4 Simple Stress Relief Tips

I’d like to think I’m a beacon of zen, stress-free living... except that I am really, truly not. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m a horribly anxious person. I twirl my hair, bite my nails, jiggle my legs, fidget, and generally act like a personified ball of stress about 75% of my life. If I ever have a moment of 100% stress-free time, I immediately begin to wonder if I’m forgetting something to be stressed about. 

That being said, a mom has taught me that I have to find ways to deal with my stress... other than comfort eating. So here are my 4 super simple tips for relieving stress, whether you’re pregnant or not. 

1. Go for a walk or a drive. 

Sometimes, when I’m in the thick of serious stress or anxiety, I just need to leave. I need to get out of the house, stop crying, stop talking about what’s bothering me. I just need to get out of it. Usually, I will head over to my mom’s, but sometimes, I’ll just go for a drive. Other times, I’ll walk around the grocery store or the park. I always go back home feeling a little better about the situation. More than anything, by going to a public place, it gives me time to think over the problem (or whatever is bothering me) and find a solution without resorting to insane tears. 

2. Read, write, or cut up magazines. 

Do something with your hands! Anything! I’m a fidgeter, by nature, and if I occupy my hands, I effectively occupy my brain. You can read a book or a magazine, or just tear your favorite pictures out for future scrapbooking. You can write in a journal or notebook, draft a blog post, or send a message to someone you haven’t talked to in ages. There is lots you can do to take your mind off your anxiety. 

3. Invest in a coloring book. 

And I don’t mean a little kid coloring book! I recently purchased The Secret Garden and it totally changed my life. Whenever I’m feeling particularly stressed out (by all the cleaning I need to do, by the laundry that’s been sitting, clean and unfolded, in my bedroom for a week, by all the prep I need to do for baby), I spend 15-30 minutes coloring. 

4. Take a shower or a bath. 

Clean body, clean mind? Maybe. I find showers and baths incredibly relaxing. Typically, if I feel dirty (if I haven’t washed my hair or my face or shaved my legs), I find it very difficult to refocus my anxiety. Everything just feels wrong until I get cleaned up and smelling good! Plus, the shower is the perfect place to think, mull over your problems, and even cry... without messing up your make up. 

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Do you have something you always do to relieve stress? Share with me on Twitter! 

I Woke Up Like This: Top 5 Secrets to Getting Up Earlier in the Morning

We all know someone who hits the snooze two or three or ten times every morning. 

That person, for me, is my husband, Danny. He hits snooze for about an hour every morning -- so by the time my alarm goes off, I've actually been awake for 30-45 minutes. Thanks, bro!

Getting up in the morning can be difficult. I go through cycles where I can wake up easily -- and then go into a phase where I wake up groggy, hit the snooze, and have no motivation. It tends to cycle around my eating and workout habits, which is incredibly motivating. Just kidding -- it's not motivating at all. 

I have found a few tried and true ways to get up earlier. Here they are. 

1. Don't hit snooze. 

I know, that's the worst. But don't. As I've written before, the more decisions you make, the harder it can be to make other decisions. So if you spend your mornings hitting the snooze, every time you decide to hit that snooze button, you're reducing your decision-making abilities for the rest of the day. Oops. Yikes. Uh-oh. Plus, hitting snooze doesn't actually give you more rest -- it can actually make you more tired. Which isn't very good. 

2. Promise yourself something. 

Bribes are not always the way to get stuff done unless you really like bribes. If that's the case, they are a really good idea. Basically, what I'm saying is: if you need to tempt yourself out of bed by saying "you can have a massive Starbucks this morning," then you should do that. Sometimes, I bribe myself with a treat, like a bagel for lunch or my favorite dinner, or something else, like a new pair of leggings I've been wanting. 

3. Set your alarm across the room. 

I know, we've all heard this one before. But it's because it works. Whether you use a traditional alarm clock or your cell phone, putting it across the room is the easiest way to get up in the morning. I actually put my phone on the windowsill so I have to physically get up and move to the coldest part of the room in the morning -- this pretty much instantly wakes me up! 

4. If you're getting up to work out, wear your gym clothes to bed. 

That way you don't have to change into cold workout clothes immediately upon getting up. It makes it so much easier to just get up and go. You literally have nothing stopping you -- you're dressed and everything! I know Charlotte at Girl Next Door does this and she runs marathons, so that's very impressive. 

5. Have everything ready. 

Waking up can be a huge pain, especially if you have a bunch today. But preparing a lunch for your work day, picking out an outfit, and getting your coffee ready to brew can make a huge difference in helping your morning go smoothly. Every morning, I have breakfast waiting in a Tupperware to heat up and eat as I get ready, plus my coffee starts brewing as I'm showering; my lunch and snacks are prepacked in the fridge, Forrest's breakfast is ready, and I have bottles prepped for the day. 

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Have your own tips for getting up early? Share with me on Twitter!

The First Story

I still remember the first story I wrote. It was about a girl who lived on a bus. I was 12 years old and had received a laptop for my birthday, something I wanted specifically to use to write. I'd written stories before, sure: tiny stories about my favorite band (98 degrees) or things for school. With that laptop, though, I felt like I could really become a writer. I remember that every day of middle school and high school, I got home and wrote. Every single day. By the end of high school, I had amassed hundreds and hundreds of pages of writing. 

The sad part: two years ago, I went through and deleted all of it. I had carried those digital folders of Word documents around on various laptops for years. It was time to let go. 

That kind of dedication to creating is pretty impressive and I haven't met the output of my high school years yet. Everything I wrote was pretty bad; I mean, that's why I deleted it. But I still wrote a lot. In journals, on my computer, online, everywhere. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. I was always creating, always thinking, always having a new idea for something. 

I wrote significantly less in college. I filled a lot of journals, but I would argue that I never actually wrote anything. Pages and pages and pages of... nothing. I wrote a lot for school (including some papers for history classes and English classes that I'm still pretty proud of). My senior year was probably my most productive year, but that was out of necessity (several poetry workshops and a capstone), rather than actually wanting to. 

Since we started sleep training, though, I have had all kinds of time. After cleaning, washing bottles, putting away dishes, and generally doing all the chores I put off for nine months , I had more free time than I realistically know what to do with. 

So for the first time ever, I started writing again. In a few days, I sat down and wrote a short story, I wrote 6 poems, and I finished blog posts I have been meaning to write for ages . 

That first short story felt like the biggest triumph. Is it good? Not really. I would argue that it's actually pretty bad, but I wrote it and that's what is most important. It feels go to write again and to have the time to write again. I always dreamed of being the kind of mom that Forrest would remember writing and now I feel like it might be a reality. 

I Didn't Have a Birth Plan

In my 2nd trimester, I sat down and tried to write a birth plan. I looked up online what they usually included; I asked my mom, and my friends, and anyone else I could think of. "What even is a birth plan?" I asked Danny. He shrugged. 

It was easy to be an idealist when I was pregnant. I couldn't imagine a world where I went into labor early; I couldn't imagine a world where I didn't breastfeed; I couldn't imagine a world where I would be induced. It just wasn't a reality for me. I imagined Danny and I pulling up the hospital, me waddling inside the labor & delivery floor for the first time. 

As anyone who has read my blog before knows, that's basically the opposite of what happened. 

A lot of energy and emotion is put into birth plans. We plan our nurseries and our schedules and our maternity leaves--we assume we can plan our labor as well, or our entire pregnancies. But as good at planning as I may be, I couldn't plan preeclampsia. I had never known anyone who had developed preeclampsia during pregnancy and even though I had fears about it, I never realistically thought it would happen. 

But it did happen. In one doctor's appointment, all my plans went out the window. If I had had a birth plan at that point, it undoubtedly would have been mostly out the window. 

Since I overthink every situation, I found myself, in the weeks after Forrest's birth, wondering that, if I'd had a better plan in place, would things have been different? I found myself second guessing everything I'd wanted. Did the epidural make Forrest lazier, which made it more difficult for him to nurse? Did the inducement rush his birth? (Later, I would look back at this last question and say to myself, "That's the point.") I found myself asking over and over, did my preeclampsia cause every problem we have? 

Nothing I would go back and "do" would change my preeclampsia: preeclampsia begins at conception, even if you don't show symptoms until the end of pregnancy. Preeclampsia isn't something you make happen to yourself; it's just something that happens. There was nothing I could have done to fix my faulty placenta. 

At the same time, I realized something brilliant about my lack of a birth plan. Many moms who develop preeclampsia end up hating how they had to give birth. If you have a specific idea in mind (an unmedicated birth in a birth center, or at home, for example) and then medical necessity requires you do something you don't want to, it can be jarring, emotionally. That isn't to say you shouldn't plan for a home birth or giving birth at a birth center, but that you should be ready to have something change at the drop of the hat. 

It's very easy to let ourselves get bogged down by the things that went wrong. Even though a plan, I found myself sad about giving birth earlier than I wanted to. I wondered if I'd done everything wrong. But the truth is, pregnancy is just one big guessing game; you can try to get things perfect as much as you want, but the more you plan, the more you're likely to feel upset if things don't go "right." 

I'm not advocating for everyone to drop their birth plans--but I do think it's better to be more chill about how your labor & delivery goes than we currently are. There is no shame in a home birth or going to a birth center, but there is also no shame in going to a hospital, getting an epidural, or opting for a c-section. In the end, the baby will arrive. The most important thing is that everyone is ok at the end of it. 

I Suck at Writing Subject Lines (But It's Ok & Here's Why)

Writing emails for content marketing purposes is, hands down, one of the most difficult things I've ever learned how to do. This is coming from someone who cried in their sophomore geometry class because proofs were so difficult and complicated. Well, sophomore-year-in-high-school me, you're in for a shocker: a writing task (writing! your favorite!) is even more difficult. 

Thanks to all the content marketing resources out there, I've gotten better (perhaps even "good") at writing email marketing. I wouldn't call myself an expert, necessarily, but I get the job done.

Most writers will tell you that subject lines (or titles or headlines) are the most difficult part of writing: how can you sum up everything in an article, a book, or an email with one succinct phrase--and still inspire people to open the email, click the article, or buy the book? 

The short answer: you shouldn't. 

Subject lines are my writer Achilles's heel: they are my ultimate weakness. They are my greatest challenge when it comes to writing. 

I've read every article in existence on writing better subject lines, how to write subject lines to get clicks, to get opens, to change the game. Trust me, I've done the legwork. I've attended webinars and signed up for email newsletters on the subject. I've done A/B testing; I've completed worksheets; I'm written and rewritten and rewritten again. 

No matter what, I come to the same conclusion: I suck at writing subject lines. And that's ok. 

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I can hem and haw over a subject line, or title, for hours potentially. I debate over how to perfectly sum up what I've written. Then, I have to take into account everything else: what will interest people? What will get the most clicks? Or opens? I can debate for hours. I can download all the ebooks and read all the articles. I can do as much as I can to avoid actually hitting send or publish. 

But the truth is: a subject line is just a subject line. You can do everything right and still not get as many opens as you wanted. There is no perfect formula to the perfect subject line or title.  Sometimes, something works and you have no idea why. Sometimes, something just clearly does not jive and you won't know why. 

That's ok. 

We want to believe that marketing can be brought down to pure math, that you can determine everything by numbers. But when you combine the power of words with the rigidity of math, it's never going to be perfect; add in the subjectivity of the average human and it's never going to make 100% sense. We can only know the basics of what works and even that is iffy sometimes. 

I'm always going to suck a little bit at writing subject lines and titles, mostly because I get overwhelmed at how important they are. And that's ok. It's ok to not be perfect at everything (as tough as it is to admit). It's also ok that sometimes subject lines flop, despite killer content; it's ok that sometimes you need to A/B test, tweak a title once it's published, or experiment. 

It doesn't have to be perfect from the get-go. Take the pressure off and allow yourself to experiment and find what works for you and your audience. But don't get too set on any one method or style: it will probably change tomorrow. 

My Daily Essentials

I have a busy life. 

Those are words I really thought I'd never write. I hate that tendency of bloggers (especially full-time bloggers) to always write or post about how "busy" they are--when, in reality, they're probably not that super busy. Not that this is the busyness Olympics or anything.

But now that I'm legitimately busy, I feel stupid for all the times I thought I was busy in the past. A combination of sleep deprivation (although that's coming to an end), working a full-time job in half-time hours, and taking care of an entire small human has made me realize what it actually means to be "busy." 

The past few months, I've found a few ways to keep myself organized and on top of things, while effectively doing all my different jobs. These are my absolute daily essentials 

1. Bullet journals

I'm a list maker. I always have been and I always will be. I find it easiest, for all the various hats I wear, to keep a running calendar or list of deadlines, things to do, and notes. I started bullet journaling at work 2 years ago and it has worked wonderfully. I keep my bullet journal very simple: I have an index and then a full month master calendar for each month. Each day gets its own page where I record notes, things to do, and deadlines to add to my master calendar. I keep one notebook for my job and one notebook for home and it works really well to keep me feeling sane. 

I also have a "fun" bullet journal where I can do whatever list pages I want--and I don't do daily pages. I keep track of habits, saving, and all the lists I need, from books I want to buy to home improvement projects. 

2. Meal Planning  

Every Wednesday, I sit down and plan meals for the week. I know this seems like a strange day to do it, but I typically go grocery shopping with Forrest on Thursday or Friday morning. I don't use anything fancy: I use Pinterest and make a list in my journal. Then I create a grocery list out of all the recipes and add them to OurGroceries. 

3. OurGroceries

Have you guys ever used this app? I've used all kinds of different ways to try to organize my grocery lists. For a while, I used the basic Notes app on my iPhone, but I needed something better. OurGroceries can sync across different phones, so if Danny and I had the app, I could add a list of things I needed him to do on his way home from work. If I'm grocery shopping with Forrest, I don't necessarily have the ability to carry a notepad (and pen to cross things off). I can, however, hold a phone and tap to cross things out. And I never forget my list at home because it's already with me. 

4. Google Calendar & Reminders

I have an increasingly terrible memory. I used to be able to remember anything without writing it down, but those days are gone, clearly. Just like OurGroceries, it helps me to write things down in a bullet journal (usually my work one); but then I also add everything to my Google Calendar and iCalendar on my phone. I set reminders for 30 minutes and 5 minutes, just in case I forget. If I don't do this, I forget--like the doctor's appointment I completed spaced on at the beginning of June. Oops. 

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What do you use to keep yourself organized? Share with me on Twitter!

Why We Decided to Sleep Train

I swore I would never sleep train. The idea of letting Forrest "cry it out" bothered me, in that it felt fundamentally wrong.

However, after 8-and-a-half months of very, very little sleep and highly interrupted sleep, I knew I needed to do something. I wasn't sleeping, I had no time to myself, and my back and hips were starting to ache from acting as a barrier from the edge of the bed. 

For about 6 weeks, I read every article I could find on sleep training; I followed sleep training blogs and joined sleep training groups; I asked all my friends about sleep training and fretted to my mom. When Forrest was 6 or 7 weeks old, I'd read an article that sleep training caused emotional trauma and I found myself unable to shake that from my mind. If we sleep trained, would it hurt him? 

Here's the conclusion I ultimately came to. (And remember, this is just my conclusion; every parent is free to make their own.) There is an appropriate emotional age to sleep train and it's different for every baby. Some babies will be fine sleep training at 4-6 months. Some babies will be fine sleep training after 6 months. Some babies are capable of sleep training from birth on. It just depends on your baby and your comfort level. 

Here's another thing: Sleep training doesn't mean letting your baby scream and cry until they puke and pass out. This horrible article went around a few months ago (it's the one I read when Forrest was tiny) about a person listening to a friend's child scream and scream and scream alone in their room and how awful and terrible it was. It's a bad article. It is. It is completely made up and not indicative of real sleep training. 

A blog I read said it best: sleep training is about communicating with your child, teaching a skill, and empowering your child to sleep better. 

The truth is, disrupted, poor sleep is bad for both Forrest and me. Both of us were suffering from sleep deprivation. He was cranky all the time, sleeping barely 10 hours a day (at 9 months, most babies still need 13-14 hours of sleep total). I needed to sleep and Forrest needed to sleep. 

So we decided to sleep train. 

We did a few things first. I ordered a sound machine because Forrest sleeps best with white noise (river and water sounds, typically). I ordered the myBaby SoundSpa Lullaby Sound Machine and Projector on a recommendation from my due date group on Facebook. I put Danny in charge of finding a baby monitor and he picked this one: the Hello Baby Wireless Monitor with Night Vision. We needed a monitor that didn't use WiFi and this one works perfectly for our needs. 

We had experimented with a few different sleep training methods before. Here are a few common methods (although this blog doesn't use the appropriate names for them). We noticed something specific with Forrest: if we checked on him or went in to reposition him, it would start his crying all over again. He would return to the intense, angry cry. So we decided to use the extinction method. 

Extinction is what people mean with they say "cry it out"; however, "cry it out" isn't the name of any actual method. It also doesn't mean we don't tend to him or ignore him. The first night, Forrest cried for over 90 minutes, which was rough; Danny went in to lie him back down three times (just to avoid him falling over from being so tired). Once he went to sleep, though, he slept for 7 solid hours. 

Seven hours!! Forrest has never slept 7 hours straight in his life before that. Before sleep training, he was waking up every 2 hours to eat. 

It was revolutionary. We have been sleep training for 10 days now and each day, he gets a little better. He goes to bed at 6pm and usually wakes up to fuss at 10pm. Then he fusses himself back to sleep within 10 minutes. He wakes up at 4:55am for a bottle, then sleeps until 7am most days. 

7am. This is the baby that has been getting me up at 4:30am or 5:00am for months. Now he sleeps until 7am! He only eats 1 bottle at night! He falls asleep after 15 minutes of crying! 

The best part? He's happier during the day. He naps less frequently, plays more, and has started making more developmental steps. He eats better during the day. He's more fun to play with. Everything is better now that he's sleep. 

The best part? After 6pm, I have time to myself. I can vacuum, clean the kitchen, organize my desk area, clean the bedroom, and more. I can write in my journal. I can scrapbook or write! I have time to myself. My house is getting cleaned up. I can watch TV shows at 6pm. Danny and I can watch movies together. 

Sleep training isn't for everyone. It's absolutely true. Some parents just can't stand to hear their babies cry for 90 minutes. But now that we've worked through the hardest parts, it's hard to imagine never having done it. I don't regret it one bit. We are a happier family now thanks to sleep training and that's what matters. 

3 Things I'd Tell My Past Self

I recently published a post on LinkedIn about entering the marketing world--and all the things I've learned since then. The more I think about where my life is right now (from my professional career to motherhood), I find myself in awe of how far I've come and how different my life is from what I planned. 

When I graduated from college in 2011, I never expected to go into marketing. I wanted to be a writer and that was my focus. But, looking back, I had no idea, really, what I wanted to write; I just wanted some general job where I was a writer. Obviously, that's not a great strategy when it comes to the job market and it's probably what contributed to my difficulty getting a job post-grad. I couldn't define my skill set if I couldn't define my ideal job--so I flailed, applied to anything and everything and waited and waited and waited. 

As a result, I worked a lot of crappy jobs. A lot. They were far from glamorous and ultimately served as lessons for me on how I wanted my future career to go--so I guess it isn't all bad! 

On LinkedIn, my friend Sarah mentioned that she wished she'd taken a marketing class in college--at least one! That got me thinking, if I could go back in time and tell my past self anything to help my transition to my current life easier, what would I say? Here's what I came up with. 

1. "Take more diverse classes." 

"But future self," my past self would say, rolling my eyes (undoubtedly), "I already takes LOTS of diverse classes! Sociology, history, journalism, art! You name it!" 

I would roll my eyes in return and say, "Not course catalog, liberal arts-subject diversity--I mean, actually diverse." 

I took a ton of diverse classes my senior year, it's true. But they were diverse in the sense that they got my enough credits outside of the English department. I wish, as my friend Sarah said, that I'd taken a marketing class and potentially a business class as well. I feel like having a more well-rounded, realistic idea of working and business management, as well as marketing, would have made a huge difference for me as a new graduate. 

2. "Relax & have more fun."

Anxiety is a way of life for me; it's just how I happen to live! That's not necessarily the greatest thing in the world, but hey, it is what it is! Looking back, especially to high school me and college me, I wish I'd just had more fun. My anxiety makes me incredibly driven and self-motivated (because I don't want to fail), but it also meant that I sometimes didn't enjoy life the way I should. I spent more time being high strung and anxious than I actually spent living my life in some ways. I wouldn't necessarily change the trajectory of my life (for example, I'm glad Danny loves and accepts the high strung, anxious me), but I wish I'd let myself relax a little bit more. 

Just a little bit though. I'm still super proud of my magna cum laude distinction on my degree! 

3. "Travel more."

I don't say this very often (because I hate traveling), but: I wish I'd traveled more when I was younger. Who knows? Maybe I'd enjoy it more now. I wish I'd seen more of the world before I buckled down for college and for work. I wish I'd seen the places I wanted to (London, Germany, Disney World) before facing the prospect of taking a child! 

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As the old cliche goes, hindsight is 20/20. I wish I could tell my past self lots of things (like "Don't take that job, even though it seems like a great idea" or "don't let Danny drive to work today--he'll total the car"). Fortunately, I can't--and I really think that's for the best. If I didn't make all the mistakes I've made, or perhaps the decisions that I've made, who knows where I would be now?