Health, Work

Today’s thoughts: Work + Health

Grateful Kae

WORK:

Work has been a bit intense lately. The long vacation break was very restorative for me, but I returned to sort of a chaotic scene.

I mentioned before that I’m newly responsible for covering a bunch of tasks for someone who recently left. All in all, it’s going okay, but you know how it is when something is new….it just eats up a lot more mental energy.

I don’t fully know what I’m doing (the “training” was pretty fast and furious/relatively nonexistent).

It’s stressful trying to do complex and detailed work to the best of your ability, but without great resources or even always someone to ask questions to. Everything seems to take a little longer than I wish it would (eating up time from my regular work tasks), and too often I have that “floundering fish out of water” feeling.

By the end of the day, my brain hurts. I’ve felt extra tired and drained by 5 pm and I know I’ve been a little cranky/crabby/short tempered with the boys as a result.

Honestly, the entire transition of this person was just not handled the best. Probably because we don’t actually have a manager right now, either. Ha. (Although apparently they’ve now hired one finally, hasn’t started yet.)

There are some perks to all of this, though. I do feel like this experience is broadening my knowledge, and probably ultimately my value, within the department. Learning more about these areas adjacent to my role is overall a positive thing for me, long term. I just wish it could have been handled better instead of mostly just getting dumped on us.

LIFE/ BODY/ HEALTH

All that being said, I’ve been pretty happy with the flow of my days since we’ve been home. I’ve felt quite focused and productive- maybe still riding the “vacation break”?? Or, maybe I’ve just finally figured life out. 😂🤣 KIDDING.

I have been opting for just doing home workouts for now- haven’t been back to the gym yet. With all the extra work stress, I just want to keep things simple. ~30 minute Beachbody workouts are all I’ve been doing, but I’ve been doing them consistently every day, plus a separate 20 minute or so walk (most days). I’m feeling good, physically.

More on this another time, but I’ve also been reading some about anti-inflammatory diets. I capitalized on the natural opportunity to “reset” my diet after being away for 2+ weeks and out of some of my previous eating habits.

As a result, I’ve drastically cut back on my sugar intake, and I feel like I’m already seeing some significant benefits in my skin. (Have struggled with ongoing acne + melasma over past several years). I hope I don’t jinx it by typing this.

Basically, anti-inflammatory diets seem to be a pretty basic “healthy diet”/ low on processed foods/ high in fruits & veggies.

But there are some specific items that I’d like to rotate in more intentionally (berries, olive oil, avocados, nuts, fish, higher fiber foods, broccoli, tomatoes, etc.). Acne and melasma are both exacerbated by inflammation, so this is relevant to me. (Not to mention that chronic inflammation is linked to a a zillion other more serious health problems! So there are lots of reasons to focus on this.)

So far I’m mostly just prioritizing cutting way back on sugar. But I’m hoping to read more on the topic, make some “food lists” to keep handy for meal planning and maybe expand on this whole idea a little in the near future.

Walking consistently outside again has felt good.

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful that Ivan brought me home a brand new pack of TUL gel pens yesterday. 🙂

14 thoughts on “Today’s thoughts: Work + Health”

  1. It’s tough to take someone over that is complex when you haven’t been properly trained. One of our coworkers is out this week so another coworker is handling something with a tight deadline. She left a list of instructions but there are a lot of steps that aren’t covered by the list of instructions – like she assumes you know that doing X step requires about 4 other things that aren’t detailed… Before I went out on maternity leave, I left a lot of detailed job aids so that my coworkers could handle things in my absence. But I wanted them to be able to easily handle things or at least have a guide about how to handle things. But that often doesn’t happen when a person is leaving a company/department.

    Even though I have an inflammatory disease, I have not looked into inflammatory diets! Before my RA disease hit, I had cut out gluten since I found out I had an intolerance a good 4 years before my RA onset. I probably would have attempted to cut out gluten if I hadn’t already so at least that is one thing I’m avoiding. I am sure there are other changes I could make, though, that would help with inflammation. I’m often told by others to consider eating more turmeric as that is apparently a natural anti-inflammatory spice. And I tried drinking cherry juice concentrate for awhile as that’s another anti-inflammatory. It is so so thick and strong so I would dilute it with water but I felt like it didn’t make a difference so I stopped doing that. But it would probably be worth it to look more closely at my diet again!

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    1. Well, in her defense, there are various how-to documents and things like that available. It’s just that not everything is covered, and a lot of it is rather ambiguous…like things that you figure out if you’ve done the job for 10 years, but are not necessarily intuitive at all!

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  2. I’ve been tweaking my diet due to regular heartburn, and just got an acid reflux cookbook I’m eager to try out. Let me know if anything works in particular for you! Sugar’s a hard one for me, I’m def more of a sweets person than a salty one, and always feel I “deserve” it.

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    1. Of course you deserve it!! 😉

      Sorry you’ve been dealing with heartburn. That sounds rough. I can’t even imagine- with my extreme love for spicy food, it would be the ultimate punishment for me if I couldn’t tolerate them! (assuming spicy foods don’t sit well with you?)

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      1. Spicy foods are great. It’s red meat, fried food, soda, chocolate, coffee so far. I went to a happy hour, ate cheese curds, and was in misery. I am totally fine with giving it up if I don’t pay later!

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    1. Yep!! Trying to be realistic with what I can load on my plate at the moment…. For me, the more I eat sugar, the more I want sugar, so I’m hoping after some time cutting back I’ll just want it less? maybe? ha.

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  4. The work situation sounds exhausting, but it also seems like you bring so much knowledge to the table and when the dust settles you’ll have gained some new skills AND really had a chance to prove how invaluable you are; hang on!!

    I’m constantly tweaking my diet so will read along with great interest as you (hopefully!!!) post about your responses to including/removing certain food groups.

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  5. sorry to hear about work stress, same here thus lack of blogging. transition to new job/task is always stressful. I keep telling me to take it slow, as I’ll move into my new job in august. glad to hear that you feel already better cutting back on sugar. I notice dramatic reduction in acne frequency now that I cut back in sugar and carb in general. having healthy fat like avocado and nuts help to keep us satisfied and without the sugar rush.

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    1. I’ve been doing Morning Meltdown. It’s a program I’ve done a couple other times before, and have just been slowly working back through it again. I like that the workouts are short yet still feel effective for me!

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  7. Yay for broader experiences… boo for lack of orientation. I hope the new manager is not the figment of someone’s imagination…

    And, please do keep us posted on the anti-inflammatory diet. I know sugar’s the big culprit, so I imagine that’s making a huge difference. Plus, the post-vacation reset is real – the fun food is fun for a bit, but then, I just want some veggies! 🙂

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