The Dream Oak It is essential to Unplug Yourself in a busy world to relax, reduce stress, improve your mental health and mood, boost creativity, and strengthen your relationships. Sometimes you find no time to relax in a challenging task like maintaining your job, health, and other responsibilities. You get bored and tired. There is a need to take a break and rest to perform your activities efficiently.
The basic part of your happiness, success, and health is rest. Your body is built to thrive in several series of sprints. Taking a rest just for a few moments refreshes you for the whole day to perform your activities excellently. Breaks are defined as the short cessations of your work that can improve your mental health, enhance your work performance, and increase your productivity. The time you require for the rest depends on your needs. Short time rest may affect your body’s state of homeostasis and you may feel angry.
Benefits of Rest
- Reduces stress
- Restores your energy
- Helps to reduce fatigue
- Helps to repair your body
- Improves your immune health
- Decreases your blood pressure
- Improves your cardiovascular health
- Helps to relieve chronic pain
- Improves your focus
- Boosts creativity
- Increases productivity
- Improves your mood
- Strengthen your relationships
- Increase your ability to solve problems
- Helps in decision-making
Reduces stress
Rest helps to reduce stress by activating the parasympathetic nervous system which functions opposite to the sympathetic nervous system. Your heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol hormone production are increased during stress by the sympathetic nervous system. Prolonged stress affects your immune system and increases the risk of several diseases. Relaxation lowers your blood pressure and decreases your heart rate to allow you to perform your functions efficiently.
Restores your energy
A resting state helps to restore your energy to increase productivity. Continuous work throughout the day decreases your calories which negatively affects your working potential. There is a need to restore your energy to maintain the working potential for peak-level performance. You can take this advantage by taking rest that helps to restore working potential to increase productivity.
Helps to repair your body
Taking rest helps to improve your overall body health. When you rest, your body repairs itself from wear and tear. Relaxation makes you more energetic to enables you to perform your activities effectively.
Improves your focus
Letting your mind rest to quiet your thoughts enables you to concentrate and focus on your problems to solve them. Just like your active body, your active mind also gets tired. There is a need to heal your mind for the best performance.
Boosts creativity
You become more creative after taking a rest and getting relaxed. Break for a while helps you refill your reserves. You can think better to solve your issues.
Increases productivity
After a resting state, you are always more active. Just like your muscles, your brain is also less active and less functional when it is fatigued. After taking a rest and getting relaxed, your mind becomes more active and functional to improve productivity and achieve a greater sense of accomplishment.
Improves your mood
You feel good and happy after getting relaxed. The resting state helps you feel more positive about your challenges at work and handle your obstacles easily.
Helps in decision-making
Rest helps improve your ability to make decisions better. Long-term and continuous work reduces your focus and concentration. There is a need for rest to enhance your ability to concentrate to make your decisions efficiently.
Restful Techniques
There are several techniques to develop simple routines that cue you to rest. These involve:
- Take deep breaths
Taking deep breaths in the fresh air makes you feel good and relaxed. Set a routine for intervals such as taking deep breaths in the morning, at tea brews, and while you wait for the computer to turn on.
Being grateful for the things you feel wonderful blessings in your life, makes you feel happy, energetic, and satisfied. Set a routine and sit at a particular place while remembering your all blessings and achievements that make you happy.
It is very important to practice better sleep hygiene both for physical and mental health. Set a schedule for your bedtime and sleep daily for at least 5 to 6 hours. Set up fixed wake-up times, follow them, and keep them consistent. Dim your lights while sleeping for better production of melatonin hormone.
Cultivate healthy habits such as regular exercise, meditation, and healthy breakfast. These habits will improve your sleep-wake cycle, and regulate your hormones and neurotransmitters. Do not miss yoga and restful movements every morning.
Tips for getting better sleep
The following are tips to get better sleep:
- Set your proper schedule for getting better sleep.
- Stick to this sleep schedule and be consistent.
- Use dim lights while sleeping for better production of melatonin hormone.
- Avoid working out late in the day.
- Set a time for any relaxing activity before bedtime such as a relaxing bath, reading, and yoga.
- Avoid napping in the daytime.
References:
- Benson H, Casey A, Dadoly A, et al., eds. Stress Management: Approaches for preventing and reducing stress. A Harvard Medical School Special Health Report. Boston, MA: Harvard Medical School; 2008.
- Schoenborn CA, Adams PF, Peregoy JA. Health behaviors of adults: United States, 2008–2010. National Center for Health Statistics. Vital Health Statistics 10(257). 2013.
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