The faster life gets, the more pressure you tend to put on yourself to push harder. You know it is not good for your health, but you are not sure how to do everything without letting anyone down. Yet the more you push yourself the more you increase your chances of becoming ill.
Slowing down and being selfish with your time every now and then is not a bad thing. It can set you up for success and help you maintain your optimum health.
Here are four simple ways you can slow it down and re-energise your mind and body.
Go it alone and take time out for just you
Get comfortable being with yourself. Visit that new café you have always walked passed or take a moment to sit under a tree in your local park. By intentionally doing nothing, you not only reconnect with yourself, but train your mind and body to slow down and appreciate the present moment.
Reconnect with your closest friends
Offline – not online. Leave the phone at home and spend an afternoon just chilling out in a quiet café, the beach, the park over tea or coffee. Learn to laugh and get to know each other again with no expectations and no strings attached.
Turn off the TV
Disconnect from Netflix, skip the movie cinema and switch off the news. Negative information blasted at you after a busy day only increases your stress. Instead take a trip to the country or the beach. Lay in the grass, on the sand and gaze up at the sky. Try this during the day and in the evening for different perspectives of your world. Just enjoy the moment of being present without a care in the world.
Try a restorative yoga pose
Even if yoga is not your thing, there is one pose even the most non-yogi can do with ease. It is called `legs up the wall’ pose (or Vipariti Karani in Sanskrit) and it is best done 10 minutes before bed. Legs up the wall pose is one of the best restorative poses for lowering blood pressure and helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system to prepare you for a restful night’s sleep.