Taking Care Of You: Recognize Your Stress
In these times you hear almost everyone talking about stress in their daily lives. Then you throw in a writer’s life. Yup, you really need to take care of yourself. The first thing you need to do is recognize your stress. What are your stressors and how do you react? Now what are you going to do about it?
I have a fairly good idea about my stressors these days. So, the first part of taking care of me is prevention. Try to keep a healthy body to fight the stress and its negative effects. I try to follow a natural, healthy diet with few additives, based on the Mediterranean Diet. Then I exercise three or four days a week. Sometimes it’s at the fitness center or walking my dog and getting my 10,000 steps in, or working on specific, targeted exercises for my arthritis. I meditate in the morning, get fresh air, try to find at least one thing in a day that makes you smile or laugh out loud and eight hours of sleep.
I also try and book time each day for chores, family time, writing and space for me to relax. It sounds good, but this is one of the things I find hardest to do.
This is taking care of myself and hopefully an aid to preventing increased stress levels. However, life still takes over and I still end up with stress. Blogs to get done, website updates, marketing (which is always one of my big stressors, often compounded by trying to ignore doing it) writing that book with so many life interruptions, editing deadlines…do I need to say more?
When these things happen, I often arrange to meet a friend for lunch and a little shopping, which can make me happy.
Depending on the stress I may take a day or two off from writing, chores, etc. and not do anything but curl up with a good book and maybe nibble on some dark chocolate. Very relaxing, mind clearing, and I may even get a few ideas for a WIP.
For those really stressful times, there’s a massage – sigh… My favorite is half treatment massage and half Japanese hot stone massage. It works on the arthritis pain, those tense muscles and I come away completely relaxed and feeling wonderful.
And then of course, there’s always wine…
The Fourth Victim Sara’s Story
Blurb for The Fourth Victim
Sara’s emotionally abusive husband dies unexpectedly. She’s struggling to reclaim the intelligent, independent person she was before she married. Now she’s part of a special team, training to help other women.
Mac is responsible for training women in special ops, so they are prepared in their challenge to save other women. When he meets Sara, sparks fly between them. He wants her to quit the training and let him take care of her.
Sara graduates. Her first assignment is to save Sara’s daughter from a serial killer. Can Mac step back in this dangerous situation? Can Sara and Mac resolve their issues?
Buy Links for The Fourth Victim:
Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JQ97L8M?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420
Apple - https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-fourth-victim/id1440048796?ls=1&mt=11
Nook pending
Kobo - https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/the-fourth-victim-9
