Breaks mean energy

Relaxation time is the best antidote to move your life forward.

— raiseyourlife.org

Hi, I hope you are well and healthy. We need this to move on. In my last post I wrote about mental and physical energy. Today I will talk a little about the necessary breaks we need to have during the day, just to keep our energy at a good level. We can do that by paying attention to what we do and what we feel.

Thoughts:

I will begin this debate with the quote: "Long and frequent breaks are the key to great successes." I used to laugh when I heard this sentence without believing in it. Over time, however, I began to see things differently. I began to understand that breaks, especially between larger and more demanding activities, are very important. It's like a brain reset and refocusing. Personally, it was and still is hard to stop during the day. It's a big effort to be able to sit quietly and feel the break, without thinking about the next activity or to all the worries that trouble our minds.

Although it is not the best comparison, think of a machine that goes and goes continuously. At some point it starts to spoil. If we had stopped it from time to time, then we would have extended its running time. We must keep this in mind for ourselves as well.

Let's think, we wake up in the morning and start our morning routine (gymnastics, day planning, washing, breakfast), and then we go to work. All these have a very high energy consumption if we do them under the pressure of time. So it is good to be done in peace with not so much worry. Just realize that you will work all your life so why you should rush to the job every morning. We arrive there and we get many things to do and many people ask for our time. If we get out of control and react to everything that appears without thinking about what we have priority, we end up tired, not knowing what we did and not having done the important things. And besides, if we didn't take any breaks to relax, we'll be even more finished. After work, we return home to our family, but there other things are waiting to be solved too. If we have no energy left, we will be irascible and we will not want to do anything, this is not desirable. The home must be an oasis of peace, understanding, and love. So if we happen to get tired, it is good that the first thing we do is a break, then we can continue a wonderful evening with the family. Home activities are also many and require attention and dedication. But not everything has to be done, in the end, we are beings, not machines. So do what you can from what is important and definitely consider the time to relax. At the end of the day, preparing for sleep should be done as easily and as early as possible. How you feel before bed will affect your sleep for better or worse, so make sure you feel good and relaxed.

What can we do to know when and how we should take a break?

It seems simple to think that it is good to take breaks, but unfortunately the simple and obvious things are very often violated for things that are not as urgent or important as we think. For example, we do something urgently and after a while we realize that we have no yield because we are tired. What we do then, we stubbornly continue knowing the task must end quickly. So we keep working even though we hear in the background: I can't do it anymore, take a break. When we finish, if we finish, we are drained of power, although the day is not ready and we have to continue other activities. If we had taken a short break, we would have felt much better and the day would have been easier. My advice is to take a short break every hour no matter what you do. That means getting up from the office and taking a few steps, drinking water, having a snack, laughing with colleagues, doing whatever makes you a little out of the concentration you were in. The same thing must be done and when we do physical activities, we must stop a little to revitalize ourselves.

But how do we remember to do that? It's easy, listen to your inner voice and pay attention to what your body is saying. I know, it's not always good to listen to your inner voice, that success comes with sacrifices. True, but how is a success when you are burned out. Another method is to put alarms on your phone or use a watch that warns when you have been too still for too long.

Another way to take a break is by meditation or a nap when you feel the need. Personally, the second option works better for me, but we are each different, so we have to choose what works best for each one of us. This short process of thirty to one hour can revitalize your day and help you solve your problems much easier.

During the day we make two kinds of efforts: mental and physical. When there is no good balance between the two, we must be careful and restore it. For example, if we work all day at the office and stress with long to-do lists, after work we have to do activities that involve more physical than mental. So when we get home we could do: physical exercises, a brisk walk, gardening, running with our child, finally anything that moves our body and makes us get out of the accumulated mental tension. I'm not very familiar with the notion of yin and yang, but what I've noticed over the years is that it's good to have a balance in everything if I want to live a healthy and beautiful life.

The things that bring us fulfillment, happiness, and meaning in life are the ones we should do as often as possible. So it's good to have a list of these and then pay attention to them. When you do something pleasant, it fills your heart and soul with happiness. From practicing a hobby to the help we can give to those in need, there are many ways in which we can find fulfillment in life, it depends on each of us what we want.

Many times in life we focus our attention and strength on doing things that hurt us. And we've been doing this for so long that it's become a normal thing that we may not even notice. It is good to detect these things alone or with the help of those close to us and to stop them. Then let's see if we are better without them and start a process of change that will reposition us. Life changes are hard to make, especially if we are not being pushed from behind by someone or by an event. Unfortunately, most of the time we change when we go through a tragedy, a difficult event, or a toxic relationship. If we change voluntarily without waiting for these drastic things to happen to us, it is only up to our discipline and will. It all consists of the attention we have to ourselves, to what we do, and feel every day. So break the patterns of your life and raise as a better person.

Conclusion and final word

In conclusion, I believe that the breaks in our lives have a profound impact on the way we live. Just think about how we see things when we are tired and how we see them if we are energetic. We live in a world where we can lose the meaning of our life very easily due to the multitude of information we have at hand and which are often implanted in our minds by corporations that pursue their own interests that do not correspond to ours. That is why it is good to be present with ourselves, with the people around us and with the environment. We must make the best decisions for our lives, without fear of error. Mistakes are good, they are our teachers. I wish you a beautiful day.