Are you always rushing around with no time for your self?
If you rush through your day, always too busy to relax and enjoy the small pleasures, the idea of intentionally slowing down probably seems overwhelming. But there are health-related reasons to re-think your multi-tasking activity. Not only do you not accomplish as much, but the non-stop frenzy takes a toll on your health. It can affect your sleep, blood pressure, hormones and emotions.
Shifting gears can start with small steps you incorporate daily. I am including a list you can try out, one by one. Maybe you’ll decide to include them all:
- How you start your day sets the mood for the rest of the day. Begin with a calming ritual. It doesn’t have to be time-consuming, even 5 minutes. Deep breathing, meditation, reading a page from an inspirational book, gentle, body stretches… you get the idea.
- Rather than spending your day multi-tasking, each evening, write out the “top 5” list of most important things to accomplish the next day. Prioritize your list from most important to least and work on the list, only one task at a time. If any remain at the end of the day, make that your #1 for the next day. This technique is amazingly effective and productive.
- Less is better. Do less, buy less, commit less. Begin focusing on only the really important things in your life. Learning to say No is the toughest thing for many of us, but the wisest and best decision we’ll ever make. Before you agree to anything, ask yourself, “Does this serve me?”
- Take time to eat you food. Savor each bite, slowly enjoying the taste, aromas, texture and eating experience. We too often rush through our meals, rarely even tasting the delicious food. This not only causes digestive upset, but overeating.
- Listen. Pay attention to the sounds around you. Laughter, birds, the breeze rustling the leaves, babies crying and even your children’s incessant questions and revel in the moment. They are fleeting and gone in a flash, never to return.
Much is written about mindfulness and staying in the moment. While I believe this is absolutely the easiest and best way to slow down, using the very concrete steps above are a beginning. Remember that much of our rushing is self-imposed. We put the impossible deadlines on ourselves and add too many “to-do’s” to our lists. Don’t sweat the small stuff. And as Richard Carlson so beautifully reminded us… P.S. it’s all small stuff. Slow down and enjoy life.