Are you going bankrupt without realising it?

Slipping into the red

The weekend was a productive and successful one – you made every effort to ensure both your body and mind were well treated.

You exercised, you chose healthy meal options and you caught up with your friends, without sacrificing sleep.

However Monday morning arrives and you are more tired than you were on Friday night. It’s hard to concentrate, your energy levels are low and you feel stressed by what seems to be insurmountable demands on your time and mind.

Consequently your goals aren’t achieved, you can’t complete tasks you planned, and uncharacteristic inefficiency starts to creep out of the workplace and into the other areas of your life. You’re investing everything and yet the spiral of loss and debt seems unshakeable – is there a way to break the cycle?

Yes. Simple steps are all you need to realign your wellbeing and ensure your efforts translate into meaningful rewards.

Step 1: Run your profit and loss account

Financial reports to monitor the state of a business are vital and necessary on a frequent basis to ensure performance is monitored and issues can be highlighted as soon as possible – and particularly before they become insurmountable problems.

Yet how often do you conduct a check-up and produce a report on your own wellbeing? Why treat money more kindly than your own body?

It’s hard to appraise ourselves, but today the tools and techniques exist to run a lifestyle test to assess your resources and check up on what needs replenishing and why, and to check whether you are using your available resources correctly.

I use a device called the Body Guard 2 by Firstbeat Technologies. It uses a scientifically proven measuring tool that analyses heart rate variability to provide information about stress and recovery, exercise and physical work. All data is taken from the heart rate variability report, with $100 allocated for each hour.

The value of that hour changes depending on several factors: the percentage of stress reactions throughout the day; work and recovery time throughout the day; sleep quantity and percentage of recovery during the sleep; and the quality of recovery during the sleep.

For example: for every hour you sleep, provided it is between 6.5 to 8 hours, you get $100. If you sleep more than eight hours or less than 6.5 hours, the value decreases. A person who has a very stressful day without any recovery time may have a seven-hour sleep that night, but one of bad quality, with an estimated recovery during sleep of just 64 per cent. Therefore, the value is $700 (7 hours at $100/hour) x 64% = $448. That’s a loss of potential wellness earnings of $252 – all while lying in bed!

Think of it as profit and loss data – hard facts that should direct your next course of action. The results will show how your behaviour and actions use resources, and how good intentions can sometimes translate into unintentional debt, as your resources are run down to their minimum.

It’s all about balance – balance physical and emotional income with the corresponding outputs to ensure that your body and mind remain in equilibrium and you have sufficient resources to face the challenges and
demands of your life.

Step 2: Identify the big wellbeing spender

Your wellbeing account is the same as your bank account – withdrawals are fine, as long as there is a surplus to support them. You can spend on the things you want (too much wine, high workload, not enough exercise or sleep) provided you are paying into the account in equal measure (nutritious meals, restorative sleep, exercise and calm activities to counter stress).

Are you aware of how much you are investing into your account and what your big spending items are? Are you sure the numbers always balance?

When you continue to make withdrawals without topping up your investment, you struggle to cope with life, and stress becomes your enemy. Stress isn’t always bad – it can enable you to cope with pressures and boost your performance – but it draws heavily on your wellbeing account, and insufficient resources will eventually translate into harm to your body and mind.

Manage stress by investing for it in advance. Think of it as saving for a rainy day.

Here’s what you can do to ensure your wellness:

• Avoid strenuous, high-intensity exercise late at night (including heavy physical work and long, high-heat sauna sessions).
• Find methods of relaxation to make it easier to fall asleep.
• Don’t rush your meal breaks at work – these are important to recharge the batteries.
• Laugh with your colleagues.
• Make your timetable realistic. Leave some flexibility for delays and changes.
• Protect your leisure time by setting a “no later than” time for leaving work.
• Make time for friends and family.
• Learn to say NO.

Step 3: Invest sufficiently

Making sufficient investments is the only way to maintain a balance and allow your body to continue to support you in all the withdrawals. Investments consist of nutrition, mindfulness, movement and fulfilment.

Consider this hypothetical 24-hour period of activities in the table above as withdrawals and investments into your wellbeing account.

Remember, the higher the withdrawals, the higher the investment needed to balance your body’s resources as you would any other account. Give yourself the same advice you would to clients, otherwise bankruptcy might strike without you even realising, and the consequences can be vast.

Gitana Gataveck is an executive wellness coach at Wellness Accountant. The former accountant left the corporate world to manage her own health challenges, and in doing so identified a niche for helping others with their own health and wellbeing. Gitana has over 10 years’ experience in the wellness industry and is accredited in nutrition, mindfulness training and executive coaching. She is passionate about helping people achieve their goals and growth through sustainable performance.