7 Ways to Take Care of Yourself

It's a known fact... stress and worries affect our health. It could manifest itself through physical and psychological symptoms including back pain, headaches, skin rashes, cardiovascular disease, and a weaker immune system. WebMD lists many of these and more as the symptoms of stress.

A Families and Work Institute study found that overworked employees are more likely to make mistakes and resent their employers. The same study reports that 44 percent of U.S. employees often or very often felt overworked.

Are you one of 1.7 million people who consider your job and work hours extreme? Forbes discusses a survey from Center for Work-Life Policy. It goes on to report, "64% of those surveyed said their work pressures are self-inflicted but say it is taking a real toll on them individually. Nationally, 70%, and globally, 81%, say their jobs undermine their health in terms of exercise, diet and the impact of stress. Nationally, 46%, and globally, 59%, say it gets in the way of their relationships and nationally, 50%, say it affects their sex life."

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, president of the Center for Work-Life Policy, discusses extreme jobs and its effects on the C-level executives and others. Convinced you need to take care of yourself? The following seven ways will get you on the road to good health and a happy life.

1. Exercise regularly. All the doctors and experts agree on one thing -- Exercise has benefits including improving your mood. They usually argue over how much exercise we need exactly. So motivate yourself to get 30 minutes a day. Break it up into 10 minutes, three times a day.
2. Ask for help. This can be delegating tasks. It's not a sign of weakness to ask for help or to delegate tasks.
3. Get your sleep. Now, we're not going to tell you how much sleep you need. We believe that everyone has a magic number. Some thrive on four hours while others need seven to have a good day.
4. Manage your to do list. You probably have a long to do list, but realistically... they're not all going to get done today... or even this week. Be realistic and pick three or so tasks for today. Once you check them off, you'll feel great.
5. Learn to say no. Promise too much and it's more damaging to yourself than to hurting someone else's feelings.
6. Accept you can't control everything. You know that ol' prayer, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..."
7. Find solutions. Instead of fretting over what's going wrong, find the solution to stop it from going wrong. If there's no solution, see #6.

Take care of yourself. Remember that if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy -- this applies to your business. If you're not happy, you're business won't be happy.