Five Ideas for Staying Refreshed

Staying refreshed is one of the most important things that you can do to stay physically, emotionally, and spiritually happy. However, in our busy and hectic modern world staying refreshed can be difficult. I know there are times where it seems that all I do is commute, work, spend a few hours with the family, and then go to sleep, just so I can repeat the process all over again the next day. (sometimes that schedule isn’t too far off from reality). I know during these periods my relationships with my friends and family suffer, and so does my personal physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.

Sometimes during these hectic periods I have found it helpful to take a step back and analyze various aspects of my life and schedule, which allows to regain control of both. Here are five ideas that I employ on a regular basis in order to stay as refreshed as possible.

1) Balance Your Time:

Balancing your time is an important tool in staying refreshed. While this may seem obvious, and perhaps a bit trivial, it is in fact an essential tool that can be difficult to master. Most of us are constantly juggling work, family, religious group, and social obligations, which makes it easy to become stretched too thin. When we don’t manage our time well, over obligate ourselves, or especially don’t take time for relaxation, things like stress, anxiety, exhaustion, insomnia, etc. can result.

One idea that I often employ, which is critically related to the others, is to make a schedule that is divided as close to possible into equal parts (three eight hours blocks, four six hour blocks, etc.). Of course sometimes this is impossible, especially if you work long hours (like nine or ten hour workdays), and sometimes you will need a different schedule depending on the day; however do the best you can. For example if I work eight hours a day, I could divide my schedule into eight hour blocks which would ideally include eight hours of work, eight hours for relaxing and enjoying time with friends and family, and eight hours for sleep. If I work a ten hour shift, that still leaves me with 14 hours a day to split between relaxing and spending time with friends and family, and of course sleep (seriously, make sure you are getting enough sleep). Try creating a schedule, and keep track of how well you are sticking with your schedule, and add or cut activities as necessary.

2) Make Time for What’s Important:

You should really try to make time for important activities like spending time with friends and family, exercising, spiritual practices, and even general relaxation. These activities are important because they are what generally bring about the greatest feelings of happiness and contentment within us. The flips side of this is, that if you don’t spend enough time doing important and fulfilling activities, it is easy to become overwhelmed, burned out, or even depressed.

If you make a schedule as recommended in #1, you need to make sure that you set aside several hours a day for these activities.  If you don’t want to make a schedule, try and make sure that you are spending adequate amounts of time with these activities.

3) Cut-out Unnecessary Things

In conjunction with #2 it is important to look at your life and cutout unnecessary or overly stressful factors. These unnecessary things take time away from the important and fulfilling activities in your life. Perhaps you are allowing yourself to become stretched too thin in a religious or social group. Perhaps, you are engaging in activities that are personally unfulfilling to you, but you are doing them out of habit, or because of some sort of social pressure.

The key here is too examine your activities, and cut out those things that don’t truly bring you enjoyment, or aren’t fulfilling to you in some way. These might include mindlessly watching TV for hours on end, too many social interactions, too much time surfing the internet (this site doesn’t count ;)), too many social or group obligations, etc.

4) Find a Hobby

Finding a hobby can be an essential tool for staying refreshed. Hobbies keep you refreshed because it can serve as a mental escape that allows you to leave stress behind. Hobbies can include various forms of collecting, reading and/or writing, various forms of exercise, etc. (the list is almost endless). However, it is important to make sure that we don’t allow hobbies to take over our life and morph into an unnecessary distraction, which they easily can do if we do not keep our desires in check.

5) Take a Vacation, or a Weekend Trip:

A great way to stay refreshed is to simply get away for a vacation, or even a weekend trip. These can be a fabulous tool to simply leave the stress of life behind for a few days, and just enjoy life. These trips can be anything from an inexpensive camping trip (which I highly recommend),  a luxurious weekend away in a nice hotel, or anything in between. Simply try to leave your stress and worries behind, and enjoy yourself. These can be an excellent time to reconnect with family, spouses, and friends.

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Also please check out my book, “The Path: Using the Religions of the World as a Guide to Personal and Spiritual Development.” (Click on the book cover to view on Amazon.com)