How do you recover from
stress?
Let me give you some signs of it.
Are you always
irritable?
Feeling tense all the time?
Feeling overloaded with work?
Constantly busy but never seems to catch up?
Have you lost your
creative flow?
Is the quality of your work suffering?
Stress is normal, its part of life.
Being tired from a hectic day at work is also normal.
But we need periods of recovery and personal regeneration. We need to recover from stress. That is why what we do on our free time can make or break you in my opinion.
Planning ahead our activities and living in your own terms is a must. Let me give you a short glimpse about myself.
I used to be a people pleaser and a YES girl.
I always say yes to every invites from friends/family and overload my free days with activities that leaves me feeling more tired on my off days which in turn affects my productivity at work, leaves me achieving nothing at the end of the day (missing out on more important things to do), affects my health (always feeling tired) and even happiness because being a people pleaser makes you live on other people's terms and not yours.
I was just living my days not really enjoying it.
But I have learned ways to gain more energy and peace that lives me feeling more refreshed after my free time. Let me share them with you.
1. Have those silent moments of solitude
- We live in a world, where everything around us can be noisy and full of distractions. We are over stimulated by technology (cellphones, computers, television,ipad etc) and by people around us that we do not have time to think and reflect on what we want to happen in the coming days, weeks, months and even years.
In my opinion self reflection is very important. Time slips like grains of sands that sometimes not having enough time for solitude and self reflection makes us easily slip things through on the most important things in our lives. (It could be our family and relationships, our health, our careers or even our wealth depends on what's more important to us).
Sometimes too much exposure to people can be energy draining.
Having time for self reflection in solitude makes us rate where we are right now and where we want to be.
-Meditation for me stills the mind from having monkey thoughts. We all think millions of thoughts each minute, jumping from one thought to another. Emptying the mind by being still and focused is something that needs to be trained. I want to be a master of my thoughts that is why meditation is something i am really working on right now.
I am still on guided meditation. But hopefully in the near future, I would find it enticing to do it on my own.
3. Communing with Nature every week
- I went to Jeddah the other day, for those of you doesn't know Jeddah, it is part of Saudi where the Mecca is. A lot of Muslim people go there for prayers. It's like going to The Vatican in Rome for Christians.
I had an interesting chat with one of my arab passengers in business class and she said, "you know Jenny I practice and believe in the Law of Attraction. One of my doctor friends told me that it is healthy to swim at least once a month by the beach in the natural salt water because it removes the negative energies in our bodies". I took her advise well and is enjoying my monthly, or if I have more free time even weekly swim by the beach.
But even if you don't have the luxury of going to the beach because there is no beach near you, a simple walk to the park with the trees and the grass brings natural therapeutic effect. It makes us think clearly and gives our bodies natural oxygen (because we are always in an airconditioned room) and sunlight for vitamin D which fights cancer and is a natural anti depressant.
There is something about
nature that calms us and makes us more
reflective.
4. Have time for some mini vacations and fun
- I went to Yas Waterworld the other day. For some of you who is not from Abu dhabi, Yas waterworld is a water park built in Yas island Abu dhabi.
A beautiful and fun place to spend time with friends or your family. I had so much fun and laughter. It's a good place to de stress and be childlike again. I love the feeling because children live in the moment. They don't think about the past and definitely doesn't think about any future. They have no social masks to worry about as well. They just live purely in the moment.
If you watch and hear their conversations, no work, no assignments, no gossips, no money nor any lovelife problems, only fun stuffs that they can do with their toys.
It is so nice to have that kind of fun with your friends or family once in a while that even when we are already adults we can still have that childlike activities without the usual conversations of an adult. Just pure playful fun.
5. Do activities different from your work
- how many of us do the same activities, surrounded by the same group of people each and every day.
We all need our own space to breath in my opinion. Honing our other skills besides the skills that we usually do at work is refreshing. People always enjoy variety because it gives us a kind of energy that when we go back to work it gives us a different kind of perspective from what we usually do.
I believe it makes us more effective at work too because it makes us more creative and inspire others as well.
6. EXERCISE
- Thank God I love to exercise. It is always part of my renewal. I love to use the bicycle in the gym and exercise for 1 hour with my favorite book. It relaxes my body and my mind. Sometimes I even drink coffee while in the gym. If I feel like combining nature with exercise, then that's the time I play golf. I just enjoy it and I feel really good afterwards. That is just my way of exercise and feeling good, but what is yours?
Give time for your body the regeneration it needs and feel the difference it does in your life. It will boost your energy, calms you, makes you healthier, happier and get more things done. Having periods of regeneration and renewal don't TAKE time, they actually ADD time in your life.
