How do you practice self-care? What are some of the things you do to take care of yourself? Perhaps it’s a nice long bath at the end of the day, cooking healthy meals, or going for a walk. These are all good; but maybe that’s not what self care is all about. Real self care doesn’t mean we need to find ways to escape stress and do things that relax us. It also means doing the hard work of facing our problems, instead of avoiding them and finding ways to distract us. Here are some ideas from Psychology Today on what real self-care means.

“Self-care means doing what makes you anxious now, like setting boundaries with tough people, saying no when you don’t want to do something, getting through a tough workout, or telling someone something they don’t want to hear. It means compassionately accepting yourself for who you are instead of burning yourself out trying to be everything to everyone all the time. It’s living your life in a way that...

 We thought it would be a great way to start the week by featuring a few insights from Dr. Caroline Leaf on boosting your mental energy when you need it most! Dr. Leaf is a brilliant cognitive neuroscientist and found her 3 top tips super practical and easy to integrate, especially when stress is high and your energy is running low. Here’s a little background...

“Why do we get tired? Our nonconscious mind never stops. It’s always trying to make us aware of issues that are damaging our resilience and causing neurophysiological disruptions in our brain and body. However, the conscious mind and brain do get tired because they work on energy, like our phones. This is kind of like when we have a whole lot of apps open, the brightness is on full and we are constantly using our phone—very soon the battery will die. And, like you need to recharge your phone, you also need to recharge your brain and conscious mind. 

It’s best we do this in a regular...

It seems like forever ago when life seemed more manageable, less stressful, more balanced. It feels like only yesterday when we could leave work at work and not bring it to our couch at 9:00 PM!  Now our work or obligations or stress seem to follow us wherever we go…. 

 We know for many in our RISE Community, you are balancing a lot! All of  the demands of work and home-much as you did before-but the difference is, now many are managing multiple responsibilities all at the same time-with no boundaries or clear separation-leaving little time to recover and feel restored.  

 So we thought this week would be a great time to begin strengthening our balance-creating more space to better take care of You!  We wanted to share with you a quick self-survey you can use to identify your current Work--Relationship-Life Balance. We’d encourage you to take this self-survey and a month from now, after using some of the RISE tools and...