6 Tips for Managing Stress, Dealing with Anxiety, and Enjoying Your Life

As I promised, I'm going to be doing a few more wellness posts here and there. After a very stressful week segueing into a relaxing weekend away with family and friends, I felt ready to share some of my easy ways to make sure anxiety and stress don't rule my life.



Most of the time, I love my fast-paced, jam-packed life and career. Doing the kind of legal work I do is tremendously rewarding, but it’s also challenging, high-stakes, and sometimes heartbreaking. Squeezing in time for blogging, calligraphy, exercise, family and friends, and all the million little things that need to be done to make life run smoothly can be overwhelming.

I am a fairly high-strung person who has had a very active imagination since childhood. I’ve suffered from bouts of anxiety since I was a teenager, and over time, I’ve developed some relatively simple coping mechanisms that really help me bring my anxiety level down, assess my priorities, get shit done, and enjoy my life.

Admit to yourself that you are overwhelmed

Sometimes I get into a pattern of feeling a growing sense of apprehension without really realizing it. I try to pay attention to those feelings now and let my conscious mind realize that I’m feeling overwhelmed and need to step back and address it. The first step to coping with anxiety is realizing it’s about to bubble to the surface.

Neaten your space

Having a desk strewn with files and papers piled on the floor of my office makes a stressful day and a long to-do list feel impossible. The same goes at home—it’s hard to clear my mind when I have to clear a spot on the table to start a calligraphy project. It’s difficult to drift off to sleep when I have unpacked bags, a cluttered room, and laundry to put away.

Spending a few minutes tidying up my space does wonders for tidying up my mind and helping me to refocus. As I’m removing those files from my desk, I can prioritize them. They stay on my desk in a neat vertical file caddy for immediate action, go into an appropriate “action pile” on my bookshelf, or are placed in my filing cabinet if no action is needed for a couple weeks.

7 Tips for Surviving a Long-Haul Flight

On our Australia trip, Sean and I flew from Denver all the way to Perth, Australia, which was 10,101 miles away from home. We didn't do it all at once (thank goodness), but we did have on extremely long flight from L.A. to Melbourne, Australia, and then home from Sydney to LAX. I was a little nervous because 1) I'm a nervous flyer and 2) I have flown some long flights, but nothing this long! It was a little intimidating.

As it turned out, the whole process wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. We arrived in Brisbane, our first stop on our trip, not overly disgruntled and only a teeny bit worse for the wear. Here's what I did to make the whole thing much more bearable.

1. Wear the right clothing. This is so important! I wanted to make myself as comfortable as possible without looking like I was wearing exercise gear or loungewear at the airport. I did my hair and makeup as usual in the morning, then I put on my black Lululemon Wunder Unders (similar in petite sizing at Athleta) and a black Power Y tank as my base layer. The built-in bra with soft cups in the tank meant no underwire or other bra hardware that could cause discomfort. On top of the tank, I layered a long, wide-necked tee that came down past my hips, and then I added a blazer in a cozy sweatshirt material. This made it easy to add or subtract layers to adjust to a comfortable temperature.

I didn't really take any pictures at the airport, so I recreated my outfit over the weekend so I could show it to you.

Here's little collage I've created for you that shows some of my favorite products and essentials that made my flight a whole lot more comfortable. For most of the items, you can just hover over, click, and it'll take you to the page where you can purchase that item. If you aren't sure where I got something or how to find it, just ask me in the comments and I'll be happy to direct you to where I was able to find it.

2. Pack things you can't afford to lose in your carry-on. For me this means:

• Medications
• Jewelry (I wear the most precious pieces on me on the plane)
• Electronics and chargers, both the plug-in ones and the charging bricks
• A change of clothes in case you spill something or the airline loses your luggage
• A bathing suit--same idea as a change of clothes. It's no fun shopping for a bathing suit while you're trying to get into the swing of your vacation.

3. Get your sleep on. The easiest way to get through your long flight is to get as much sleep as you can. It'll stave off both boredom and jet lag! In order to get some quality rest, I make sure to pack the following:

• Eye mask
• Cozy socks to keep my feet warm
• Pashmina to supplement airplane blankets and double as a wrap or scarf during my vacay
• Travel pillow
• Sleep aid of choice (Benadryl, Ny-Quil, or Dramamine are over-the-counter options)

4. Bring lots of entertainment. It wasn't possible for me to sleep for 16 hours straight, so I made sure to have plenty of things to do. I loaded about 10 new books onto my Kindle, added some TV shows and movies to my iPad, and made sure I had a good set of headphones that cancelled out ambient noise.

5. Make sure you take healthy snacks and plenty of water with you. Drinking lots of water will keep you hydrated in the dry, recirculated air on a plane. I love my spill-proof CamelBak water bottle and take it everywhere with me. For snacks, I like to bring my own trail mix of raw almonds, peanuts, dried cherries or other fruit, with a few crunchy and sweet things mixed in. It's great for tiding yourself over until they serve you the next meal. I also pack energy and granola bars for a little variety and for ease in snacking later while running around sight-seeing.

6. Beautify on the go. Spending hours upon hours traveling is not really conducive to looking your best. To keep myself looking decent, I make sure to pack travel sizes of my favorite products in my carry-on:

• Makeup remover wipes--no one wants to sleep with a face full of makeup! These make it easy to wash your face without ever leaving your seat. The lavender and camomile-scented Neutrogena wipes are my favorite.
• An easy wipe-off or no-rinse mask will help you arrive looking fresh
• Facial moisturizer to keep skin hydrated
• Hand cream to combat the drying soap in airport and plane bathrooms
• A heavy-duty lip balm
• Dry shampoo (I like this non-aerosol one for travel)
• Deordorant
• Portable toothbrushes
• A makeup essentials kit--I include powder foundation and a small brush, eyeliner, cream blush, and brow gel in mine
• A compact mirror
• Comb or brush
• A small baggie with hair ties, bobby pins, and/or a headband to make hair fixes easy

7. Keep your important documents handy. Most critical rule? Don't lose your passport or other travel documents! I like to place them in a zippered compartment in my purse or in a separate, sealable pouch. You'll need them as soon as you're trying to get on or off the plane, so keep them within arm's reach of your seat.

Hope this list helps you get ready for your next long flight! Happy travels!

x, Tam

5 Tips for Painless Pattern-Mixing

I've gotten a few emails lately asking about pattern-mixing--a trend that appears to still be alive and well at the moment--so I thought I'd write a post on some of the things I think about when I style a print-mixed look. It's important to note that these are tips, not rules. The concept of pattern-mixing requires a break from the traditional rules on wearing prints, so don't get too caught up in following a particular set of guidelines.

In each of the outfits above, I've indicated on their photos which of the following tips I considered when putting them together. You can see that not every tip works for every outfit, but picking a couple for each one helps the final product look polished and deliberate.

1. Stay within the same color family. This doesn't necessarily mean the same color, although that can be an easy way to tie things together. You can also use darker tones, jewel tones, neon tones, or pastel tones to create a more cohesive color scheme. In the outfit on the top right, the neon yellow stripes, sea green scarf, and purple coat all share a springy, slightly electric tone that makes them work nicely together.

2. Use colors that are both contrasting and complementary in your look. Your outfit will look less like your eccentic grandma's coordinated loungewear if you pair one print that's lighter in its overall color and one that's darker. This seems like it might be contradictory to Tip #1, but you can easily apply both #1 and #2 in one outfit--see the beachy striped dress outfit above. The reddish-pink cardigan with its smaller navy stripes both contrasts with and complements the white base color in the dress and scarf, while the navy stripes in both the dress and cardigan tie them together.

3. Choose prints with different proportions. Pair a bold or dense print with a more subtle, sparser print to avoid overwhelming the eye. In the black-and-white dress and cardigan look above, the bold, graffiti-esque print on the dress contrasts well with the sparse polka-dot print on the cardigan, and keeping them both in the same color family makes it look like they were meant to be worn together!

4. Mix classic patterns. Sticking with classic patterns like polka dots, stripes, houndstooth, plaid or paisley adds a touch of the traditional to an outfit that otherwise eschews conventional pairings. In all three outfits on the bottom row, I've made use of this tip by pairing stripes with plaid (left and center) and houndstooth with leopard and dots.

5. Leopard print is a neutral. Treat leopard print (and similar classic patterns) as a goes-with-everything neutral. (Caution: pick one leopard-print item per outfit--you can maybe stretch this to two if one is a lighter-colored leopard and one is darker.) In the outfit on the top left, I mixed leopard-print pumps with a floral skirt, thinking of the leopard as similar to a nude shoe (but a little more exciting, obviously). In the photo right below that one, I used a light-colored leopard belt to create a neutral divider between my subtle paisley-print blouse and bolder navy polka-dot skirt.

P.S. Congrats to Julia of Lemon Stripes, the winner of my Cambridge Satchel Giveaway! I can't wait to see you style it.

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5 Ways to Wear Yellow Pants

[Click on each outfit for additional photos and details.]

One of my favorite things to see on the blogs I read is how other ladies re-style their wardrobes, especially when it comes to seemingly hard-to-wear pieces. (I'll also admit I've always been a big fan of People Magazine's "I Really Love My" feature.) I thought I'd share one of my own with you today.

I'm considering making this a regular feature. What do you think, readers? Do you love seeing re-styled pieces as much as I do?

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Sock Bun Tutorial

How to Make Your Sad Little Bun Look Big and Beautiful.

I've had a couple requests from readers to do a tutorial on the updo you've seen me wearing on a few occasions. I taught myself to do it after reading a couple tutorials online and lots of trial-and-error. Hopefully this step-by-step little guide will help you to have a lot less error than I did. I've included two different ways to achieve the same look so you can find the one that works best for you. Feel free to email me if you have additional questions!

Photos: Katie Derus | Sweater: Pins & Needles (last seen here) (similar here) | Shirt: AE (similar here on sale) | Pants: AE (similar here) | Bracelets: Tiffany, Nordstrom, Ann Taylor | Watch: Fossil (old, but similar here)

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