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Melissa Venable

Rockin' a FabYOUlous life as an author, speaker, blogger, coach and consumer of way too much caffeine. Let me help you to ditch the drab and find your FAB--it's possible and it's FUN!

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The Incredible Power of a Single Breath

Sporty beautiful woman relaxing and stretching arms and back. Female athlete breathing and doing relaxation exercise at the beach Krabi Thailand.Breathing…something so simple, so automatic that we were literally born knowing how to do it. We don’t enroll in classes to teach us the mechanics of breathing and we don’t go to sleep at night worried about whether or not we’ll remember how to breathe when we wake up.  We simply breathe as an automatic, natural reflex.

Unfortunately, despite it being a natural reflex, breathing is something that many of us do incorrectly–especially at times of great stress.  Rather than taking deep breaths that adequately fill our lungs and invigorate us, we take shallow, hurried breaths that can deprive the brain of oxygen at a time when we need it the most and leave us feeling fatigued.

The next time you feel overwhelmed, hurried or stressed out (none of which are anywhere near FabYOUlous!) try this technique…

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Take a Stand for Good Health

846f76_2d8e74fe5aed4ef7b7e64e31f3ae5089There’s bad news on the health front for all of us who spend our days at a desk, sitting for hours on end while we work on a computer or shuffle papers. Though we might feel as though we are out of harm’s way as we work at our nice, safe office in our cushy swivel chair–we are WRONG and the culprit that is putting us at risk is the very chair that we are glued to day in and day out.  

Actually–it’s not so much the chair that’s to blame as it is the amount of time that we spend sitting in it.  

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Take this Job and LOVE it…

Staying Sane when Your Job is Driving You Crazy

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It was the late 80’s and I was working as an outbound telemarketer who was selling something that (in my opinion) was a complete waste of money to anyone who was foolish enough to actually buy my spiel. I spent hours in a cubicle making redundant phone calls to unsuspecting individuals who were probably in the middle of a nice family meal or worse–Monday Night Football. I actually looked forward to being hung up on (which happened… a lot) because it saved me from having to launch into my pitch about why the service I was selling was so great (it wasn’t) and how much value (none whatsoever) it would add to the purchaser’s life. In short, my job sucked. Unfortunately, at the time, I was a broke college kid and I needed that job to keep me afloat.

I’m sure that I’m not the only one who has ever been trapped in a less than FabYOUlous job–in fact; I would wager that this is a scenario that most of us have experienced at one time or another. Fortunately those days of telemarketing hell are now behind me and I have grown into a profession that I truly love. Even so…there are still times when my work can make me a little crazy. If you can relate, here are a few tips to help keep the crazies at bay while on the job.

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Who’s in Your Posse?

You ARE the Company You Keep

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We all have a posse.  Maybe we don’t ride around on horses yelling “yee-haw” together, but we all have those people in our lives that we regularly surround ourselves with. Some members of my posse include my hubby, my girlfriends (also affectionately known as my “broad squad”), my parents and some work associates. These people play a part in my life that is more than just the casual acquaintance.

I’ve heard it said that we will all be judged by the company we keep. That is precisely why I do the very best that I can to surround myself with good people. I also preach this bit of truth to my sons because I think that the people that we associate with can do one of two things for us–they can either lift us higher or they can drag us down. I’ve had both types of people in my life and I’ve learned the hard way how difficult it can be to escape from those individuals whose purpose it seems to be to suck the life out of everyone around them. I’ve also learned how damaging to ones reputation and psyche it can be if one spends too much time in the company of people with questionable character or who are emotionally unstable.

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Sit and Plank…

Can't be That Hard Right??

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Oh my gosh…SOOOOO wrong!  Ugh!  I am a 44 year old woman who considers herself to be in decent shape.  I run regularly (and even WON my age group in a recent 5K!) and I’m not overweight. Though I feel pretty good about my cardio fitness due to the running, I’ve always felt like I should be doing more in the way of strength training. Problem is…I hate strength training. Seriously…HATE it. So, rather than trying to become a gym rat like my husband and sons; I decided to come up with my own little strength training routine that I could do at night before taking my bath.  I decided to start out with something easy like a minute long plank followed by a three minute wall sit and then ten push ups. Sounds simple enough doesn’t it?  Well guess what…it’s NOT easy!