Lifestyle Taya Bregant Lifestyle Taya Bregant

Learning How To Truly Relax

With the winter holidays being right around the corner, it is a time where many of us take some time to rest and recharge ourselves, slow down from our usual daily lives, and take time to look back on the year. This is of fundamental importance for us to do, since we all have limited capacities of energy to use, which eventually has to be replenished.

However, as much as rest and taking time to recharge are important for our well-being, society nowadays has a generally negative or almost looked-down-upon perception of rest. A lot of culture nowadays that surrounds work and hustling centers around eliciting the constant subtle pressure of having to always work/be productive. As a consequence, whenever most of us feel the need to take a break or relax for a bit, many of us will find ourselves feeling guilty for wanting to relax, which further makes us stressed and creates a set of conflicting emotions within us.

With the ever-expanding presence of online work, social media, and general connectivity through online channels, it is now easier than ever to be 24/7 connected to all the happenings around the world, within your job, or to see how your friends are spending their time. While this connectivity does have its upsides, it has the major downside of making it very hard to disconnect from this outside world and really take time off for yourself when you need it, without feeling judged or guilty for doing so.

Therefore, how do we best make sure that when we feel the need to take a break and relax, we make sure that this break will really be as restful as possible, and how can we discover the methods of relaxation that work best for us?

These are all important questions that we will be looking into below.

WHAT HAPPENS IF WE DON’T REST?

We all need some amount of tolerable stress in our lives, which in the end motivates us to act or can even save our lives in a dangerous situation.

However, being in a chronically stressed state where our fight or flight mechanisms are constantly activated is also not good, as permanent stress can cause serious damage and harm to both our mental and physical health. I have written about the effects of chronic stress before here.

Below are some common observations and symptoms associated with having a lack of rest:

  • Migraines and headaches

  • Forgetfulness and confusion

  • Chest pains and possible heart problems

  • Finding it hard to focus and concentrate at work

  • Having a lack of energy

  • Permanently elevated blood pressure

  • Sleeping issues such as insomnia or nightmares

  • Increased reliance on stimulants like drugs, alcohol, or tobacco

  • A change in appetite

  • Being sick or ill more often

  • Poorer quality performance at work or in school

  • Being irritated more easily or overreacting to minor annoyances

  • Loss of interest in being punctual or showing up in a presentable manner

  • Social isolation and withdrawal from social activities

  • Experiencing burnout

BENEFITS OF TAKING A REST

Taking the time to recharge can have an immensely positive impact not just on your productivity and effectiveness at work when you get back, but is also of fundamental importance for your mental well-being and happiness.

Below, you can find some of the main benefits associated with taking time off work:

  • Improved clarity of mind and thinking

  • Better decision-making

  • Becoming better at reevaluating our priorities and current routines

  • Encourages us to live more in the present moment

  • Reduces stress and anxiety overall

  • Improves our sleep quality

  • Having a healthier cardiovascular system

  • Improves our focus and concentration abilities

  • Increases productivity and our ability to get high-quality work done

TIPS FOR HOW TO REALLY RELAX

Establish the basics

  • Know which activities actually relax you (Eg: Going for a walk, taking a bath, listening to a favorite playlist, painting, etc.)

  • Assess your current restfulness state by asking yourself how rested you currently feel.

  • Listen to your body: What is it telling you that it needs right now? Is it rest?

Mindset shifts

  • Get rid of the idea that you have to “earn” your rest or downtime.

  • Remind yourself about how taking time for rest supports your work.

  • Realize that relaxing isn't a selfish activity but is something that all of us have to do.

  • Be intentional about your rest time (Eg: Don't say that you will rest and then spend the whole time thinking about what you still have to do).

  • Start seeing rest as an essential part of your well-being journey instead of an optional one.

  • Identify what aspects of your life you can control and what you can't to help you relax your thoughts.

Practical Methods

  • Try a social media detox for a couple of days or a week and assess how you feel afterward.

  • Implement a mindfulness practice into your everyday life like breathwork, meditation, or yoga, which allows you to live more in the present moment.

  • Get your thoughts and worries out of your head by writing them down.

  • Put down your thoughts and worries onto paper or outside of your head.

  • Visualize yourself being in a place that makes you feel the most happy and at peace.

  • Spend some time in nature.

  • Take part in any form of exercise that you enjoy and find relaxing.

  • Schedule regular breaks throughout your day.

  • Establish a ritual to signal to your body that it is time to relax and switch off from work.

  • Go on vacations or weekend trips if and when possible.

  • Ask for help when you need it and don't be ashamed about that.

KEY IDEAS

In todays blog post we have discussed the importance of taking genuine time off of work and most importantly how we can properly relax during this winter holiday season to return back to 2024 rested and recharged.

REFERENCES

Read More
Lifestyle Taya Bregant Lifestyle Taya Bregant

How To Bring More Calm Into Your Life

With our everyday lives becoming more and more busy and full of demands and obligations, it is likely that we are experiencing more distress and generally less calm in our own lives.

I am sure that all of us would appreciate a bit more peace so that we can approach each of our daily activities with a calm and collected mind but with the distractions that we face everyday, that is getting to be more of a challenging task.

This is why I thought it would be useful to write a little piece on how we can introduce more calm into our lives, which will improve everything from our stress levels to our sleeping quality.

Hope you enjoy, and wishing you a great day.

❗️ What causes distress?

  • All of us experience feelings of distress sometimes, where a little bit of stress to our body is actually not bad, but even beneficial. The problem comes when that feeling of stress becomes chronic and constantly present in the background.

  • Bellow are some of the common causes of why we feel tense and stressed, some of which you may identify with yourself:

    • Feeling overwhelmed/ a lack of control

    • Feeling inadequately prepared for something

    • Holding past grudges and negative beliefs

    • Interpersonal relationship issues

    • Moving somewhere new

    • Academic/ work struggles

😰 Dangers of being chronically over stressed

  • Mental health problems: Depression, anxiety, and personality disorders

  • Cardiovascular disease: Heart disease, high blood pressure, abnormal heart rhythms, heart attacks, and strokes

  • Sleeping issues: Insomnia and disrupted sleep

  • Diet related disorders: Obesity and other eating disorders

  • Sexual problems: Impotence in men, loss of sexual desire in both men and women. Menstrual problems in women.

  • Skin and hair issues: Acne, psoriasis, and eczema, and permanent hair loss

  • Gastrointestinal problems: Such as GERD and gastritis

  • Burn out: Feeling chronically tired, loss of motivation and feeling like a failure (Sense of defeat)

  • Loss of immunity: Falling ill more often, poorer wound healing

💙  Benefits of being a more calm individual

  • Better sleep

  • More creativity

  • Higher energy levels

  • Reduction in medical heart conditions

  • Slowing down aging

  • Better focus in the moment

  • Making more rational decisions

🧘🏼‍♀️ Practical methods of calming down

  • Breathing practices

    • Meditation: Meditation can be a useful way of calming down as it encourages us to slow down, focus on our breath and in that way turn our attention to the present moment.

    • Breath work: There are plenty of different methods of breath work, all of which work on the basis of breathing in different styles and pattens in order to calm our mind. A popular breath work technique is called the box technique, where for 4 seconds each you: Inhale, hold your breath in, exhale and hold your breath again, after which you repeat.



  • Diet and nutrition:

    • Avoid large amounts of processed sugar: While foods containing lots of processed sugar may taste good, in the long run they are not beneficial to us, as too much sugar intake can make us go through sugar highs and crashes along with unstable energy levels, that will disrupt our daily patterns of calm.

    • Regulating your caffeine intake: Caffeine is a powerful stimulant, which if taken in the wrong times of quantities, can negatively affect our brain and nervous system.

    • Relaxing teas: These come in many different flavors, but experiment with what you like and what makes you feel good. Often herbal teas such as chamomile or fennel are quite nice to calm you down, especially before sleep.



  • Movement and slowing down:

    • Physical activity and movement: We often find that after having done some movement, we feel a great sense fo achievement and calm as movement encourages our mind to focus either on our movement or the surroundings around us - all of which make us more peaceful.

    • Slow stretching: Just like exercise, doing some slow stretched can have the same effect as our movements are slow and precise.

    • Spending time in nature: Time spent in nature is healing and good for connecting us back to reality while temporarily disconnecting us out of the daly worries and stressors



  • Personal approaches:

    • Writing down whats on your mind: This can either be by using a notebook or a online note taking platform, where we can write down all of the worries and tasks which ware running across our mind and in that way try to rationalize wether it is worth being stressed about all of those things

    • Using routines: Routines can be calming as they allow our body to temporarily go into autopilot mode and not have to think through everything we do, because we are already used to the pattern.

    • Light reading: Reading before bed or during the day can be a great way of slowing down and temporarily getting lost in a good narrative.

    • Relaxing sounds: Listening to calming ambient music, or simply some nature sounds can be a simple method of relaxing in order to calm your mind and thoughts



  • Unplugging and reconnecting

    • Be aware of your device/ media usage: By using softwares that track how much time you spend on your devices and on which sites/ apps a lot of time is spent, you can get a rough idea of how you use your electronics and wether that time usage is doing you more harm than good.

    • Take time to disconnect: On the same note, take the necessary time to spend some time without your devices and avoid being constantly online.

    • Talk to someone about your distress: Lastly take time to talk through any issues that may be causing you stress either to a close friend or trusted family member, to which you can open up and alleviate some of your internal pressures.

Read More