TaxCalc Blog

Stay at the top of your game this Self Assessment season

FOUR SMALL CHANGES. ONE BIG DIFFERENCE TO YOUR WELL-BEING

Do you dread the Self Assessment season knowing you’re going to be on your knees by the end of January, feeling totally burnt out?

What if this year was different and you made a few simple lifestyle tweaks that made a massive difference to your energy and focus?

TaxCalc has teamed up with healthy lifestyle expert Rachel McGuinness from Zest Lifestyle to help you boost your energy through January.

This guide is divided into four parts:

1. Sleep Well
2. Eat Smart
3. Move More
4. Chill Out

Just as TaxCalc software makes life easier during this busy time, this guide will help reduce your stress and stay at the top of your game.

SLEEP WELL

Getting enough quality sleep is important so that you’re firing on all cylinders during the stresses and strains of January. 

We sleep in ninety minutes cycles where we go through four different stages of sleep.  The first is light sleep where we’re just dropping off.  Then we go into true sleep where blood pressure and body temperature begin to drop, muscles begin to relax and breathing begins to slow down.  Next we go into deep sleep which is about twenty percent of our night’s sleep, this is when the brain detoxes and gets rid of waste and dead cells; free radicals (cells that cause damage – the bad guys) are cleaned up; and blood pressure, hormone levels and metabolism are all regulated to keep us happy and healthy.  Finally we go into REM sleep (our dream sleep), when memories are consolidated from short term storage to long term storage.  As you can see a lot is happening in your brain and body when we sleep.

How can you make sure you get good quality Zzzzzeds in during January?

1. Get into a bedtime routine. If possible get to bed earlier so that you get up earlier. If you’re a night owl, shift your usual bedtime to an earlier one by fifteen minutes every day (in four days you will be hitting the hay an hour earlier!).  If you’re up earlier you’re going to be more focused and productive.  Keep to your new bedtime at weekends as well – if you can, so that you don’t succumb to social jetlag on Monday morning.
2. Keep your bedroom like a cave. Cool, dark and well-ventilated. The ideal temperature for your night time slumbers is around sixteen to eighteen degrees centigrade; use black out blinds or curtains to make sure your bedroom has no light pollution.
3. Have a tech amnesty around sixty to ninety minutes before lights out. That means no phone, tablets or laptops in bed (sorry!).   Screens emit blue light which wake you up when you should be feeling sleepy, your brain gets confused and starts secreting the waking up hormone (serotonin) instead of the sleeping one (melatonin).
4. Don’t get jacked up on caffeine during January. Caffeine can seriously disrupt your sleep, so think about having your last coffee at lunch time, so that the caffeine has enough time to get out of your system before bedtime.  Energy drinks are even worse than coffee, not only will they disrupt your sleep, they come with some serious health risks (they are banned in some countries) and are loaded with enough sugar to keep you wired for three days!

Rachel McGuinness is a health coach specialising in working with busy professionals. Her four principles: eat smart, sleep well, move more and chill out helps them have loads more energy, so that they are more focused at work and in life; and helps them feel incredible and look amazing. Everything she teaches her clients she does herself as she believes in walking her talk; as 16 years ago she swapped her self-destructive unhealthy lifestyle for a much healthier one.

To download the complete guide, click here