Take care of yourself when you need to, not just when you plan to. That’s what weekends and sick days are for. Treat them as a blessing and use them well.
Tag Archives: Relaxation
Vacation
To be completely honest, I’m too far gone (tired, distracted, buzzed, relaxed) to write an insightful piece today. It’s Friday, it’s the Summer, it’s my vacation weekend. I encourage you to take one as soon as you can – it’s good for you. How’s that for daily wisdom? Love you. Be back soon.
Rest Your Mind
When you finally stop moving or take a break, your mind tends to press on and fill the work void with busy thoughts. Far too often, my vacations ripen with creative or intellectual juices. More momentum from busy days than anything else, I spend all of my free time theorizing, planning or creating the next big thing. Unfortunately, a busy mind is hardly restful. If you want a true break, you need to let go and stop thinking for a while. Zone out to some chill music. Go for a jog. Float down a river. Whatever helps your mind find a small measure of peace. With a completely rested mind, you will be surprised how many of your anxieties from before will disappear.
Vacations Take Courage
You know what’s terrifying? Abandoning work, teammates, income, bills, children, friends, pets, chores and other obligations for a week or more. Even more so terrifying to do all that and go to a place you’ve never been. Leaving town is easier for people with low-stakes employment, structured vacation time and a shorter list of things to abandon. It’s much more difficult for people entangled in their work or community. An executive responsible for hundreds of employees who depend on him or her may never feel comfortable leaving all that behind. It’s a scary thing. To take a vacation takes courage.
To take a true vacation takes even more courage. By ‘true vacation,’ I mean a designated period of time where you can completely let go. For people in control day-to-day, this can be as terrifying or more so than leaving everything behind. My father planned everything his entire life (he plans cities and suburban spaces for a living). Vacations were no different. When things didn’t go to plan, he’d stress out. Stress breaks the true vacation. As my parents upgraded to an empty nest, things got a little easier. The allure of short spontaneous trips popped up all the time. These days, I’d swear that my mom does more vacation planning than my dad. They are becoming notorious for randomly skipping town. Vegas here, New York there. More power to them.
Like defying your fear of heights by climbing a wall, it gets easier time after time. Overcome the first few trips and you start to overcome your hesitations. Before you know it, you’ll be a vacation master. Like anything else, mental health takes conditioning and practice. Vacations are big wins for your mental health.
Work Hard, Play Hard, Rest Hard
Most people don’t mention the third part. You need to be vigilant about rest if you’re going to maintain a work hard play hard lifestyle. All three forces need to balance out for you to sustain a productive, fruitful and healthy life. Let me say that again: keep work, play and rest in balance in your life. Bedtime is a magical thing if you observe it regularly. Scheduled playtime and vacations really wake you up. Don’t let work suck you away. Save an equal amount of time and energy to live the good life and recharge your batteries while still getting things done.
Reward Yourself
A major accomplishment, surviving a challenge, or simply making it through a long week are excuses enough to celebrate. A nice dinner, outing with friends, or a full night sleep – whatever it takes to let off steam and conclude the trial. Treat yourself to punctuate the deed. You deserve it.
Catch Your Breath
It’s good for you. Without intermittent periods of reflection and rest, you will never keep up with the pace of your life. Some people turn to meditation and others to daydreaming; both serve the same purpose: recharge and reorient. Perhaps more important than rest, short quiet periods in your day help you process everything. When you break from mental stimulation and general busyness, you give your brain a moment to pass your experiences and newly formed lessons to memory. Catching your breath helps you sort through the data of your life and think more clearly thereafter.
Stop, take a breath, and zone out. Right now. When you can. And never feel guilty about it.
Embrace Nature
Take a step outside. Breathe the fresh air. Cleanse the mind. Reboot your soul.
Consider taking a moment or two outside today. You won’t regret it.
I’m in Joshua Tree this weekend and completely disconnected. See you on the other side!
Vacation
To fuel consistent hard work and quality, it is absolutely necessary to take real breaks. No human being can sustain a high level of effort and thoughtful decision-making without rebooting regularly.
You need to keep the pencil sharp if you want to write a full book.
I’m taking my own advice for the next five days. Please forgive me if posts are more succinct than normal!
Find Your Meditation Space
Where can you go to clear your mind? Where can you go to let your thoughts flow freely? A forest? On a jog? In the game room? Where can you go to free your mind?
With all the noise day to day, it’s difficult to pause and reflect on your own life. It’s difficult to set your emotions and stress aside. Without a moment to rest, you can lose sight of your values, stumble away from your path, or threaten your health. I understand that rest is difficult to find, but I encourage you to make something work.
The best way to do this, I’ve found, is to assign a space (or time of day, if you can commit) exclusively for resting your mind. The shower is my meditation space – it is disconnected from the rest of the world, physically relaxing, and built into my day. Find a place that works for you. Treat this space as holy. Do NOT defile it with stress or let any other part of your life in. Keep it sacred. Visit it any time you feel unhealthy, lost, or overrun.
Craig Ormiston 