Take care of you.  What?? I don’t have time for me!  There are too many other humans that need my attention for me to care about myself.  I have a staff and kids and a husband and friends and there just isn’t enough time in the day for all of them plus myself!

Girl, I get it!  Please do NOT hear me tell you that I’ve got this on lock because I don’t.  BUT, I turned 40 this year and whoa! It’s like with the flip of a switch everything in your body changes (please tell me I’m not alone in this right???).  It’s like your older, wiser self is telling you “slow down, give me some decent food, try giving me a run from time to time!” Haha!  

I mean, even on an airplane they teach you to put on your own mask before helping others.  If you are stressed, hangry, sleep-deprived and more, how fun are you to hang out with anyway??  

And what are we teaching our kids….we tell them they need a full night’s sleep to do well in school the next day but here we are barely clocking 5 hours of Zs and expecting to run the world the next day!  

God didn’t design us this way and we need sleep, exercise and healthy food to keep our bodies and minds running at full capacity!

So here are my top 3 tricks I started this year to ensure I am tip top ready each day to conquer the world and care for my people!

1. I pack lunch/snacks.  I am the #1 worst at working working working until I realize it’s 4 pm and I haven’t eaten and now I have a migraine and I’m hangry.  Even if I schedule time for lunch, I will work through it. My husband actually has an alarm set on our Alexa that says each morning “This is your reminder:  Feed Brandee Breakfast”. Transparent truth here folks! But I also know that if I have a lunch packed, I will grab it because it’s close and I can get my belly full and keep working!  If I will be in the car a lot that day, I pack lots of little snacks and a lot of water….again, because if it’s there I’ll eat it but if it’s not I’ll opt for a swing through McDonald’s…yes, it’s my favorite!

2. I get up an hour earlier than I need to.  One of the things I felt the most guilt about last year was not taking care of my body and mind.  I turned 40 this year and my family has a long history of heart disease. I loathe working out so I just never made it a priority.  But in the anxious thoughts that keep me up at night, I would think…I’m going to leave my children motherless because I can’t take time to fit in a workout that will keep my body healthy.  I know…irrational but true! And I knew I wouldn’t be accountable to myself so I asked my husband to hold me accountable to it. I also felt super guilty (we moms know how to lay on the self-guilt right??) about reading my bible each morning half asleep.  Like I was just checking off a box but to be honest I couldn’t tell you what passage I read most of the time! So I fixed both issues by getting up an hour earlier than I need to and I spend the first 30 minutes working out (Beachbody On Demand is a lifesaver!) and the next 30 minutes reading my bible.  Once I sit down to read my body is awake and I can actually understand and discern what I’m reading!

3. I go to bed after I get the kids in bed.  I think this one is also SUPER hard for mommas.  We spend all day taking care of everyone else and once the kids are in bed, it’s me time.  No one is asking for anything and I can watch anything I want on TV….it’s all mine! BUT, the second you turn on the TV you know it’s going to turn into a 3-hour binge session while you also catch up on your Insta stories and before you know it you’re crawling into bed at 1 am only to get up 5 short hours later to manage all of the humans again.  Instead, after the last one is in bed Ira and I head straight for ours. We may not fall asleep right away but we’re relaxed and can catch up with each other for a bit instead of stimulating our brains with TV.

Do you have any tricks you want to share?  I’m new to this self-care thing this year so throw ‘em at me!