Take Your Breaks Like a Smoker
No, you don’t want to start up a nicotine addiction. Infusing your life with habits that promote your long-term health is the key to long-lasting health, happiness, and success. Aging your skin, blackening your lungs, and inhibiting your ability to hike up a mountain without gasping for breath won’t bring you joy.
But taking your breaks regularly outside will add a sparkle of joy to your daily life.
Go outside even if you have only a minute. Pretend you crave the outdoor air the way someone longs for a smoke. Ideally, you can step out into nature, or at least a view of vibrant color and green.
Take your coffee with you and do something almost no one does anymore.
Drink your coffee or tea like it’s the last time.
Don’t text, listen to a podcast, telephone, make mental lists, or ruminate on worries that have flooded your brain since you stopped working. Become aware of your breath, the sounds of the birds, the shape of the leaves, the feel of the air against your skin, and the aroma and taste of your coffee.
Laser your attention to the present moment. Turn on your sensory perception. You won’t only delight in your coffee more than you would have slurping it while working at your desk.
You won’t consciously be creating new connections and brainstorming creative new ideas. Yet when you return to your desk you will find your brain is primed with new ideas.
It doesn’t matter if your break is only five minutes. Stepping outside and grounding your awareness into your body and the present moment will refresh you and open you up to joy.
Snack Like the World is Ending
Shops are closed and raided for the very last supplies. Chaos is in the streets. There is no chance for you to reach for a candy bar now. You flee to the woods with your family to try to survive in the wilderness.
It’s time to snatch your snacks from Mother Nature.
Add at least three raw veggies to your diet before dinner to transform your health.
You can pack two containers of veggies in advance so you can take one with you to work for snacks and leave one in the fridge for when you get up. Then the minute you enter your kitchen in the evening, there is a vitality kick waiting for you in the fridge.
You may hate the raw veggies at first. Persevere. Eventually, you’ll crave the crunch and fresh taste of the vegetables. You can eat your veggies as sticks or dice them and eat them with a fork.
Switch up which raw veggies you buy so you are eating a rainbow of colors and a wide array of vitamins. Getting the raw vegetables into your stomach before dinner will fill you up so you eat less of the entrée. You’ll give your digestion the fiber it needs to function regularly by eating raw veggies and experiencing a flatter stomach as a result.
If you don’t already eat raw veggies, then you’ll need to give your system one to two weeks to detox and get used to your new diet. The patience will pay off. All those vitamins in the raw veggies will not only reduce your risk of a long list of chronic diseases, but they will also give your skin and hair a healthy glow.
Let Them Eat Cake
I don’t know about you, but if the world was ending I would eat that raspberry double fudge three-layer chocolate mouse cake and revel in every bite. It would be my last, right?
So before you flee to the woods to survive on raw veggies, whole grains, and captured protein, I would recommend you eat cake.
Transform your life with more joy by deciding on your treat of the day each morning. Look forward to that delight like you aren’t surrounded by a thousand sugar and fat-filled alternatives.
Pretend you aren’t surrounded by sugar and butter. You’ll be living in a time of scarcity. Enjoy that cake like you won’t see one again.
Sure, there are health-enthused evangelicals who don’t eat any sugar or processed foods anymore. You don’t need to be one of them to charge your life with joy, health, and happiness.
You just need to learn to choose.
Select one treat and look forward to your choice. Delight in the strawberry tort, the order of fries, the pralines and cream ice-cream cone, or that still warm brownie.
Escape Your Prison
If the police turned up and placed you on house arrest, with a release just to travel to and from work, how would you feel?
The reality is that you may be placing yourself on house arrest!
The average American spends around ninety percent of their time inside. It’s time to lower that percentage to transform your life with more joy, health, and success.
Just looking at green lowers your stress levels. Spending a day in a forest will both lower your stress levels and boost your immune system. Walking improves your digestion, your waistline, and your heart and lung health, and adds years to your life.
Brainstorm how you can spend your entire Saturday and Sunday outside. Pack a bag with meals, snacks, water, a small medical kit, hand disinfectant, sunglasses, cards, games, and sunscreen.
Take a blanket to the park and read a book under a ceiling of green. Organize a party in your garden. Plan a hike through the hills or up a mountain. Pack your laptop and all the extra work you need to get done and find an outdoor café. Travel to a forest and spend the day walking and enjoying a picnic. Bike through the fields outside your town. Wander through a farmer’s market and explore your city’s parks. Raft down a river.
Venture outside after dinner and start wandering. Download an audiobook, a series of podcasts, and your favorite music. Or take your kids, partner, friends, or family members with you.
Sell Your Sofa
Sitting is the new smoking, so it is time to sell your sofa.
It’s just too tempting when you get home at the end of the work day to fall onto the sofa and turn on the TV. You won’t get up again until you drag yourself to bed.
Resist the pull of your sofa and escape outside after dinner. Download an audiobook, inspirational, educational, or funny podcasts, and your favorite music.
You’ll be learning while you walk and infusing your brain with inspiration, motivation, and what you need to be more successful professionally, personally, or spiritually.
Or you can take your children, partner, friends, or family members with you. Choose a destination to walk to, like a playground, a park, or a beautiful outdoor café.
You can all jump on bikes instead of walking and put more distance between you and home. It will broaden the range of destination choices.
Spending less time on your sofa, and more time active and outside, will transform your life with more happiness, health, and success.
Heather Lenz