Holidays are a wonderful way to revitalise and renew your energy. Moreover, to discover new places, meet different people and have new experiences. Furthermore, holidays are a chance to relax, take a break from the daily grind, and return refreshed. Some of my most memorable trips are the times I have spent in Africa. With the solitude of the African bush, incredible animal viewings, serenity, space and rest, it’s my favourite destination. However, it’s not always possible to head off on an extended holiday, locally or overseas. Holidays take planning, scheduling, time and money. Therefore, you need additional strategies to help renew your energy and clear your every day stressors. Too much stress, is disastrous for our health.
Stress is a Major Cause of “Dis-ease” in our Lives.
Avoiding illness and disease means its imperative that we find ways to de-stress our mind and body. Moreover, we are made of energy, so an overload of stress is heavy energy which literally weighs us down, blocks our forward progress and erodes joy.
A stressful experience usually results in poor thinking habits and uncomfortable feelings. As our thoughts create feelings and vice versa, and we are driven by how we feel, stress impacts our actions and behaviours. Furthermore, it’s common to get stuck in a negative cycle of thinking and feeling. Stress literally gives you a foggy head, minimises your brain function and clouds your path forward.
Therefore, discovering strategies to manage stress, as well as scheduling breaks and holidays, is key to renew your energy Moreover to lighten the load and see the world differently. When you see things from a different perspective, new ideas and solutions magically appear.
Here are six ways to help you de-stress and renew your energy, simply and easily.
1. Renew Your Energy With A Health Check
How is your health on a scale of 1 – 10? Is there a small (or big) health issue that you have been neglecting for some time? Make a commitment to do something about it. Schedule an appointment or take affirmative action. If you are healthy, what else could you do to enhance your health a bit more? Think simple: drink more water, eat more fruit and vegetables, or cut down on processed foods. Small positive choices can create big health gains. Moreover, the healthier you are, the more mental strength, resilience, you will have for navigating through life’s ups and downs.
2. Get Out In Nature
Spending time in nature is one of the greatest ways to renew your energy and destress. The power of nature is incredibly healing. A survey in Finland shows that city dwellers increased their well-being by spending at least five hours in nature each month. Extended periods give even greater benefits to renew your energy. Forest bathing is a practice in Japan. It involves going into the woods to relax. To improve physical and mental health, as a way to combat health problems caused by modern lifestyles. Moreover, time in nature diminishes cortisol levels, and the inhalation of plant-released oils bolsters immunity and lowers blood pressure.
“Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive, and even spiritual satisfaction.” E.O Wilson
3. Keep a Gratitude Journal
Most of the things we stress over (excluding death, separation, major illness or major financial issues) aren’t as bad as we make them out to be. When you take time to notice three things you are grateful for and you record them, you increase your feel-good chemicals and literally renew your energy. This is a wonderful antidote to stress and is backed by numerous research experiments.
4. Park Your Stress, Have Some Fun and Renew Your Energy
Make a decision to do something fun every day. Fun is a great antidote to stress. Ultimately, it’s a feeling. Even if you can’t have a holiday, you can have daily fun, if you choose to. Choose to park your stress, or imagine handing it over to someone else to carry for a while, and engage in some fun. Fun will help you reduce stress, the biggest cause of dis-ease. Importantly, it’s vital for your health and life! Research by Dr. Stuart Brown, a pioneer in the field of play, suggests that play is a fundamental biological process. Moreover, it’s as essential to our health as sleep and nutrition. He argues that fun and play are critical for cognitive development, social bonding, and emotional health. So go outside, renew your energy and have some fun!
“Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.” Dr Seuss
5. Breathe or Meditate To Renew Your Energy
Breathing consciously is one of the best ways to reduce your stress, give your overthinking head a break and increase your sense of inner calm. Even two minutes of breathing can help switch off stress chemicals. Add in a stress-reducing mantra such as ‘I breathe in calm, I breathe out stress’ to heal your nervous system. Practice purposefully pausing and breathing to renew your energy. Finally, remember, your words have power too, so use them wisely.
To supercharge the above technique, try this: Focus your attention on your heart and connect with something that you value, or someone you care for. Connect with the positive feeling and feel it emanating out from your heart. Not only does this give your busy brain a rest, you switch on immune boosting and stress reducing chemicals.
Finally, meditation is great for our wellbeing. Research from Harvard Medical School found that meditation increases the thickness of the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for focus, problem-solving, and decision-making. This structural change improves attention span and cognitive function; both great ways to renew your energy and focus.
6. Clear out Toxic Relationships
How are your relationships; are they healthy or are they toxic? Are they supportive and encouraging or negative and shrinking your personal power? If you are influenced by people in your life in a negative way, it might be time to do a people audit. Hanging around negative people will bring you down and cause your energy to feel heavy. Make a decision to hang around with positive people. People who uplift you and support you.
In conclusion, while there are many ways to renew your energy and banish stress, select one or two of the above and start today. Finally, always remember, small steps taken consistently over time, will create great results.
About the Author
Mandy Napier is a Global High Performance Mindset Coach who dedicates her work to supporting business professionals and entrepreneurs. She helps them fulfil their potential and achieve extraordinary results professionally and personally. Transformations are the norm, and results guaranteed.
