It is my hope that you found the first piece (Part 1 )in this series useful. Please share it with others. Feel free to do so. As we indicated previously, in this second piece, we shall be focusing on Rest and Sleep; Relaxation and Entertainment; Reading and Studying; and then, Healthy and Enduring Relationships. Please do come along, trusting that it will be worth your while. Once again ,Happy Sharing!
1. REST AND SLEEP
I was tempted to treat rest and sleep separately, given their peculiar uniquenesses. But I refrained from doing so because of what I consider their substantial overlap. So I am taking them together without sacrificing their peculiarities.
Rest is part of sleep. Sleep is part of rest. However, it is not always that either is part of the other. For instance, that I am resting may not necessarily include sleeping. On the lighter mood , some sleep- walk, others do physical kicking of soccer balls while asleep. Others talk aloud, sing out, shout at people you may not see while they are asleep.
Back to serious business. In today’s busy world and turbulent marketplace many have increasing and multifarious deadlines to keep, loads of work to do and many commitments to attend to. The result is that many have murdered sleep. So we have burnouts, stressed up people all over the place. The result is that health and productivity suffers. While this is so, makers of sleeping pills and anti-depressants are smiling to the bank. Unfortunately, our lives, our organizations are paying dearly for this in terms of lost man-hours, cost of healthcare and even untimely loss of lives.
Sleep deprived people cannot be their best at work. Consequence is that Corporate Wellbeing suffers. And all these have cost implications for corporations.
The standard is that we should get 7 to 9 hours of sleep each day to be able to operate at our optimum level. Keeping two or three jobs to make ends meet means that many sleep much less than they should. It is even now well known that sleep deprived people are cutting short their lives.
Rest on its own is as critical. Stop-and-rest is a virtue and lifestyle that remain useful. The late Dr. John Stott was known to observe everyday, what he called “horizontal half-hour”. It is a daily practice of stopping, lying down and stretching himself for 30 minutes at specific points of each working day. It may include a nap or just stopping, catching some breath and relaxing. Dr. John Stott lived enough to die at about 90 years of age.
Much more than that, the need to take vacations cannot be overemphasized. Leave your normal place of work and residence. Take a trip away from home and work. Think of other things, see new places, learn new things. Let your body, soul (mind) and spirit rest, relax and take a fresh breath. Think through your busy life and see if you will be committing to fresh challenges and opportunities.
In these ways, we shall be improving our Wellness status,Wellbeing and longevity. And we will be happier for it. Surely, REST and SLEEP do refresh, restore, refocus and re-strengthen all who make room for them.
2. RELAXATION AND ENTERTAINMENT:
When the body is over-worked and the mind over-stretched, overloaded and overburdened, with no opportunities to let out, what do you expect? Stress related illnesses sprout, grow and overtake many. Soon the body and the mind (psychosomatic) buckle. When we are sick or ill, we are not the only ones that suffer, our work suffers and by extension, our place of work does also. In that case, Corporate Wellbeing is jeopardized. And so because humans are vulnerable when continually exposed to contemporary workplace, societal and occupational pressures, there is need to seek ways to cope. RELAXATION and ENTERTAINMENT are quite useful in this regard.
A time of relaxation is when we make room and time to stop, loosen-up, and lay aside all pressures and anxieties to unwind and relax. At such times we allow our minds to take a break. We allow our bodies as well to receive some rest and release.
Many times RELAXATION could go together with ENTERTAINMENT. Entertainment includes activities that hold the attention and interest of someone or an audience offering them pleasure and delight. Entertainment has the power to divert, amuse and offer enjoyment. Entertainment has a refreshing benefit of relaxing one’s nerves, taking away tension, offering release from inordinate cares and anxieties.
Works, Programmes, and Projects are serious matters making demands on us and stretching every dimension of our person and faculties. With its associated deadlines, targets, and pressures, with our anxieties to make ends meet, meet our needs, pay our bills, we can crack or buckle under the weight of all these. This is especially true, if we do not balance our lives to make room for moments of relaxations and entertainments.
Given our preferences, personalities and lifestyles, the choice as to what type and place to seek entertainment is ours. It could be indoors or outdoors. It could be via the TV, YouTube, Radio, Social Media, or life performances. It could be Drama, Music, Humour, Comedy, Dancers, Singers, etc. These furnish us with moments for laughter. Even making jest of ourselves, receiving of hospitality, nature-watching, etc, could be part of it. All these do our body and soul plenty of revitalizing good. They are strongly recommended.
3. READING AND STUDYING:
Reading and Studying sound like work. Not really, in this context. Here, we are speaking of reading and studying for pleasure and other interests.
This helps to expand our horizon, cut short on our ignorance. Growing in knowledge and information has a way of enriching us, bringing light to our lives, motivating us and strengthening us. It is always better to be informed than to remain ignorant. General interest reading could be both enriching, enlightening as well as pleasurable. So it has inherent recreational ability to refresh us. Take for instance reading a story book. People, old and young, love good stories. Together with other factors, it is positive for our Wellbeing and productivity, albeit remotely.
4. HEALTHY AND ENDURING RELATIONSHIP:
Man, generically speaking is a relational being, through and through. The social elements of his life at home and at work constitute the central core of his make-up and being. No matter how endowed, he (she)cannot truly survive and be happy without others.
In reality, if you take your bearing just from any person, he(she) has some people ahead, some people at the same level, and some other people below or behind. In most typical homes you have mothers and fathers, and siblings, some older, some younger. At work you have superiors, colleagues and subordinates. You have brothers and sisters, uncles and aunties, nieces and nephews, cousins, etc. So wherever you turn in this life ,there are relationships conferred by the very nature of life and work. The same is the case even in religious circles and institutions. At other times, we make our friends by choice. Why? This is because we need others. For these reasons, absolute lone-ranging, acute introvertishness and separatist individualism are at best most likely to be deviations and signs of unwholesomeness. That is not usually the case for well adjusted persons.
So for fulfilling Wellbeing, we need healthy and enduring relationships. High turnover in the relationships we freely enter into is not only usually symptomatic of some ailment, they usually have their tears and wears not only in our bodies, but in our spirits and souls also. Often they leave inner wounds that are difficult to heal. They leave scars that are bad reminders. Who wants those sad reminders?
Friends just imagine how beautiful and exciting that life would be in which these foregoing features are true: Sufficient Rest and Sleep, Relaxation and Entertainment as necessary, good Reading and Studying, Healthy and Enduring Relationships. Think! Take the bull by the horn and take on these action-points. All who has are glad for it.
In this series, we have one piece to go. In that piece our focus shall be on Retreat, Prayer and Meditations; Routine and Maintenance Drugs; and Body Clock Monitoring. Just like other action-points, these enhance Personal Holistic Wellbeing(PHW).Please be kind enough to share this piece with others. Be well! Be healthy!! Thrive on!!!
Originally published at medium.com