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21Sep

4 Ways to Sneak More Gratitude into Your Day

Posted by: Jessi Andricks Categories: Gratitude Self Care Stress Management
2 Comments

sneak more gratitude into your day

Stress is, unfortunately, inevitable. Deep down, stress is a good thing. It keeps you alive, keeps you safe, and helps prevent unnecessary things from happening, or heightens your senses and reflexes when a life-threatening event occurs. The unfortunate part is that it can also happen routinely, regularly, and chronically. This is when you need something to help you work out of the stress. 

Infusing your day with gratitude is a great place to start, and to help prevent future stress from growing. 

The way gratitude works for managing and reducing stress is by helping shift you out of “stress mode”. Your brain is wired, for all the reasons above, to look out for things that are stressful, or threatening, to you, and that could harm your safety. Once it finds something, it starts to look out for more and more things – no matter how big or small they might be. In today’s world, there is a LOT that can be picked up on as stressful, and this is why you are easily worn down by stress. Your brain becomes fixated on all the things that are stressful/bad/wrong/threatening/negative, and does not notice the things that are joyful/good/easy/working/positive, no matter how big or small. 

This means you could have a day that is full of small (or some big) moments of kindness, joy, thoughtfulness, success, care and more, but your brain has been trained (by itself and nature) to only see and recall the things that didn’t work out and could be threatening to you. 

When I am stressed, I can tell that my thoughts are focusing on the things that are not going the way I wanted them to, the things I am not able to change, and all the things that continue to be difficult. No matter how hard I try, at times, to push myself out of these thoughts and tell myself “you are spiraling into negativity”, it never just pulls me out of the stress. It brings more awareness, but there is still usually more stress to come. Instead, I need something to help bring joy, light, and balance back into my thoughts and outlook. 

Regularly practicing gratitude helps to shift your brain into better balance, training it to also see the things that are good from your day, that otherwise might go unnoticed, but can make a huge difference in your outlook, resilience to stress, stress management, and overall well-being. The hard part is to actually take a step and do the practice, both when you are feeling stressed and when you are feeling less overwhelmed. 

You can set up some set ways to practice gratitude, with journals, meditations, routines, etc. These are wonderful, but, at times, can also seem stressful or “one more thing”. You can also infuse your day with some gratitude practices that help to not only give you the practice, but create a life built around this gratitude, without feeling the pressure.

Here are 4 ways to sneak more gratitude into your day:

  • Dinner Table
    • When you sit down for dinner with yourself, your partner, your roommate, or your family and kids, try using this as an opportunity for gratitude. Take a moment to share 1 thing from your day that you’re grateful for or that went well or that is “working” for you. 
    • This gives some accountability and also creates a conversation that sparks from a place of gratitude. Plus, you might get to share an inspiring story, or learn and listen to one, that might have been forgotten or left out otherwise. 
  • Bedtime (for kids and grown-ups)
    • If you want to end the day with gratitude (something that studies show helps to create a more positive memory when reflecting) , try practicing gratitude when you go to bed, or when you get your kids to bed.
    • As you get into bedtime routine with your kids, have them share one thing that went well or that they are grateful for from their day.
    • You can also share your with your kid, or you can share your when you go to bed, or just make a mental note or jot it down or say it out loud when you go to bed alone. 
  • Morning/Evening Intention
    • You can also use gratitude, in journal or meditation form, as a way to start or end your day with intention. It can become part of your morning or evening routine. It kind of adds this into your usual morning and evening routines, so you are more tuned in and intentional. 
    • Take a few minutes to start your day with gratitude, setting the intention to live your day with gratitude, focusing on what is going well. 
    • You can also end your day, reflecting on what went well, in order to feel more calm and grounded when you end your day, and to let go of stress from the day. 
  • Sticky Note Reminders (when something “good” happens)
    • Another way to keep noticing gratitude is to have reminders near you of the good pieces of your day and life, so you are able to see them and be reminded, even when you forget to have a specific gratitude practice.
    • You can try keeping some sticky notes out, on your desk, dresser, counter, etc, that you can use to write down moments of gratitude or positivity when they happen. You have a really good coffee – write it down. You get great feedback – write it down. Dream job – write it down. Student reaches goal – write it down. You get 5 minutes to yourself – write it down. 
    • Then leave the sticky notes where you will see them and be reminded of all that is going well, especially in those times when all seems against you. Try leaving them on your bathroom mirror, your desk or computer monitor, a dry erase board in your office or classroom, or even in your car (if you use it to get to work). 

Now that you have a few ways to sneak some gratitude into your day, it’s time for you to put it into action. How can you add more gratitude into your day?  Share your favorite gratitude strategy (or the one you plan to start using!) in the comments. 

For more ways to practice gratitude, check out the Gratitude Planner in the SLP Stress Management Shop.

Or sign up below to access the free SLP Toolbox resource library.

Much Love, 

Jessi

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21May

How Yoga Helps Me Work on My Perfectionism

Posted by: Jessi Andricks Categories: Mindful Movement Perfectionism Stress Management
Comments Off on How Yoga Helps Me Work on My Perfectionism

yoga helps me work on my perfectionism

Perfectionism is something that a LOT of SLPs deal with each day – sometimes as a result of being an SLP and going through the rigorous (often unrelenting) grad school process, and also, sometimes, it is what makes the field and training seem enticing. 

Perfectionism can seem like a great thing – always getting it done and doing it right, no room for nonsense or errors. It can seem powerful and strong, but it can also be really harmful. No mistakes allowed is not realistic. Constantly trying to do more and do better and do best is not sustainable. Always being strong and powerful, with no give and no flexibility, can cause you to break. Making an error or not knowing something leads to imposter syndrome and feeling like you are “not good enough”.

And all of these contribute to major stress, overwhelm and burnout.

I know, because I can relate and have dealt with this myself. 

My Mom recently told me, when I asked her what my biggest behavior challenge was growing up, “Nothing like that. We would just have to try to convince you to put down the [school] books and stop studying.”

Growing up, I was an overachiever without realizing it. I was really hard on myself for not getting the top scores on standardized tests, not winning the entire school spelling bee, not making it into the gifted program on the first try, or not being seen as cool enough by my peers. All of this and more before the age of 10. Ugh.

In later years, it became competitions with my best friend to see who could get the better grade or SAT score. And then, after a brief stint of having no expectations for myself in college, it kicked back up so I could get into my one choice of grad school. And when I got there, I realized, my perfectionism was not just an inner expectation, but an outer expectation from the school itself. But with juggling a LOT of life stuff at this point, my school work was not perfect (but it was absolutely great) and so I would forever feel the “not good enough”, “we expected more”, “ we thought you could do better” that followed me into my career as an SLP. 

And, unfortunately, after talking and working with 100s of SLPs about this, I know I am not alone. Perfectionism often drives us into our career choice, and serves us well early on, but it can also be the thing that leads straight into chronic stress, overwhelm, burnout and the feeling of not knowing, doing, or being good enough. 

yoga helps me work on my perfectionism

It took me a lot of time (5 years away from the field) to really work through this, and I still deal with it every day, at work and at home. I often have feelings of not being productive enough, not doing my share enough, and knowing I could have done more, if only. 

But there are also things that I know can help my work through my perfectionism, and my yoga practice has been #1 in helping me do this. Time after time, yoga helps me work on my perfectionism, among other things. I started practicing more and more as I went through grad school and into my career as an SLP, eventually training to teach yoga. When I feel stress and perfectionism creep in, it is my go to, and often something I had stopped doing in order to tighten up on being perfect in another area. 

My practice has been a true light for me. It started as a fun physical activity, and has become a foundation for how I live my life. 

Here are some (honest) ways yoga helps me work on my perfectionism:

  • My practice is rarely perfect
    • I’ve been teaching for 10 years, and practicing for about 5 more. But it does not mean it is always pretty or that every pose is perfect. In fact, a lot of the time the practice rarely is. 
    • I wobble. I fall. Some days I am strong and others I am weak. Somedays I am flexible and others I feel like I might snap. 
    • I have one pose I have been working on for almost 15 YEARS. And I finally feel like I am making some progress. That is a far cry from perfectionism and it feels damn good. 
  • It challenges me to try new things
    • I never would have tried some of the poses or stood on my head or known I could balance on my arms (sometimes) if my practice had never challenged me to do so. 
    • It helps me to jump into something that I may not be perfect at, to explore it as something new, and to know that, because it is new and a challenge, that it might take time (15 years or so) to achieve it – and then there is always more to do. 
  • It challenges me to grow and expand what I think I know – new ways of doing things
    • It is really easy to get stuck in thinking that my way of doing things is the best way (we all feel this way at times, sometimes pretty often). Yoga helps me see that there are a LOT of different ways to do something. YOu can do the same pose day after day and feel it differently or get to it a different way each time, and you end up with a totally different experience. You can go into a pose from so many different angles or poses and it changes it too. 
    • As a teacher, I get to see how each student and each class varies, and how things can work or backfire differently for each one. 
    • Yoga has helped me see there is no “perfect” way to do something, and that different approaches work at different times. 
  • Sit with the uncomfortable
    • Being perfect is often used to ward off any feelings and thoughts that are uncomfortable. If I (you) am (are) perfect, then there will be no bad feelings, no backlash, nothing uncomfortable to sit with. And of course, this backfires and creates a ton of uncomfortable feelings (like stress) and these continue to feed the control of perfectionism. 
    • Yoga helps me to sit with the uncomfortable, in my body and my thoughts. While taking a meditation, I sit with what shows up, which can sometimes be tension in my body or unkind thoughts. The practice teaches me to just breathe, sit with them, explore them, and remain less attached to them. 
    • During the physical practice, things are NOT always comfortable. But I am cued (by my teacher or myself) to stick with it, focus on breathing, and see what shows up, what shifts, and what I can learn from that discomfort (sharp shooting pains, always move out of the pose, FYI). 
  • There are days when I feel like I nailed it, and others when I think it went all wrong.
    • This is so true, especially for meditation. Some days I feel like I conquered the practice. I was perfect, went beyond what was asked and really enjoyed it. And other days I struggle with the basics, am asked to do something that I haven;t yet mastered (and am therefore far from perfect), or my mind wanders all the way through my guided meditation audio and I realized I heard nothing they dais beyond “take a seat”. 
    • These days are hard, but remind me that it is a practice. It is not meant to be perfect. And life is the same way. 
  • Some days are really, really, unpredictably difficult
    • After practicing, and doing physically demanding classes (and things like running), I expect (aha, perfectionism alert) that my class will be easy. But there are many, many times that a simple, basic class is unpredictably difficult. I feel tight, tired and stiff, my breath feels tuck instead of flowing, and my mind is anything but focused. 
    • It teaches me that, even with training and planning, things happen. Being human happens. Life happens. And we can either get mad at it, or go with it, learn from it and keep on moving. 
  • It is never ending and there is no “perfect”
    • Even with the poses that I have learned, or with a style I am familiar with, there is no perfect. It is a practice. It never ends. Once you learn a pose and can do it without difficulty, there are still ways to deepen, to do more and learn more and take it further. Forever and ever and ever. There is no real perfect, only the process. 

All of these things, and many more, I have grown and worked through with the help of my yoga practice. It remains, after many years, a constant (even when my practice looks very different over the years) in helping me work through perfectionism, and manage my stress and overwhelm overall. 

If you would like to try out a practice, to help you work through some perfectionism, make sure to sign up for the SLP Toolbox for FREE yoga practice audios. You can subscribe below. (Already a member? Click here to access).

You can also download the “Mindful Movement Weekly Planner” available in the SLP Stress Management Shop, to help you start your journey and see how it helps you when you are practicing regularly. The Planner includes a journal and printable planner pages (or use in a digital pdf app), guiding you through what types of yoga (mindful movement) you want to try and when. The planner part takes you through the week, from creating your plan, keeping track of what you are doing and when, and then reviewing how it went and what your next steps are.

It is now currently 50% off (along with the entire SLP Stress Management Shop) for Better Hearing and Speech Month.

Do you practice yoga? How has it helped you with perfectionism, or how do you imagine it might help you? Leave in the comments below!

Much Love, 

Jessi

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29May

7 Stretches to Do at Your Desk: Mindful Movement for SLPs

Posted by: Jessi Andricks Categories: Reduce Stress Self Care Teletherapy
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desk stretches for SLPs

One of the best things to do for stress is to incorporate some kind of physical movement into your day, like simple desk stretches for SLPs. Even small, short things, like stretching, can help you to reduce some tension, physical and mental, that leads to stress.

Your body can give you big insights into the stress you are feeling, and can sometimes cause you to feel tension. In yoga, you’ll often hear the teacher talk about “holding tension in the body”. They usually are referring to something in the shoulders or hips, that holds to more tension throughout the rest of the body.

  • Tension in your shoulders could lead to tension in your neck, upper back, jaw, or even chest. Think of sitting at your desk and having your shoulders scrunched up by our ears, and the discomfort this usually brings. This can cause headaches, back aches, and overall achiness that can lead to physical tension, which then creates more mental tensions.
  • Tight hips (huge muscles that connect to a lot of other areas in the body) can cause lower backaches, hip flexor tightness, knee pain, and, well, achy hips. This can create more physical aches and pains, as well as mental stress.

The trick here is that the physical stress can cause the mental stress, but the mental stress can cause the physical stress as well.

  • Stress causes you to tighten your shoulders and clench your jaw
  • Stress causes you to slouch and sink into your hips, causing your back to feel tense.

So what to do?

If you are stuck at your desk, and feeling tense (hello working in teletherapy or doing paperwork and reports), stretching while at your desk is key.

You might not have time to get up and move around, but you can sit back for a moment, in between sessions or notes, and stretch these key areas. Which causes you to reduce that tightness, take a breath and pause, and maybe even deepen your breathing while you do so, in turn reducing your stress even more.

My favorite stretches (as an SLP, someone working from home and in teletherapy, and as a yoga teacher) are ones that:

  • Stretch the hips
  • “Wring out” the spine aka gently twist
  • Relax the shoulders
  • Stretch the neck and shoulders (and upper back)

You can try some desk stretches for SLPs on your own when you have a chance, or check out the guided Mindful Movement audio download, “7 Stretches to Do at Your Desk”, available exclusively in the SLP Toolbox.

Not a member? You can subscribe below to this FREE resource full of SLP Stress Management tools created for SLPs by an SLP.

For more stress management, check out these CMH/CEU Professional Development webinars:

Much Love,

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4Jun

Do SLPs Suffer from Chronic Stress?

Posted by: Jessi Andricks Categories: Burn Out New SLP Reduce Stress
Comments Off on Do SLPs Suffer from Chronic Stress?

SLP Chronic Stress Pinterest (1)If you are an SLP and starting to feel like you are constantly stressed, and that it just seems to keep building, you might be suffering from chronic stress.

While it would be great to say that SLPs do not suffer from chronic stress, that would be far from the truth for many SLPs, practicing and non. Being an SLP is a wonderful profession and career choice, but it also carries with it a lot of responsibilities each day; ever-changing paperwork, caseloads, and protocols; and requires you to give more of yourself than you might expect to give.

What are the causes of Chronic Stress for an SLP?

Chronic stress is what happens when the daily stressors you face, whether big or small, are left unmanaged over time. They begin to build, until your body and brain are stuck in a “cycle of stress” that has you feeling the constant pulls of stress, as an SLP and outside of work as well. When left unchecked, this chronic stress can grow and eventually turn into full-blown burn out.

It happened to me.

In undergrad, I was absolutely obsessed with what I was learning in my CSD program. Life was good, I had little outside stress and I thoroughly enjoyed my course work. When I went to graduate school, there was a very different vibe – it was much more competitive, while undergrad had a vibe of sharing knowledge. I was also living in a new city, my fiance was preparing to leave the country on a deployment for 8 months, and I was working 5 nights/days a week. I lived alone and was responsible for all of my own household “duties” and errands. I had little to no time for “fun” or going out with friends, or just enjoying the beautiful city I lived in.

Stress started to sink in, rapidly. I felt really disconnected, had little to no passion for my work, and never quite felt like I was achieving or doing anything, especially after years of pushing to get my degree. In the years to come, I never got out of the stress cycle, even when I had more freedom to decide how I ran my days,  and eventually became completely burned out in my third year as an SLP.

I really thought I had chosen the wrong career. No one else I knew seemed to feel this way. Around me, SLPs seemed to be thriving and really “into” their work – staying late and coming in early. I felt alone and isolated, which only fueled my stress more. If I had been able to recognize that I was becoming chronically stressed, I might have been able to prevent burn out and reduce my overall stress levels, breaking out of the cycle of stress.

The thing is, it is really hard to recognize chronic stress for what it is when you are in it, and it can be even harder to explain it to non-SLPs close to you (friends, family, partners, etc), because you feel like they just won’t “get it”. This makes it difficult to work through and to reduce, but once you do recognize it, you can work through it, manage it, and feel that you are finally in control of the stress.

What does chronic stress for an SLP look like?

  • Lack of passion: If you were once really passionate and interested in learning about your career (or future career), but now feel like you don’t want much to do with it, you might be suffering from chronic stress. Chronic stress for an SLP, especially when it is starting to lead to burn out, can make you feel a bit apathetic or disconnected from your work, and often appears as boredom. This can be one of the telling signs that something is off in your work or day, and that stress may be to blame. If you are feeling this lack of passion, try 2 things. First, find some outside hobbies to help you feel engaged in something during your week. This will help some of the stress fade and help you feel more balanced. Once it does, then you can look at your work itself. Second, sign up for some new courses or ask to take on a project that you are interested in at work, in order to start to feel more connected and passionate again. 
  • Pushing through: Chronic stress for an SLP can often time make you have frantic, nervous, hyper energy that keeps you feeling like you need to push through to finish your work. This might look like working up until the point of exhaustion or beyond to get an IEP done or taking on every last patient you can in one day (even if it’s 100% ok to wait until tomorrow). This energy pushed you, but it is not in a sustainable way, and leaves you feeling drained and depleted once you do finish your day. It could also look like showing up early or staying late to finish work, which could lead to feelings of resentment towards your work, or that you’ll “never get it finished”, or just really throw your life out of balance.  If you are feeling this way, make sure to set timers to give you breaks when you are working on projects. Also, set a firm time to leave work (not too late or too long after the end of the day), so you are leaving on time and leaving work at work. 
  • Feelings of isolation: Sometimes, when you know you are feeling stressed, it can make it seem like you are alone. Even though it seems this way, the majority of SLPs, sadly enough, are feeling stressed by their work and the imbalance in their lives. This is true for most other Helping Professionals as well, whether in the education or medical setting. So even though you feel alone and isolated, you most likely are not. To help feel less isolated when you are stressed, reach out to a fellow SLP friend or another colleague and set up a break or coffee date or some kind to talk about your stress. use this as more than just a venting sessions (although that can be helpful to start) and come up with some ways to help each other or to be accountable for each other. Just having someone who understands can be incredibly helpful. And if you are the ONLY SLP at your work, and this leaves you isolated, set up some dinner dates or weekend self-care dates with other SLP friends or people in your area. 
  • Lack of competence and confidence: There are times when you won’t know exactly what to do with a client or student, but those times are rare. Most likely, you’ll need a refresher or to go research something quickly, and be able to treat the patient or refer them to someone else. And if you are the only person they can see, chances are, you do know more than you realize, or you can find the info, to help treat them. SLPs are resourceful. However, chronic stress for an SLP can make it feel like you don’t know what you are doing when faced with a case you are less familiar with, and this stress can continue to grow until it makes you feel like you mist not be a very good SLP. Chronic stress for an SLP can also make it harder to problem solve ad figure out a solution, because stress hijacks some of the problem solving parts of the brain, making it more difficult to work though problems. If you are feeling this way, there are a few thing to do. First, remind yourself that you know more than you think and you are capable of learning even more. Find mantra or have a motto to help you through times like this. Then, you can reach out to a colleague, look through references, or even sign up for some courses to help you learn even more and continue to grow as a clinician. 
  • Changes in your mood: One of the biggest ways chronic stress for an SLP shows up is in your overall mood. When you are stressed, you might notice you feel more annoyed or irritated, you have less patience and you overall have a more cynical attitude or approach to work – or home. Or it might feel like anger, uncertainty or even nervousness, or really any type of change. This is usually one of the first things that people notice when they are starting to wonder about stress. It is also one of the biggest things that seeps out of your work zone and into your family and daily life. If you are noticing that you feel irritated, less patient, annoyed, etc, the best things for you to do are to bring more balance into your life through self-care. Things like meditation, journaling, mindful movement, and reflecting will give you time to take a break from work, shift your focus, and turn your attention inward to work through the feelings and stress that is there. 

Chronic stress for an SLP is something that most SLPs are facing, but it doesn’t have to be something that sticks with you, or that you have to experience as an SLP. Below you can sign up for (FREE) resources designed specifically to help SLPs work through their stress:

For even more insights in to chronic stress for an SLP and what you can do to help manage it, check out these online CEU/CMH courses available now: 

Much Love,

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19Mar

4 Ways to Find More Ease as an SLP

Posted by: Jessi Andricks Categories: Burn Out Career Advice Gratitude Journal Techniques for SLPs Meditation Reduce Stress Self Care
Comments Off on 4 Ways to Find More Ease as an SLP

SLP Ease PinterestAs an SLP, you are probably more familiar than you want to be with feeling stretched a little too thin on a daily basis. You are trained in so many different aspects of communication (and swallowing), you probably have a pretty varied caseload (that is most likely way too big or way too small), and you are constantly between direct and indirect therapy services. Plus, you have become a pro at multi-tasking all day, every day.  All of this has become part of your routine (or soon will be if you are a student or CF), and it can, honestly, be quite exhausting at times. Or most of the time.

There are reasons for that.

Sometimes you might feel like you are loaded down with more work than there is time in the day. Other times you might get a new student or patient and feel like you just don’t have the skills or knowledge to fully treat them. And there will be times that you just feel run down and tired (or perhaps even sick), and you just don’t have the mental energy to do your work, but you still show up and do it anyway.

There is a ton of paperwork. Productivity levels change constantly in all settings. Caseloads are often out of your control. Multi-tasking causes you to do mental jumping jacks all day. You are physically and mentally exhausted. Add all of this together and you might notice that your outlook on your work, career and even your daily life might have shifted for the negative.

Being stressed and feeling stuck can cause your brain to start to work in overdrive to protect you. This is a beautiful and wonderful system that can keep you safe when you are in danger. But when you aren’t in danger, and life is just constantly feeling stressful, it only sets you up for more stress and more exhaustion each day. It stops you from being able to find more ease as an SLP, and leaves you feeling more and more stressed each day.

When you are chronically feeling stressed, your brain starts to stay on “high alert” to look out for threats and stress around you. If you have a stressful job, or lots of work piling up, stress is everywhere and your brain is constantly seeing it, signaling to your body to release hormones and keeping you in a state of anxiety and stress, which can eventually lead to burn out in your body (adrenal system), your energy (mental and physical) and your job.

To help shift out of this mode, you can do a few practices that help you to find more ease as an SLP, even when your day and schedule haven’t changed one bit. These practices are designed to help you calm the signals in your body that alert your brain to stress (deep breathing), help you to find space in your thoughts (movement), finding positive moments in your day (gratitude journal) and reducing the amount of task switching each day (no more multi-tasking).

Here are 4 ways to find more ease as an SLP, every day:

Gratitude Journal:

  • Helps you find some good in the day
  • Helps your brain to notice more good
  • Gives you a pause in the day
  • Write down 3 positive things from your day

Movement:

  • Clears your head
  • Blood and breath flowing
  • Energy lifts
  • Take 5-60 minutes to walk, stretch or move mindfully

Deep Breathing/Meditation:

  • Sends signal to bran and body to be calm
  • Decreases stress response
  • Gives you a break in your day
  • take 1-5 minutes to focus on your breath

Drop Multi-tasking:

  • More efficient work
  • More mental energy
  • Less strain on brain to constantly switching from task to task
  • Instead bulk like tasks together and check email at set times

When you incorporate one or all of these tings into your day, you’ll start to create new habit and patterns that help reduce stress, but also train your brain to be less affected by the stress that is around you each day. They teach you to manage stress better.

For more on stress management, make sure to check out the “SLP Toolbox” where you’ll find more strategies and tips to build ease in your day. You can sign up below for access.

Much Love,

1741931346171517140715

 

 

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15Dec

Hearty Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies for Busy SLPs

Posted by: Jessi Andricks Categories: Nourishing Recipes for Busy SLPs
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Hearty Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies PinterestAs an SLP, you might be finding yourself a little short on time 😉

It is often the joke that SLPs live and survive on coffee, more coffee, and, of course, coffee. While it is delicious and does have a few health benefits, as well as help us get up and going for our day, too much can leave you feeling worse than when you started. When it comes to your food and eating, there are two things you, as a busy SLP, need to have – something you can grab and eat on the fly and something that is remotely healthy, so you are getting the nourishment you need to keep going.

 

If coffee is not the answer, let these cookies be the answer. In fact, pair them with your morning coffee or your afternoon tea/latte and enjoy some healthy fats from nuts, protein and fiber from whole grains, and anti-oxidants from cranberries. Plus a few other yummy items.

Make a batch to get you through the last week before your break, to keep you and your family satisfied over the break, or to help you jump-start some healthy habits into the New Year.
Ingredients:Christmas-Oatmeal-Cookies

  • 3 cups oats (organic, gluten free)
  • 1 tbsp molasses
  • ⅔ cup coconut sugar
  • ¾ cup coconut oil, softened
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • ½ cup raw pecans
  • ½ cup dried cranberries
  • 1 cup chocolate chips (optional)
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • ½ tsp nutmeg
  • ½ tsp ginger
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • ¼ tsp sea salt
  • *optional 2 tsp unsweetened almond or coconut milk

Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Blend ½ of oats in your blender until flour-like in consistency.
  3. Pour into a large bowl with sea salt, baking soda, spices, oats, and oat-flour. Stir until combined.
  4. In a separate bowl, mix together sugar, coconut oil, molasses, vanilla, and eggs.
  5. Slowly add your flour to the liquid mixture. Stir slowly until combined. If needed, add milk for more moisture.
  6. Blend your pecans in your blender until chopped. The size does not need to be consistent.
  7. Add pecans, cranberries, and chocolate chips to your cookie dough.
  8. Line your cookie sheet with parchment paper and scoop out your dough with a tbsp or ice cream scoop.
  9. Bake for 13-15 minutes. Makes 1½-2 dozen cookies.

What are some of your go-to recipes for those busy times of the year? Share a link or recipe in the comments below.

Much Love,

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3Apr

How to Come Back After Break without Feeling Anxious, Stressed or Burnt Out

Posted by: Jessi Andricks Categories: Burn Out Reduce Stress Self Care
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SLP Spring Break Pinterest

This week might be one of the most important weeks when it comes to mindfulness and taking care of yourself. As an SLP, you are constantly on the go, either driving or running from patient to patient, or shifting from groups to classes to paperwork or meetings, or even just seeing client after client after client with little break in between. There are times when you might not even have a change to stop and grab a snack or a drink, let alone run to the restroom, or even sit in silence for a moment to collect your thoughts. It is one of the reasons that time off becomes so important for mental well-being.

It is also the reason it is so hard to come back after a break.

It is no joke, coming back from a break is really tough when you are feeling even one tiny bit of burn out. It can seem like all hope is lost and that everything is bad, harder and not as it should be. It might even feel like your job is sucking the soul out of your life. That sounds dramatic, but I know many can relate. (more…)

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9Jan

8 Pieces of Advice for the New SLP

Posted by: Jessi Andricks Categories: Career Advice New SLP Reduce Stress
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8 Pieces of Advice PinterestRecently, I have been seeing tons of questions and posts in FB groups from brand new SLP’s, in their CFY, who are completely overwhelmed. Many of these professionals are lacking the confidence of a seasoned SLP or are just looking for a bit of reassurance on their choice of evaluation tool or therapy materials. But it’s not just because they feel new and aren’t as confident in their skills as a clinician yet. For many more, it is because they feel a lack of support, have way too much work and their caseloads are out of control.

My personal CF story is a little confusing. I had three different jobs between the time I graduated and the time I earned my CCC’s. I left one position a month before my CF was to be completed, because my supervisor had forgotten to renew her license and I was docked 3 months of my CF, plus I had to go to the board to determine my case. I had otherwise felt very supported and that my workload was good, although I often felt I wasn’t really helping anyone or doing enough for my patients. It didn’t give me enough of a challenge or push to do grow as a new SLP. (more…)

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