Because of our fast paced lives, we often reach a breaking point. What we don’t realize is the long term health consequences this has on us.
Most of us, regardless of where we come from or what we do for a living, live a busy life.
Is it possible to slow down? Is it possible to find a way to change the way we live without giving up doing the things we love? Here’s a few ways to make the best of every situation, allowing these situations to have a positive and lasting outcome on our health. It starts with a quiet mind.
Appreciating the Good
When things don’t go our way, it’s easy to get angry. Imagine that time when you spilled your coffee, or locked your keys in your car, or when someone cut you off on the freeway. Do you remember how you felt in that moment? These instances have so much of an impact on us, we allow them to dictate our emotional state for the rest of the day. What if while these unfortunate things happened to us we chose to focus on things in our lives that were more positive, even if they were not in front of us at the time?
When good things occur in our lives, especially when they’re brief, that good feeling only lasts a moment. Then we move on…
However, when things don’t go quite our way, we get so bent out of shape that we want to think and talk about it to anyone who will listen. In these moments is when we could alter the way we feel by focusing on the things in our lives that we really appreciate. This change in perspective will have a major impact on our current attitude.
Appreciating the good – people, places and things – allows us to break free from the stress of the moment. The appreciation, or focusing on the good, gives us the opportunity to control the moment regardless of outside influences.
Finding Time for Calmness
Do you notice that we all create busy schedules we can’t keep up with? And even when we recognize this reality, we still complain that we don’t have time to relax, to exercise, to just tend to ourselves…
When our body is tired, we respond by giving it some rest. Why don’t we do the same for our mind? You have to take care of your mind the same as you take care of your body. Perhaps a starting point would be to look at your schedule and delete what you can. If deleting is not possible, then maybe delegating will help free up some of your time.
One of the easiest ways to take a moment of calmness is to put it on your schedule. Taking time for yourself is just as important as anything else that’s going on in your life, and thus should be penciled in on your calendar. Having personal time on your list of things to do is a sure way to keep your life in check, keeping a daily dose of calmness as part of your life on a regular basis.
Being in the Moment
If we understood what being in the moment really entails, it could be the first step to practicing relaxing the mind.
The easy way to explain the practice of being in the moment is to place complete focus on what you are doing at one particular time.
What does this mean exactly? When you are brushing your teeth focus on the toothpaste gliding on the toothbrush, the grip your hand has on the toothbrush, the toothbrush sliding up and down and side to side on your teeth and gums, the flavor of the toothpaste…
In this moment of time, thoughts of the past and future become irrelevant since you can’t change what has happened or control what you don’t know will happen, respectively. A present focus leads to a quiet mind.
So let’s keep our mind positive, calm, and in the present!
