In today’s fast paced world we’re
constantly on the go. We work long hours and even bring extra work home to
catch up on at night and on the weekend. We work hard at parenting, keeping up
the house and yard, and maintaining a social life. We are busier than ever, yet
we are all still limited to twenty-four hours per day. Something has to give
and more often than not it has been rest and relaxation.
Sleep is essential for our survival. We
can’t survive very long without it. If I could tell you the number of friends I have that are proud of being up at midnight working on their next project, or the number of moms that say they haven't had sleep for twelve years ... would you be surprised? If you’ve had a newborn in the house or
been in any other situation where you didn’t get much sleep for days and weeks
on end, you know how bad the effects of sleep deprivation can be. Severe lack
of sleep will be noticeable very quickly. You can pull one all-nighter, but go
for a couple of days on little-to-no sleep and you’ll start to feel like you’re
going insane. Cutting back on sleep just a little here and there is trickier.
That’s why we’ve gotten away for so long with six to seven hours of sleep and little time for rest and relaxation outside of those hours. We’ve been burning the candle at both ends and it doesn’t really work to our advantage.
We need to make rest, relaxation, and
adequate sleep a priority to stay healthy and productive. We may feel like we
get more done when we get up a little earlier or go to bed a little later. We
feel like we’re catching up on work when we bring it home on the weekend to
work on. Yes, it gives us more hours to work on stuff, but it often doesn’t
make us any more productive. Work will fill the space we give it. By making
rest and relaxation a priority and giving both body and mind to recharge, we
can get just as much done in a shorter amount of time. That’s part of what I
want to show you and prove to you during this month long exploration on the topic
of relaxing and reducing stress.
Sometimes it feels like we’ve forgotten
how to rest and relax. We’re running wide open all day long and while it can
feel exhilarating and productive, it wears us down and takes a toll on our
health and well-being. Plus relaxing can be a lot of fun when you take the time
to rediscover the joy of it.
