Today in the newspaper there was a report of a business owner who burst into tears when she opened the latest energy bill.  We might all identify with this feeling of despair when the costs are rising so high, all your best efforts don’t seem to be enough. When I was a lawyer it was a fairly regular occurrence to wake up in the night with palpitations, heart racing, eyes wide open, worrying about a case or a client.

It’s very common to experience business owner insomnia, stress and anxiety.

Running a small business can be stressful, when you feel responsible for all aspects and all of the various things that can go wrong are all weighing heavily on you.  These days, although I’m still running my own business, I have a much better awareness of the impact of stress on the body and how to handle it.

It’s incredibly important as a small business owner to recognise that you are the main asset of the business. You HAVE to look after yourself first otherwise frankly there is no business.  It’s not just the day to day stress that needs to be managed, but also your own thoughts and mental health, and self sabotage that comes out of nowhere to de-rail everything that you have worked so hard for.

At the moment there is so much pressure on small businesses, the price of energy, the challenges with recruitment, interest rates rising, inflation and the costs of living mean that people will be cutting back their spending.  Recession is on the horizon and being discussed openly now. There is every reason why anxiety is growing and you might be struggling to sleep.

It can be tempting to work harder, get to the office earlier and drop exercise, or ‘treat’ yourself with junk food.  But this is the very time that you have to remind yourself that self care is the number one priority.  So if you’re experiencing this, create time each day for yourself. Block time out of your diary for exercise, walking, yoga or meditation.  This gives your body and mind balance, space and helps you to see the bigger picture.

Eat immune boosting food, avoid junk which stresses your body and causes anxiety and if you can avoid numbing your feelings with alcohol or drugs, this will also help you create calm. I share my free Top 10 tips on reducing stress, anxiety and burnout out here.

When the news is becoming overwhelming, it’s time to switch it off and unplug from the 24 hour news cycle.  News media feeds off a negative story, and hypes up the negative, while not promoting the positive events.  It’s not healthy to be sucked into this if you’re already in a stressful environment.  Far better to detach from it, and focus instead on your day and what you can do today to make a difference in your business or your life.

Try counting as you breathe, progressively longer counts, so perhaps start with counting to 5 on an in-breath and then 5 on an out-breath.  Then move to 6 in and 6 out. Then 7 in and 7 out.  Wherever is comfortable for you, keep doing that one.  Breathing slow and steady tells your mind ‘it’s time to relax now’ and to be calm.

Focusing your attention on the counting means that the looping negative thoughts drift away.  If you feel them crowding in again, do the counting again.

You can also use guided meditation or relaxation recordings (see my free deep relaxation audio below blog) to help you drift to sleep and the benefit of this is that it also trains your mind to get used to relaxing and sleeping.  Our minds love habit and repetition, and you’ll find the more that you do this, the easier it gets.