarter self-care choices embedded within demanding days, whether 5-minute sanity breaks between back-to-back calls or leveraging fleeting pockets of time otherwise lost.

Here are Jenny’s top time-optimizing self-care tips for sisters doing it all:

Morning Magic

Rather than scrolling aimlessly on your phone when your alarm goes off, spend those 10 minutes on activities uplifting your mood, listen to a podcast that makes you laugh, meditate, dance to your favorite music, scan a pretty view outside, or sip herbal tea. Studies reveal starting days positively primes you to handle stress better later.

Schedule Sanity Breaks

On marathon meeting days, intentionally add 5-10 minute buffers between consecutive video calls for sanity-saving breathers. Stand up, do neck rolls, sip water. Use it to connect personally via texts with your kids, partner, and friends. Tiny mental health breaks prevent brain melting and emotional build-up.

Set Meeting Boundaries

To avoid back-to-back video conferences that energetically drain you, limit meetings to only two per half day, creating space for focused strategic thinking. Protect breaks for creative flow states when your best ideas emerge, not just transactional work. Your unique value relies on that big-picture perspective!

Wear Wellness Like Armor

Prepare your body and mind to confront daily stressors by wearing elements supporting inner calm, comfy shoes allowing you to take walking breaks easily, healing crystals in your pocket, soothing scented balm on pulse points, a favorite motivational bracelet. Use clothing to create portable oases of respite amid the hustle!

De-stress Commutes

While work days feel crammed, leverage brief commutes for self-care transitions via relaxing playlists, tension-releasing podcasts, and easy carpool calls with positive people who uplift you. Jenny uses her drives home to call girlfriends or family to de-stress. Hands-free tools allow you to make the best use of the time.

Set App Boundaries

Limit compulsive email/Slack checks throughout the day, turning off notifications to avoid constant disruption, which spikes stress hormones and scatters focus. Set specific times for batched digital influx so you can tune in fully to tasks, meetings, and breaks without split attention depleting you. Protect mindful moments.

Keep Healthy Snack Stash

Hanger is real, so curb energy crashes and sugar cravings derailing days with trail mix, fresh-cut fruits/veggies, nuts, and protein bars. When 3 pm hits and she is flagging, Jenny turns to her snack drawer to refresh rather than junk food tempting but leaving her bloated and guilty. Tiny bites keep your engine running.

Schedule Peer Connect

Laughter and wisdom shared create camaraderie, reminding us all of the common human challenges we face despite our different roles. Schedule 15-30 minutes weekly or bimonthly with 1-2 close working mom friends for candid conversations on juggling emotions. You’ll all feel less alone.

Set Hard Stops on Work Days

Honor 6 pm as a non-negotiable transition cutoff between professional persona and mom/partner/friend roles that nourish you emotionally. Create rituals signaling work day ends like lighting candles, closing laptops, and changing into cozy clothes. When you set firm boundaries, those around you respect them more too.

Fill Cracks with Mini-Meditations

Rather than scrolling aimlessly, eating up spare minutes between tasks, use that time consciously for 1-3 minute meditations: close your eyes, observe breathing, and release where holding tension. Tiny mindful moments reduce cortisol and boost the immunity power of meditation, requiring zero prep or equipment.

By creatively embedding tiny oases of relief and renewal within overpacked days, self-care becomes more realistic in the long-term. You can’t always control external work demands, but utilizing hidden moments for emotional nourishment ensures your internal engine keeps humming! As the airline safety videos say – secure your oxygen mask before assisting others. Prioritize nourishing YOU!