Thanksgiving is always a great reminder to take a break. We live in such a driven culture that we have lost the ability to just kick back and relax. And by that, I do not mean “relax” while checking you email every 10 minutes.
One of the best ways to decrease physiological stress on your body in through simple breath meditation. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth while listening to the sound of your breath. Five minutes of this reduces your heart rate and blood pressure for hours. If you are someone that tries this and the five minutes feels like an hour, then you, especially, need to UNPLUG for a while. Our bodies and minds are simply not designed to take in the amount of information we expose them to.
If you are old enough to remember life before cell phones and the internet, you know what life used to be like and what it is like now. Just because you can mentally deal with the amount of stress you put on yourself, it doesn’t mean your body physiologically can deal with it. Try some little things like turning off the 24hr news program while you are making dinner or while you are driving and turn on some music. Remember how much music you listened to when you were in high school? Would you have been caught dead listening to talk radio? Of course not. Simply listening to more music in your daily routine will have wonderful effects on your stress levels.
You see, these things are simple AND they add up over time in a very positive way. It also would not hurt to cut back on the 3 venti lattes and get a little sleep.
