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Jenny Swisher: [00:00:00] Welcome friends to [00:01:00] this episode of The Sink Your Life Podcast. Today I wanna talk about how to find rest in the routine. What does that even mean? Well, at the time of this recording, it is mid-August, the kids are back in school. Everyone’s feeling a little bit tired with the boring but welcomed routines that we missed from the summer.

And as a mom, wife, or just playing women, I’m feeling a shift. There’s a shift in seasons about to happen. I noticed today on my morning walk, that leaves are starting to crumple at my feet. So that means fall is knocking. But also I’m feeling a shift in energy from the fun spontaneity of summer, and its late nights, late mornings, and oftentimes ice cream for lunch for the kids in my house to a sense of regimen packed lunches, alarm clocks, and early bedtimes.

On the one hand, it’s a bit sad. One of just 18 summers with my kids is done and in the past and another year of routine is ahead of us. I’ll miss the lazy mornings and late nights and the loads of laundry that felt like just pajamas and swimsuits. But to be honest, I’m also looking forward to welcoming back routine.

Just today, I took my 8-year-old to her third grade classroom for the first day of school. I was up almost two hours [00:02:00] earlier than my summertime wake up, and by noon I was feeling like three days had passed. She came home from her first day and went straight to the couch with a blanket exhausted from a full day of people and places to be.

It can be exhausting transitioning from one to the other, but today I also noticed the quiet moments that felt refreshing. I did a workout without interruption. Don’t get me wrong, I love when my 4-year-old joins me and gets in my way, but I also love a good sweat session music and all. I also took a shower and washed my hair without anyone asking for a snack, which felt like a win.

I enjoyed a podcast on the way to the school pickup line, and in many ways all these small things felt very welcome. So where can we find these moments in our day as busy moms or wives or women with schedules? How can we look for them and celebrate them? How can we even when exhausted, stay grateful and simply not get overwhelmed?

Well, here are some things that I’m doing as we enter the fall season.

Number one, if we’re going to have to wake up earlier, we’re gonna have to go to bed earlier. I know it’s hard. I’m a natural night owl myself, but my [00:03:00] midnight to 1:00 AM internal clock needs to shift upward to 10 to 11 if I wanna be anything but a zombie during the day. Number two, to help reset my circadian clock.

Getting enough early morning sunlight is key. So once my kids are off to school, I’m committed to taking my dog for a simple 10 to 15 minute walk, first thing in the morning. Number three, I plan to sit down to eat. I admit, I like to eat on the go. I like to stay busy, but I’m committed to prioritizing my nervous system heading into the school year.

So I’ll sit down to eat my lunch, and truly take a break every day. Okay, number four, I’ll continue utilizing my nighttime gratitude journal. If you haven’t heard, I’ve used a gratitude journal now for over 15 years. It sits on my nightstand and every single night before I go to bed, I open it up. I reflect on the day, and I write down at least one thing, one memory, one specific thing, person, event, some sort of memory.

I write it down because I wanna remember it and relive it. This has helped me live in a sense of gratitude. Number five, I will be as present as [00:04:00] possible for the transitions in our day As a family, that means my phone goes away while my girls are getting ready for school in the morning and it goes away again when they get home through dinnertime.

Nothing is urgent. At those hours of the day, sitting on the couch to decompress after the school day or asking my girls to play a game or read a book with me, that’s me inviting rest, showing them it’s okay to rest and inviting them to join me. Number six, find the pockets in my day where there is silence and enjoy it.

Don’t feel like I always have to fill empty air with noise, walks, showers, lunch. These are all times that silence can be welcome. Number seven, make time for my husband and I to not necessarily work when the girls are at school, which tends to be our tendency, but to also do the things that we love to do together.

Resting and playing together is important too. Number eight. Recognize when I’m overdoing it or when we’re in a season of overwhelm and just say no accordingly. This week we decided that while fall sports leagues were starting for our girls, they’re not [00:05:00] starting for our girls. The start of school is a lot and it’s okay to say no when the busy gets too busy.

These are just some things that we’re doing to slow down in the season and to embrace the routine as an opportunity to find rest. When I reflect on the summer, there wasn’t a lot of rest. It felt like a lot of go, go, go. We were constantly entertaining the girls, constantly doing things out and about, and while we slept in and stayed up late, it was exhausting in its own way.

I, for one, I’m excited for the routine. We, as humans, thrive on routines. I know my kids do getting used to them. Well, that may take a minute, but appreciating them, that’s what I’m here to say. So my question for you is, what is your plan for getting back to routine? How can it benefit your health and your nervous system?

I highly recommend that you take a few minutes to reflect and make some commitments for yourself and your family. Finding these little ways to improve your groundedness is key to living a life with intention and to living a life with maximum energy. Thanks for tuning in my friends. Until next time, talk [00:06:00] soon.