Q: Many people around these days complain of feeling tired, although they believe, they are living a healthy lifestyle. Why is that?

A: We live in a society, where we praise each other (and ourselves) on successful multitasking: you could be driving your car and making a business call, while chugging down an energy drink for “lunch.” A busy mom sometimes has to combine babysitting with grocery shopping and with phone calls, or a workout with reading and answering emails. If you think about this, it’s very stressful. When you are stressed, your adrenal glands release cortisol, the stress hormone, which can stir havoc in the body. It suppresses your immune response, making you more prone to infections, colds, flus, acne, cold sores, and other issues. It disrupts the sleep-awake cycle, causing sleep disturbances at night and fatigue during the day. It causes you to gain weight and put on fat! And to top it off, it causes premature aging and puts you at risk of chronic diseases, such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, heart disease, and stroke.

Q: What about getting enough sleep? Does that add to the problem?

A: That’s correct. We are a severely sleep deprived society. Some folks are proud of “surviving” on 5-6 hours of sleep. They get up at four in the morning to get to the gym, because they have to squeeze in the daily workout before they get to the office at 8 AM, and in the meantime, they don’t understand, why they are not losing any weight. Well, the answer, again, is cortisol! To your body sleep deprivation is another form of stress, in response to which it will release more cortisol, and we have just mentioned that cortisol makes you put on fat. So, you can spend hours exercising, but if your cortisol is elevated, all your efforts will be counteracted by the simple physiological response to the stress you are imposing on your body. Make sure to give the body what it needs first: enough rest, food, and water, before increasing its load with strenuous workouts and multitasking. Want to know how much sleep you need per night? Use this very simple test: if you feel sleepy during the day, it means you need more sleep at night.

Q: So, as a life coach, what would you recommend to our stressed, sleep-deprived, multitasking society?

A: Well, what I recommend takes conscious effort and some planning, but my answer is two words: slow down. Start practicing kindness toward yourself. Focus on “here” and “now.” Allow yourself to do one thing at a time. It’s OK, if it takes a bit longer, and others will understand if you don’t answer the phone while driving or don’t reply to their email immediately. They will simply adjust to your way and deal with it. Mindfulness and meditation has become so “in” lately for a reason. We are so obsessed with multitasking and overachieving that we must be reminded to take a deep breath and just be in the moment. Stop living in the future or in the past all the time.

If you don’t have any experience meditating, just do this: set your smartphone alarm for twice a day (let’s say, at 10 am and 4 pm). When your alarm goes off, you will simply observe yourself doing whatever it is you are doing. Pretend that you are looking at yourself from another corner of the room and just watch yourself be for a few minutes. You don’t need any special music, you don’t even need it to be quiet or close your eyes. Just be wherever you are, doing whatever you are doing, only observing yourself doing it. This little exercise will make you really calm down and refocus your thought process. With time, you will realize that many things that go on around you are just noise. You will redefine your center, and gradually, you will find yourself being more energized, harmonious, and kinder toward yourself and others.