How Much Work and How Much Play Creates Balance in Your Life?
We often think of balance as 50/50, the same weight on each side. This isn’t always true, and some times it’s impossible to achieve.
There are 24 hours in a day. Balance may look like 8/8/8. Eight hours each day is allotted for work. Eight hours is earmarked for personal life. The perfect time is left over, eight hours, for sleep.
As most of us know, that’s not often the case. It would be a challenge to maintain a 50/50 balance. So what is a good balance?
Even an eight-hour-a-day job takes more than eight hours of your time. Add your commute time and your lunch break which usually is not included in your eight hours. Now you could be up to ten hours, some people even more.
If you an entrepreneur, your hours often exceed eight hours.
“Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” –Dolly Parton
How Does Technology Impact Your Balance?
It’s no secret, the age of technology has brought many convenient features and advantages into the human life. There is quick access to more information than any human can consume. Social networking has changed the world of marketing. There’s a significant increase in educational opportunities, new
career opportunities, and so much more!
Part of the upside is solving numerous problems with a click of a mouse. You can purchase almost anything you want or need without leaving your home. Online education, banking, and your medical history are all available in seconds.
Classes on almost any subject of interest are just waiting for you to enroll. Constant communication is available in the palm of your hand. Satellite brings countless forms of entertainment. Technology serves great purposes without leaving the comfort of your home.
What Does the Outside World Bring In?
With technology also comes the opportunity to become sedentary. Engaging in less and less physical activities can add significantly to health decline. Then there’s entertainment at the push of a button. Your brain is constantly engaged, but your body is not. Thus, part of the downside.
Ads stating, “Living the Laptop Lifestyle,” should state, “Living the Laptop Lifestyle, but Remember There’s More to Life than a Laptop!” Engaging the mind is important and necessary, especially in terms of a career, a business, education, but ignoring the needs of both the mind and the body interfere with
what’s necessary for a happy and successful life. So, let’s get this right!
Technology is here to stay, and progress is good. But spending most of the day in front of a computer, at a desk, in artificial light bombarded by external stimuli without balance isn’t healthy. Not only are modern-day professions constantly stimulating your brain, but so is your everyday environment.
Think about:
- The long lines you often must stand in at the checkout counters or events
- Traffic getting to and from work or any other place you need to go
- Dealing with frustrated people or becoming a frustrated person
- Sending and receiving emails
- Keeping up with social media and, if you’re into social media marketing, the constant awareness you must have in the social network arena
- Meetings, meetings, meetings
- Academic pressures
- Long hours at work
- Digital addiction
Each day your mental resources are very likely diminished if not completely drained! And your body, well most of the time it’s just going along for the ride but not without a price!
Where's the Balance?
Although your job description may require long hours in the office, at a desk, facing a computer, social media interaction, and more, you can create balance of both the mind and the body. If your brain functions on overload much of the day, where’s the break? When does the brain get to recalibrate and recharge?
When does the body get to relax, breathe, and let go of the daily inundation of information? Nature offers a pleasurable, energizing, calming, stress releasing solution.
Let’s Get Back in the Game - The Game of Nature and Her Healing Powers!
Nature generously offers an abundance of gifts for your mind and your body to balance and energize. All your senses can be filled, and that needed renewal can happen for you simply by learning to embrace the outside world on nature.
What You See:
Visual experiences with the colors in the outside world often trigger emotions of excitement, energy, calm, relaxation, and more. Nature’s natural way of placing colors together evoke different emotions with an awareness of the constant need for a calming influence. Nature is an artist!
The textures visible in blades of grass from a simple short lawn to the tall plumes of Pink Muhly grass provide variety, and variety is a basic human need. The leaves on a Maple tree provide smooth and simple textures as do the rigid spiny fronds of the Pygmy Date Palm. Nature is nurturing!
What You Hear:
The sweet melody of the birds chirping in the trees, the shrill sound of crickets hiding in the meadows, the soft hum of a dragonfly gently buzzing through the tall reeds of a pond all bring nature into your consciousness and replace the clutter of the day in your mind. Nature is music!
What is more relaxing than the sound of a waterfall gently rushing into a stream, or being engulfed in a soft gentle breeze, or the majestic waves of the ocean crashing into the shoreline? These fill our sense of hearing in a pleasurable and relaxing way. Nature is calm!
What You Taste:
The flavor of fresh strawberries from a garden, tomatoes warmed in the sun plucked from their vine, or the fresh blueberries bursting with flavor. These experiences put you in a different place, a place for a new and satisfying event you hope will come your way again. Nature is flavorful!
More relaxing products from nature’s garden are those soothing herbal teas. You know the ones – they feel so warm and comforting on a cool fall or winter’s day. Herbs grow fantastic in pots which means even with limited space, you can still add to your experience with nature. Nature is comfort!
What You Touch:
When children are upset, they often want their soft teddy bear or their “softy.” Nature can also provide this comfort for you. The soft fuzzy leaf of Lamb’s Ear (the plant) or the velvet touch of a Princess Flower provides comfort on a sad day. Nature is soft.
Do you recall soft mud ever squishing between your toes or the beach sand covering your feet as you walk along the shore? If not, you may enjoy this experience! It’s cooling, massaging, relaxing, and sometimes brings out the playful child in you. Nature is playful!
What You Smell:
Gardenias, roses, jasmine, and lavender are just a few of the wonderful gifts nature provides for your sense of smell. Their fragrances can cause you to stop and just breathe in that gorgeous hint of nature that tells you the Earth is a wonderful place. Nature is sensual.
The salty scent of the ocean air combined with the sound of waves rolling into shore relaxes the body and releases the mind from the stresses of the day. Add a sunset and you have three senses working together to bring your mind and body back into balance. Nature is harmony!
Nature is a Master Teacher
“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” –Albert Einstein
Engaging in nature can be a significant educational experience as you learn how the Earth works, the part nature plays in your health, your happiness, and even your very existence. You should also place a focus on what needs to be given back. Her gifts are only unlimited as long as we give back what she needs to create those gifts.
The Earth is healing for both the mind and the body. Why would you not want to experience the simple yet amazing contributions nature can add to your health, your happiness, and richness of your life.
Research has proven the healing qualities of nature and the tremendous advantages there are to being immersed into this world. There are innumerable ways to make this happen. It’s simple and always available. It just takes a commitment to include experiences with nature in your daily or at least weekly routine.
Engage With the Earth and Experience Her Healing Powers
Eight Ways to Experience and Incorporate Nature into Your Daily Routine
1. A short walk before work can get your day off to a great start. This can clear your mind, sharpen your focus, and get oxygen pumping to your brain. This can also give you time to plan and organize your day, solve issues weighing on your mind, or even think about where you want your life to be in five years.
2. If time pressures won’t allow a morning walk, then a short walk after work or before dinner can calm your mind and help switch gears from work to family. Breathe deep and be conscious of nature’s surroundings. Allow her calming influence to bring your day to a close.
3. Have you ever observed people watching a sunset? They seem to be quiet, mesmerized, and at peace as they watch the sun vanish below the horizon. It’s an amazing experience to watch the sunset and to watch the people watching a sunset.
4. Climb a mountain! It doesn’t have to be a tall one, just a few hills to increase the cardio. Take in the wildflowers, the rock formations, the insects on the ground, even animals that may be watching you.
5. Find a bike trail that meanders through a natural habitat. Stop, breathe, listen, notice sounds, fragrances, and the beauty around you. Allow the peace of the moment to penetrate your body, your mind, and your soul. It’s all part of bringing your mind and your body back into balance.
6. Go on a picnic, take off your shoes and feel the grass under your feet. Play with your children or spend quality time with your spouse or with a good friend.
7. Create a vegetable garden to satisfy that sense of taste where the grocery store is falling short. Growing your own food is therapeutic, educational, satisfying, and adds to your personal sustainability even if you only have space for a few pots on your patio.
8. Another way to bring nature to you is to create a beautiful garden in your own backyard easily accessible and only moments away. You can create a garden to elicit the emotions you most want to feel, the natural fragrances you most want to experience, and the balance you’re seeking for a happy, healthy life.
Experiencing the Outdoors Can Make a Positive Difference in Your Life
The list is endless, just get out there! Don’t leave this extremely important part of life out of your routine. Create a daily routine and include an enriching and balancing experience with nature in that routine each day. Start out small. Just walk outside your back door in the morning and take ten deep breaths of fresh morning air and feel the energy.
The Earth’s gifts are abundant and necessary for a healthy life. It’s easy to ignore her and put her aside for what seems at the moment to be much more important tasks. Engage with the Earth by including her in your life, and enjoy the benefits she so abundantly offers.
The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, he said: “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” Let’s be the exception and start now creating a healthier joy-filled life!
I’d love to learn about the ways you’ve found to add the benefits of nature to your life and her healing powers to your daily routine. Please share your experiences in the comments below.
Linda Rose is a freelance writer for hire who provides article writing, blog writing, and website content services. With over 16 years of professional experience as a business owner, a designer of beautiful gardens and landscapes, and an advocate for the Earth, she is passionate about encouraging people to learn and connect with the Earth through her writing.
[…] center when you are mentally or emotionally spent. This healthy break in nature may be all you need to bring balance, regroup, and move forward. With renewed motivation and ambition, you can make a […]