7 WAYS … TO THE LOST PRACTICE OF RESTING ONE DAY EACH WEEK
July 21, 2010 by The Dove
Ask any physician and they will tell you that rest is essential for physical health. When the body is deprived of sleep, it is unable to rebuild and recharge itself adequately. Your body requires rest.
Ask any athlete and they will tell you that rest is essential for healthy physical training. Rest is needed for physical muscles to repair themselves and prevent injury. This is true whether you run marathons, pitch baseballs, or climb rocks. Your muscles require rest.
Ask many of yesterday’s philosophers and they will tell you that rest is essential for the mind. Leonardo da Vinci said, “Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer.” And Ovid, the Roman poet, said, “Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” Your mind requires rest.
Ask most religious leaders and they will tell you that rest is essential for the soul. Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Baha’i, and Wiccan (among others) teach the importance of setting aside a period of time for rest. Your soul requires rest.
Ask many corporate leaders and they will tell you that rest is essential for productivity. Forbes magazine recently wrote, “You can only work so hard and do so much in a day. Everybody needs to rest and recharge.” Your productivity requires rest.
Physicians, athletes, philosophers, poets, religious leaders, and corporate leaders all tell us the same thing: take time to rest. It is absolutely essential for a balanced, healthy life.
Yet, when you ask most people in today’s frenzied culture if they consistetly set aside time for rest, they will tell you that they are just too busy to rest. Even fewer would say that they set aside any concentrated time (12-24 hours) for rest. There are just too many things to get done, too many demands, too many responsibilities, too many bills, and too much urgency. Nobody can afford to waste time resting in today’s results-oriented culture.
Unfortunately, this hectic pace is causing damage to our quality of life. We are destroying every sense of our being (body, mind, and soul). There is a reason we run faster and work harder, but only fall farther behind. Our lives have become too full and too out of balance. Somewhere along the way, we lost the essential practice of concentrated rest. We would be wise to reclaim the ancient, lost practice of resting one day each week.
To get back into balance, just consider the countless benefits of concentrated rest for your body, mind, and soul:
§ Healthier body – We each get one life and one body to live it in. Therefore, we eat healthy, we exercise, and we watch our bad habits. But then we allow our schedules to fill up from morning to evening. Rest is as essential to our physical health as the water we drink and the air we breathe.
§ Less stress – Stress is basically the perception that the situations we are facing are greater than the resources we have to deal with them – resources such as time, energy, ability, and help from others. We have two choices, either reduce the demands or increase our resources. Concentrated rest confronts stress in both ways. First, it reduces the demands of the situation. We have no demands on us as long as we have the ability to mentally let go of unfinished tasks. Secondly, rest reduces stress by increasing our resources, particularly energy.
§ Deeper relationships – A day set aside each week for rest allows relationships with people to deepen and be strengthened. When we aren’t rushing off to work or soccer practice, we are able to enjoy each other’s company and a healthy conversation. And long talks prove to be far more effective in building community than short ones on the ride to the mall.
§ Opportunity for reflection – Sometimes it is hard to see the forest through the trees. It is even more difficult to see the forest when we are running through the trees. Concentrated rest allows us to take a step back, to evaluate our lives, to identify our values, and determine if our life is being lived for them.
§ Balance – Taking one day of your week and dedicating it to rest will force you to have an identity outside of your occupation. It will foster relationships outside of your fellow employees. It will foster activities and hobbies outside our work. It will give you life and identity outside of your Monday-Friday occupation. Rather than defining your life by what you do, you can begin to define it by who you are.
§ Increased production – Just like resting physical muscles allows them opportunity to rejuvenate which leads to greater physical success, providing our minds with rest provides it opportunity to refocus and rejuvenate. More work is not better work. Smarter work is better work.
§ Reserve for life’s emergencies – Crisis hits everyone. Nobody who is alive is immune from the trials of life. By starting the discipline today of concentrated rest, you will build up reserves for when the unexpected emergencies of life strike… and rest is no longer an option.
Properly developing a discipline of concentrated rest requires both inward and outward changes. Consider these steps to reclaiming the lost practice of weekly rest in your life:
1. Find contentment in your current life. Much of the reason we are unable to find adequate rest is because we are under the constant impression that our lives can and should be better than they are today. This constant drive to improve our standing in life through the acquisition of money, power, or skills robs us of contentment and joy. Ultimately, rest is an extension of our contentment and security. Without them, simplicity and rest is difficult, if not impossible. Stop focusing on what you don’t have and start enjoying the things that you do.
2. Plan your rest. Rest will come only from intentional planning and planning rest will come only if it is truly desired. Schedule it on your calendar. Learn to say no to any tasks that attempt to take precedent. Plan out your day of rest by choosing creative activities that are refreshing and encourage relationships. Understand that true rest is different than just not working. As the Cat in the Hat wisely said, “It is fun to have fun but you have to know how.” Avoid housework. Plan meals in advance to help alleviate cooking responsibilities. And by all means, turn off your television, e-mail, and blackberry.
3. Take responsibility for your life. You are not a victim of your time demands. You are the creator and acceptor of them. Refuse to complain or make excuses and start changing your habits. Remember, you are only as busy as you choose to be. Leave “if only” excuses to the kids. If needed, alert your employer about your desire for rest and tell them you will be unavailable on that particular day.
4. Embrace simplicity. Embrace a lifestyle that focuses on your values, not your possessions. It is difficult to find rest when the housework is never finished, the yard needs to be mowed, or the garage needs to be organized.
5. Include your family. It is much easier to practice the discipline of concentrated rest if your family is practicing it too. The fact that this gets more difficult as your kids get older should motivate you to start as soon as possible.
6. Live within your income. A debtor is a slave to his creditor. It is difficult to find rest for your mind when you are deep in debt. The constant distress of your responsibility to another may preclude you from truly enjoying a day off. It is possible; it’s just more difficult. Don’t overspend your income, live within it.
7. Realize the shallow nature of a results-oriented culture. If you live in a results-oriented culture where productivity alone is championed on every corner, rest is counter-cultural. And thus, the saying goes, “If you rest, you rust.” Rest may even be seen as a sign of weakness by others. Unfortunately, that view of humanity’s role in this world is shallow. It is true that many of the benefits from concentrated rest are not tangible; but then again, only a fool believes that all good things can be counted.
Rabbi Elijah of Vilna once said, “What we create becomes meaningful to us only once we stop creating it and start to think about why we did so.” The implication is clear. We could live lives that produce countless widgets, but we won’t start living until we stop producing and start enjoying. Capture again the lost practice of resting one day each week and start truly living.
By Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist. Read more from Joshua at his blog, Becoming Minimalist, subscribe to his feed, or check out his new ebook, Simplify. Photo courtesy nattu
Preparing for a Tranquil Night Sleep
July 21, 2010 by The Dove
By Sam Sample
Considering the stress and stimulation that we are increasingly being exposed to, it’s no wonder that many of us find it difficult to fall asleep at night, suffer from poor sleep or wake up feeling tired and flat.
Checking emails in bed on the iPhone or Blackberry, eating a large meal at nighttime, going to the gym late at night, worrying about how much work there is to get through, watching television in bed, depending on alcohol or pharmaceuticals to help fall asleep, are all recipes for an inability to fall asleep or disrupted night’s sleep.
Incorporating daily self caring rituals when you’re unwinding from the day and preparing yourself for bedtime is a much better option that will help promote a healthy and tranquil night’s sleep. The key is to find something that makes you feel relaxed, then repeat it each night to help release the day’s stress.
Diffuse a blend of essential oils in your bedroom. Relax, run a bath, make a cup of herbal tea, focus on your breathing and let yourself go. With every breath you take, breathe in relaxation, and breathe out your worries. Ease into a tranquil sleep.
Diet
Avoid coffee, tea and other stimulants after lunchtime so that they have completely worn off by the time you prepare to go to bed.
Avoid eating a large meal before going to bed, particularly carbohydrates so that your body isn’t busy trying to digest food whilst you’re trying to fall asleep.
Avoid alcohol as it disrupts your ability to reach deep REM stages of sleep.
For nights when you really are finding it difficult to fall asleep, valerian is a much healthier alternative to sleeping tablets. The herb is believed to be a remedy for sleeping problems and does not have the same “hangover” effect of sleeping pills.
Exercise
Incorporate exercise into your daily routine. There is so much research out there stating that regular exercise is one of the best physical stress-reduction techniques, that it relaxes tense muscles, helps you to sleep, improves blood flow to the brain and releases chemicals called endorphins in to your blood stream giving you a feeling of happiness.
However, make an effort to avoid high intensity exercise (unless it involves sex) in the evening as it may keep you stimulated. Exercise in the morning or afternoon instead.
The Bedroom
Your bedroom is a sanctuary for sleeping. Create a tranquil environment by minimizing noise, light and temperature extremes in your bedroom.
To help prevent a sleep disorder from disrupting your life, use the bed and bedroom for sleep only. Please don’t watch TV or work in bed (including checking emails on your Blackberry of iphone).
Keep a notebook beside your bed and if ever you lay in bed with thoughts racing around your head, write those thoughts down in the notebook so that you can revisit them the next day.
Aromatherapy
Aromatherapy is a true holistic approach to healing in that it uses oils extracted from plants and flowers to treat the physical, mental and spiritual body. Essential oils stimulate receptors in the nose which relay messages to the limbic system, the part of the brain that regulates emotions. The use of essential oils is nothing new, dating back thousands of years. The most beneficial part of aromatherapy, in my opinion, is that it can be incorporated into daily life via creams, massage oils, bath oils, compresses and for burning in an oil burner; and that blends can be tailor made to suit your requirements, for example, to help calm and induce sleep.
Lavender is regarded as the first choice in the treatment of insomnia. It is reputed to act as a sedative in conditions of mental and emotional agitation and unrest, calming the mind.
Roman Chamomile is renowned for soothing restlessness and nervous irritability, as well as alleviating anxiety and stress.
Sweet Orange is renowned for having a mild sedative and antidepressant effect as well as being refreshing.
Sandalwood is renowned for having a relaxing effect on nerves and has long been considered the first choice for meditation as it is reputed to quieten mental chatter.
Rituals
Finish working at least one hour before going to bed so that your mind has a chance to stop thinking about work and day-to-day stress.
Create a bedtime ritual that appeals to you, whether its meditation, deep breathing, reading, bathing or utilizing the benefits of aromatherapy to help make the transition from “working day” to “tranquil night”.
An hour before bedtime add a few drops of sleep inducing essential oils to your oil burner and fill your bedroom with a calming scent.
Sip on a cup of relaxing herbal tea such as Chamomile and Vervain, that are both renowned for their calming, sleep inducing qualities.
Run a warm bath, add a few drops of sleep inducing essential oils and relax for 20 minutes by closing your eyes and focusing on your breathing. With every inhale breathe in tranquility and the scent of the oils, and with every exhale breathe out your worries.
Slip in to bed and ease into a tranquil sleep.
Heal Yourself at an Eco Sanctuary
July 7, 2010 by The Dove
Taking time out for yourself is not only a luxury, it’s a necessity. While our fast-paced lives may make it feel like there’s no time for anything but work, our good health depends on taking a break that focuses on you. Treat yourself to a relaxing week away at some of our favorite eco-retreats…
Sanctuary Olonana, Kenya, Africa
If it’s rugged nature you seek, sign up for a spa-fari on a private stretch of the Mara River—a stone’s throw from where Out of Africa was filmed. This small and exclusive luxury safari camp (pictured above) prides itself on sustainable practices thanks to the Sanctuary’s wetlands and tree-planting projects, earning it a silver award from Ecotourism Kenya. After dining on fare from the Sanctuary’s organic garden, indulge in the mini-spa and pamper up with traditional, natural African remedies.
From $US389 per person.
Harmony Hill Wellness and Organic Spa, Hobart, Australia
Designed by owner Ami Nakamura using Feng Shui principles, Harmony Hill is sanctuary where rebalancing and re-energizing are a given. Ami makes all of the spas 100 per cent Australian certified organic products on-site. Treatments include iridology, kinesiology, Ayurveda, lymphatic drainage and chi energy healing. “This is not a traditional hotel or resort spa,” she says. “We focus on alternative therapies to offer a holistic health experience and we do not use chemicals for the extraction of ingredients and nutrients.”
Treatments start at $AU140
Thermae Bath Spa, Bath, England
Travel to the heart of the historic city of Bath to bathe in the naturally warm, mineral-rich waters just as the Celts and Romans did nearly 2,000 years ago. Britian’s original natural thermal spa, water here is naturally hot and straight from the earth at 46 degrees centigrade. It also boasts more than 40 minerals and trace elements. Other highlights include an open-air rooftop pool with views of the city and surrounding hills, steam-rooms, relaxation areas and more than 50 complementary therapies and treatments.
Treatments start at £38
Kaiser- Friedrich-Therme, Wiesbaden, Germany
Thermal saline spring water is the main claim to fame of this charming historical spa city. The historical Kaiser- Friedrich-Therme building has preserved the essential elements of the Irish-Roman Bath, which is protected as a historic monument; the tepidarium (warm room) and the sudatorium (hot room), the Russian steam bath as well as the heart of the thermae, the historic indoor swimming pool, were restored in the colors and the decor of the late Jugendstil (German Art Nouveau).
Therapies start at 8,00 €
www.wiesbaden.de/en/sports/baths/kft/kft.php
Spreewald Therme, Germany
The Spreewald Therme combines modern architecture traditional Spreewald village elements and nature. Hot thermal springs bubble in the depths of the earth among the biosphere reserve Spreewald, while the mineral-rich healing waters flow into the different basins. Ease any stress away with a vapor-bath and sole-inhalation, as you relax in huge cucumber barrels. Beauty treatments boast ingredients of local herbs, cucumber and linseed oil.
Entry starts at 13,00 €
www.spreewaldtherme.de/en/spreewaldtherme.html
The Cowshed at The Scotsman Hotel, Edinburgh, Scotland
The Cowshed, tucked away inside five-star The Scotsman Hotel, employs only all-natural, 100% vegetarian spa pampering, featuring a proprietary range of essential oil-based treatments. Products here are made by hand using organic flower and plant oils, with herbal essences from the walled garden at Babmington House, the home of the original Cowshed spa.
Treatments start at £15
Beauty Maven Meets Eco Beauty
July 3, 2010 by The Dove
What Rachel Avalon’s seminar taught me about the beauty industry…
Whether it’s dipping into latest Sephora finds or scanning through celebrity looks, my heart has always fluttered just that much more when it comes to beauty. And with being an eco writer, I figured I pretty much knew all there was to about eco beauty.
That’s why when I heard about holistic nutritionist and eco expert, Rachel Avalon’s Lecture on Eco Beauty, I was curious to see what the green “it” girl would be discussing. Knowing there is at least one natural makeup product that meets my approval, and often putting pestle and mortar to use in my kitchen for new facial concoctions, I wondered what the eco industry’s freshest face would have to say about beauty that I didn’t already know.
I walked into the lecture room, paper and pen in hand and ready to soak up what I thought would be new beauty tips. I also got a chance to have a quick meet and greet with Rachel, who was absolutely charming and a natural host. With people pouring in, we quickly took our seats and the presentation set sail to what was going to be a revealing look at the beauty industry.
Moments in, I was capsized by own limited perceptions of beauty. Rachel began with where our beauty products are coming from, what’s in them, and how detrimental they are to our health. The virtually self-regulated cosmetic industry is saturated by politics and hazards, even though one could argue the two were never really mutually exclusive anyway. Though we all know about lobby groups, Rachel’s knowledge of what exactly comprises the beauty industry which policies so easily saunter past the red-tape (and why), and how they affect us, is absolutely horrifying. In short, I learned that just like the IRS, we should never really trust the so-called “safety” regulations.
But to learn what was actually in all those lovely pressed powders, tubes and jars left me thoroughly disgusted. So what’s in it exactly?
Think Gemma Arterton’s scene in Quantum of Solace, where she’s covered head to toe in oil, and then you’ve got a very small picture of what you’re actually spackling on yourself everyday. The trauma of what Gemma’s character goes through varies disfiguringly with our own experience – after all, with that much toxic waste on her she inevitably died. On the other hand, we go about our day with ten fold more and think we’re glamorous. Put on, rinse, and repeat.
Considering we toss ourselves into a daily beauty gauntlet with questionable (and sometimes cancer-causing agents), you can only imagine how much damage we’re doing to ourselves in the long run.
If you consider the basics, (like shampoo, body wash, toothpaste, mouthwash, etc), it’s easy to see how the average American uses about 10 products a day – which exposes them to about 125 chemicals!
If you factor in that our skin absorbs 60% of what we put on it, and with the average girl wearing makeup at 14, by the time you’re 85 you’ve been exposing your body to harsh chemicals and toxins for over 70 years! It’s no wonder that we have such a high rate of cancer in society, with 1 in 3 women and 1 in 2 men now being diagnosed with it. The role of cancer in beauty was another interesting component of Rachel’s lecture, and got me questioning about how many chemicals I expose myself to daily without even thinking about it – all in the name of beauty.
And beauty isn’t just for women. Conscious care is definitely something both men and women need to think about (because almost everyone uses shampoo, soap, deodorant, etc.). I brought my fiancé who was absolutely astounded by what he learned from Rachel’s lecture. According to Avalon, women use over 186 chemicals a day, but men use a competitive 85 chemicals per day – and that’s not including if they’re overly metro sexual with a bathroom stash able to beat that of any beauty maven’s.
If you consider the basics, (like shampoo, body wash, toothpaste, mouthwash, etc), it’s easy to see how the average American uses about 10 products a day – which exposes them to about 125 chemicals!
This beauty maven, however, went home and started tossing products away and recycling the containers – despite their cost or how much was still left in the bottle. Applying the tips I learned from Rachel’s lecture I read the labels of all my products – getting rid of anything I knew to be toxic, cancerous, and/or made from products I wouldn’t be within range of if I saw it in its unprocessed form, such as petroleum and placenta.
The result, I took Rachel’s many fantastic tips and alternatives, and am now putting them to use as I test the market for truly eco-friendly beauty products that are both earth-friendly and fabulous. Much like every other beauty whore who hawk-eyes every new beauty product or fad on the market, my new approach is to hone in on the ingredient labels to see if products are really what they appear to be. The result – gorgeous intelligence, as Rachel would say.
Many thanks to Rachel Avalon for such a great lecture! Luckily for us, she hosts repeat lectures and is able to serve you as a holistic expert even if you’re not based in Los Angeles. Her website is www.RachelAvalon.com.
Shireen Qudosi is a freelance writer specializing in the green industry. Visit her blog, The Logical Native, or check out her writing, link building, & social media marketing services at Babel Fish Communication. To contact her directly, email babelfish@qudosi.com and keep up with her work by signing up for the newsletter.
Image source: Arizona Foothills Magazine, Image Shack
All Creatures, Great and Small
July 3, 2010 by The Dove
Canon recently announced the finalists in its Keepers Competition. We love Little Puppy, Big Kiss in the Once in a Lifetime category. Visit this link and register to vote! By voting and answering one simple question you go into the draw to win a PowerShot SX210 IS, so you can capture Keepers of your own.
