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How to Find Your State of True Relaxation

Amid chasing productivity and personal development, you've got to find time to truly, deeply recharge.

By Leigh FisherPublished 4 years ago 6 min read
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Central Park, New York City | Photo by Author

How often do you really relax?

We all have different levels of relaxation. We relax when we're not at work or in class, we relax when we're out with friends.

But are you truly relaxed during those times?

If you still feel like you need to be alert, "on," or any level of reserved, it's a pleasant activity, but it might not be quite as rejuvenating as you think it is. If you fill your free time with fun activities, that's all well and good, but you might end up exhausted after a while.

Relaxing and rejuvenating is about taking care of yourself. We face stress from endless different sources. There are big things, like money or careers, but there are also smaller things like the small stressors that simply come with daily life.

The American Psychological Association does a stress survey every year. They break down their data by generation, but here's a little snapshot of how millennials reported feeling different types of stress.

Graph by the American Psychological Association

We all have stress coming from somewhere. When stress percentages are high enough to be called an epidemic, it's important to delegate time to relax and learn how to relax.

Amid working hard, you've got to take time for yourself.

Photo Courtesy of CreaturArt

It's part of the process of becoming more productive to streamline your personal schedule and your habits. Improving yourself doesn't stop at just getting more done - it's also working efficiently so that you don't spend every waking moment of your day working.

You're not a machine. You've got to unplug and rest sometimes.

For me, I work hard and try to improve my productivity and efficiency so that I can relax a little on weekends. I'll still do a bunch of writing, cleaning, and meal prepping, but I'll let myself have some guilt-free time of reading, spending time with my partner, or just enjoying a cup of coffee and hanging out with my cats.

You want to work hard but also give yourself time to properly recharge.

The "work hard, play hard" mindset has its merits, but you can get burnt out of fun, too.

When you're on a quest to make the most of your time, it's easy to overdo it. If you spend the majority of your days off running around, socializing with friends, visiting family, going to the gym, going shopping, whatever it is you do often - you can still get burnt out from good things.

The temptation to run around constantly is always there.

It's good to get out and have fun. It's good to accumulate more experience.

Yet if you run around all weekend then sprint back into your workweek, you're going to end up exhausted sooner or later.

Splitting your days off between productivity and relaxation can help.

By Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash

Recently, I've been trying to implement a 50/50 rule with my weekends. I'll spend one day writing running around, seeing friends, doing activities, and one day hibernating. If I play my cards right, I'll make Saturday the productivity and socialization day and Sunday my hibernation day. It might sound more like a tired platitude than fresh advice, but giving yourself time to meal prep, do laundry, clean up at home, and get ready for the week can make your workdays a lot less stressful.

For me to get into a state of true relaxation, I can't have errands or other things hanging over my head, darkening my doorstep.

The nature of life, making your time mesh with others' schedules and doing all the things you want to make it hard to organize your days off.

However, if you try, you'll slowly start to be able to carve out more protected time for yourself.

Make a list of the things you consider to be relaxing.

Start out by making a list of all the hobbies and activities you enjoy. Let's not look at work or productive things. For example, I love writing, but it's a lot of effort and it isn't always rejuvenating for me.

If you're always in go-mode and struggle to think of activities you do strictly for relaxation, read up on self-care routines.

We all need some quiet, contemplative, rejuvenation time.

Set aside time to relax and practice self-care.

By Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash

It takes discipline to maintain a self-care routine. Even though it's typically marketed to us as a fun indulgence, the reality of self-care can be pretty tough to maintain regularly.

In general, it's easy to put self-care aside. It's easy to say you don't have time to go for a walk, relax with a book, attempt meditating, try yoga, or any other type of stress-reducing activity.

There are plenty of statistics on how many people feel stressed, how many people are diagnosed with depression, but there's not a lot on how many people practice self-care. Most of the ones that exist are done by businesses that sell products that fall under the wide umbrella of things that might help with self-care, so you'd want to take those statistics with a grain of salt.

In general, people are giving more time and attention to self-care.

An easy way to get an idea of how much people are accepting the fact that they need to improve their habits and develop routines can be found…on Instagram.

Before you laugh at me, Vice published a story in December 2018 about our obsession with self-care. At the time the piece was published, they shared that there were a formidable 9.5 million posts on Instagram tagged with #selfcare.

Now, almost a year later, there are 21.4 million posts on Instagram tagged #selfcare.

This isn't a scientific study, this isn't a control group, but it is a good indication that more people are realizing that you need to take care of yourself.

Figure out which activities from your relaxation list actually rejuvenate you the most.

You've got to find your state of true relaxation.

Think about the things you do that you consider rejuvenating - then think about it again.

What can you do without the ghost of anxiety or guilt on you're conscious?

What makes you the happiest?

Are you practicing any type of self-care?

What do you feel energized after doing?

I love catching up with friends and I enjoy visiting family, but one thing I've realized about myself is that as a very introverted person, I'm not truly relaxed in these situations. It's not that I don't have good relationships. I love spending time with my friends, but as an introvert, I just need that little bit of recharge time afterward.

It's just that for me, true relaxation is in my own home, in pajamas, cuddled up with my partner and cats and nothing pressing on my agenda for the day.

By Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash

Find your state of true relaxation. It could be out in nature when you go on a hike. It could be sitting in your living room with a warm cup of tea. It could be with a face mask on kicking back in a bath. It could just be staying under the covers and hanging out with your pet or a good book.

It doesn't need to be glamorous. It doesn't need to be what your friends find relaxing.

It's about what you find relaxing.

There are so many different things that we can do to relax and recharge. Find not only the things you enjoy but the things that give you the energy to tackle your days and your goals.

happiness
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About the Creator

Leigh Fisher

I'm a writer, bookworm, sci-fi space cadet, and coffee+tea fanatic living in Brooklyn. I have an MS in Integrated Design & Media (go figure) and I'm working on my MFA in Fiction at NYU. I share poetry on Instagram as @SleeplessAuthoress.

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