De-stressing

Hello hello wonderful people reading this, I hope that you are all well and having a good start to your week. I have exams this month !!! I'm semi freaking out about them, I keep thinking I've not done enough work for them and that I'm going to have a mind blank and do worse than last year. Even though I know that this shouldn't be the case I am still stressing out. This is where the topic of this blog comes into play. De-stressing now I know that this is something I have mentioned on here quite a lot in the past, I write about this because it is a real struggle that I have to cope with and find ways to manage. As I have previously said I used my swimming to de-stress me however now because I no longer do that I've had to replace swimming with something else which is what I'm going to talk to you about today.

The Gym, so last week I signed up to a new gym in a nearby town which is a 24 hour gym for me this is amazing because it means that after a long pub shift where I finish late I can still go to the gym and push myself hard to just allow my mind to switch off for just a bit. For example last Wednesday I finished at the pub at 11pm, during my shift I'd been feeling very overwhelmed and like my chest was super tight, I had no idea why I was feeling like this. So instead of going home and lying in bed on my phone I went to the gym for an hour, it was so helpful, I put my headphones on and worked hard, I danced when a good song came on and afterwards I just felt happy and whole and content. Then I got home and went straight to sleep. Knowing I now have a gym that I can go to whenever is so comforting, I know that working out isn't for everyone but for me it is the best method of de-stressing possible. I hope that you can all one day find something that you can use to de-stress; be it reading, yoga, dog walks, playing an instrument, having a bath or knitting. Whatever it is I hope it makes you happy ad makes you not worry about what's going on in your life.

I personally over the past week have seen how much the gym really affects my body and my mind. Last week I was becoming stressed by how high my resting heart rate was getting; now for most people this may be low but for me it was very high; I got to a resting heart rate of 61 now this annoyed me and made me more stressed because I felt like I didn't have time to do my home workouts so I wasn't getting them done regularly and then I was getting stressed about my heart rate going up which causes it to go up even more. However over the past week of me going to the gym and making time for myself and my brain to switch off life and focus on just my body my resting heart rate has gone down by 10 beats per minute to 51 BPM, for me this just shows me how important it is that I take time out where I'm not working or thinking about school stuff. Yes I do find this difficult and often I feel guilty about it and I'll get to the end of a day and be disappointed in myself because I haven't got enough work done, however at the same time I think its so important that I am in the right place mentally and that my body is rested and calm, with my heart rate down and my hours of exercise per week up I'm sleeping better and feeling happier which is amazing I just hope that when it gets to exams I can keep this up and really perform my best and get into university come September.

So that's all I have for you guys today I hope you liked reading this, I know it may not be super interesting for you to read but I really want to get across the message about how important it is to take time for yourself and to find something where your brain can truly stop worrying about daily life. I'll see you all back here next week I hope you all have a wonderful week remember to keep smiling and count your blessings, and this week as well try find a little bit of time each day for yourself.