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Tag: relaxations

  • Rests, breaks, relaxations and vacations

    Rests, breaks, relaxations and vacations

    Rests, breaks, relaxations, and vacations play an important role in our individual health and wellbeing and can help determine what good or evil we contribute towards peace, harmony, and progress of our families in particular and the world in general.  Earlier, we discussed rests and breaks. We now look at relaxations and vacations.

    Relaxation can be described as a temporary state of bodily, mental, and spiritual freedom.  Different degrees of relaxation are desirable for different situations, conditions, and places in life. If relaxation is freedom, we want to examine freedom from what?

    Life is full of potential stressors.  Your work can stress you up.  The sight of your rich neighbor’s car can stress you up. The presence of a rival throws you into competitive mode. In these days of heightened materialism (good, bad, or indifferent), many of us are stressed up by anxiety to acquire and own things.  The Yorubas say “makanjuola”  don’t be hasty for wealth.  We do live in a culture of haste that may keep precipitating stress in our lives.

    The individual regularly contends between positives and negatives, love and hate, good and evil, knowledge and ignorance, freedom and bondage, hope and despair, etc. and sometimes we are simply stressed up because we feel disconnected from what might be our origin and what might be our end, the stress of uncertainty.

    Some common tension builders include problems, lack, rivalry, enmities, anxiety, and ignorance. It is absolutely important that we learn how to relax and apply relaxation skills timely every now and then.

    Some relaxation techniques are simply distractions from stressors and others give a more lasting reward in overcoming the effects of stress and making us better prepared against future stressors. Distractions from stressors include pleasures, fun, laughter, music, dancing, hobbies, and interests.  Stress overcomers include prayer and meditation, exercises and body and mind techniques such as zen yoga, love and relationships, problem solving skills, time and money management skills, and virtues including contentment and gratitude.

    ”There is no single relaxation technique that is best for everyone. When choosing a relaxation technique, consider your specific needs, preferences, fitness level, and the way you tend to react to stress. The right relaxation technique is the one that resonates with you, fits your lifestyle, and is able to focus your mind and interrupt your everyday thoughts in order to elicit the relaxation response. In many cases, you may find that alternating or combining different techniques will keep you motivated and provide you with the best results” ( http://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/relaxation-techniques-for-stress-relief.htm).

    We will look at different ways of relaxing but before that, let us consider this biblical advice: “don’t let the sun go down on your anger”.  We need to avoid harboring a state of stress (tiredness, envy, hatred, vengeance, greed, anxiety, panic, etc.) for too long.  This perhaps is the best prophylaxis.  Your neighbor that you quarreled with today should be surprised to see you bounce back as friendly as ever the next morning.A society whose members are healthy in body, mind, and spirit will be seen as a society of peace and freedom as opposed to a society or strife and bondage.

    Dr. ‘Bola John is a biomedical scientist based in Nigeria and in the USA.   For any comments or questions on this column, please email bolajohnwritings@yahoo.com or call 08160944635

  • Use of rests, breaks, relaxations, and vacations for wellbeing

    Rest is not just a desirable aspect of life but it is physically, mentally, and spiritually mandatory.  The body reacts and collapses when it is refused rest.  The mind goes crazy when it is refused rest.  From time immemorial, rest was prescribed through Mosaic religion and biblical story described God resting one day after six days of creation.  Perhaps other various religions indicate a need for rest.  Regular rest is biologically imposed on life and the elements of creation and their cycles of day and night and seasons are in concert with biology bringing us to times and stages of rest.  Through this circadian rhythm or system of biologic clocks we are able to stay healthy, feel well, and function optimally.  A healthy psychology should positively look forward to rests, whether the temporary ones all along life or the rest at the end of life in this world.  Even though we are bound to rest regularly, we enjoy rest best when we deserve it.  The body can always benefit from inactivity and sleep but psychological and spiritual gratification in rest occurs when we have spent ourselves well and are fulfilled.  Thus the actual experience of rest is more a consequence than a goal.

    A rest is a state of retreat from effort and labor that enables us to regain energy and momentum for our normal functions in life. Thus being in a prison cell or in any sort of real or virtual prison can never psychologically or spiritually give us true rest. We need to rest daily and our bodies have a system of hormones and sensitivity that rhymes with sunlight and other physical elements of the day to bring us to rest at night.  Nocturnal workers, through their activity, force their body regulatory functions to go against this natural system and reset it.

    We should take care of our daily rest whether it falls within the natural night time or, as in the case of nocturnal workers, it falls at another time.  Sleep is our major daily rest.  During sleep, the body, including the brain, is being serviced through involuntary and vital biological functions.  During sleep, most systems in our bodies are in a heightened anabolic (building/repairing) state.  The growth and rejuvenation of the immune, nervous, skeletal, and muscular systems are taking place. Sleep deprivation can make us feel sleepy at odd times and in odd places during the day.  A sleep-deprived person can function as poorly as a drunkard.

    One of the important effects of inadequate sleep is diminished brain function expressed in inability to pay attention, remember new information, react to signals, make decisions, and perform attention sustained tasks safely.  Another effect is on the mood expressed in lack of motivation, irritability, and inability to cope with common daily pressures.  Sleep difficulties are associated with some psychiatric disorders.  About 90% of adults with depression have sleep difficulties.  Many relationship problems within the family, in the workplace, and in society may ensue from such diminished mental functions.  Chronic sleep deprivation leads to less servicing of the body, cardiovascular problems, reduced immunity, increased susceptibility to infectious diseases, compensatory overeating, weight gain, and type II diabetes.

    We have a lot to lose by not sleeping well and a lot to gain by sleeping well.  Therefore, if we are ambitious to live life to the fullest, to be as fruitful as we ought to be with our lives, and to have continuous well being, one of the factors in our lives that we should take good care of is our sleep.

     

    Dr. ‘Bola John is a biomedical scientist based in Nigeria and in the USA.   For any comments or questions on this column, please email bolajohnwritings@yahoo.com or call 08160944635

  • About lives without rests, breaks, relaxations and vacations

    Life is different for human beings in different parts of the world.  I remember when I first arrived in Chicago in 1998 and started working in a lab and told my immediate supervisor that I was struggling to do something.  He looked at me as if I was strange and said: “Why struggle?” I was coming from Nigeria where we struggled for everything and the word ‘struggle’ was fixed and prominent in my vocabulary.  I was in a car with some friends and on reaching their gate, nice me quickly tried to get down from the car to open the gate and was asked not to bother as I saw the gate roll open silently before my eyes.  For more than ten years, I was steeped in a world of constant electricity, remote controls, and programmed functions and services and I came to realize that “struggle” is not necessarily a way of normal life in this 21C.  When I returned to Nigeria in 2008, I began to see and experience “struggle” again, in every sphere, in every way. Yes, indeed, in developed countries, people do have their own stresses and struggles but really there are some problems that do not belong to the 21C and developing countries should try harder to tackle.  I keep on marveling, for example,when I go to a conference and put my hand under taps that you do not need to touch and remember people drawing water from wells. The fewer stressors we have, especially mental stressors, the freer our minds can be for progressive, innovative, and creative thinking which Africa and other developing areas of the world surely need.

    If you find life seems to be full of endless problems, you must think of how you userests, breaks, relaxations, and vacations.  Whenever I ask a Nigerian how was his holiday or leave from work and he says “O, I slept a lot and watched TV”, I wonder if other things could be included.  The thing about rests, breaks, relaxations, and vacations is that they can be used to greatly improve our quality of life, no matter how bad things have been.

    •They save us from self- destruction: in the busyness of our lives, we may often fail to reflect well, sleep well, eat well, have fun, pray well, bond well with people who we tend to see as capital and means to our ends, etc.

    •They save us from destroying relationships: in the busyness of our lives, we may often fail to bond well within our families, to care well, to attend to unpaid natural duties, etc.

    •They allow us revive our strength and positive energies: in the busyness of our lives, we may often burn ourselves up, wear our bodies out, expose ourselves to dangers and hazards in the workplace and in the rush-hour traffic, lose our minds, etc. •They give us an opportunity to see our deviations and how far we went off tangent: in the busyness of our lives, we often sink into corrupt practices, engage in worthless matters, or do things wrongfully, etc.

    •They allow us to regain focus if we had lost it: in the business of our lives, we may end up chasing shadows and all that glitter and miss things of substance.

    •They give us a chance to arrest the thieves of life: in the busyness of our lives, we do not recognize the things that are harmful, the stressors, the traps, the predators, the enemies, etc., or we know them but are too busy to deal with them.

    •They allow us to enter personal peace and security: in the busyness of our lives, we are unable to know ourselves well, to recognize the good, the bad, the rights, and the wrong in us and the potentials and possibilities of our lives.

    •They allow us a fresh taste of freedom: in the busyness of our lives,we tend to be slaves of something and we are necessarily tied to timetables, schedules, deadlines, and conditions that are often far from our personal dispositions, bents, will, or pleasure.

    •They give us space for personal decisions and redirection: in the busyness of our lives, we are following the flow and decisions of other people and often bound by fears and threats.

    •They give us opportunity for creativity and diversification of our capabilities: in the busyness of our lives, we often need to play to the tunes of those who pay us and put aside those aspects of our being that are of no use to our masters.

    •They allow us to explore new horizons: in the busyness of our lives, we tend to stay in one spot – shut off from other worlds, fixed in a routine, and conditioned.

    •They give us space to develop or improve relationships and friendships: in the busyness of our lives, we become dependent on fixed groups of people and what they offer us and miss out on all the others we ignore.

    •They allow us to enjoy the brighter side of life (physical and spiritual) and become our better selves: in the busyness of our lives, we do not have time for the fun and pleasures that are necessary components of happiness and the ability to appreciate life, existence, and wellbeing.

    •They give us space to harmonize ourselves with creation and the Creator, and thus, realities of life and existence that we had no room for: in the busyness of our lives, we live in a small world – too small, too unreal, too apart from our destiny as human beings.

    The result is that when we have been unable to take breaks and sort out our lives, life may become messy and we become somewhat crazy. Next we try to sanitize and improve life through rests, breaks, relaxations, and vacations.

     

    Dr. ‘Bola John is a biomedical scientist based in Nigeria and in the USA.   For any comments or questions on this column, please email bolajohnwritings@yahoo.com or call 08160944635

  • Rests, breaks, relaxations, vacations and health

    The world of today seems to stage wars more than ever before or maybe because of effective media coverage we get to know more about the wars and conflicts all over the world. With our increased knowledge of science and technology, wars are more sophisticated and difficult to stop.  As humans, we know that living in war is not our best life.  It is certainly not for children and innocents caught in wars.  Yet, every human being in some manner may taste war from near or from afar during his or her lifetime and for some, over and over again.

    People seem to expect war and look forward to future wars.   Some people believe that in a time of peace you should prepare for war.  Perhaps such ideologies actually help to usher in wars. For warfare, much money, time, resources, and human lives are invested and sacrificed. Much research, technology, and science is pumped into warfare.  Ironically, wars need to be created and sustained to recover investments in warfare or to profit from warfare. Wars are definitely vicious cycles of human madness.

    If wars are evil, undesirable, and difficult to stop, we need to make them difficult to start.  If all humans were living their best lives, nobody would think of war or want war.  We cannot make everybody live their best lives but everybody can, in freedom, try to live his or her own best life as much as possible.

    The mind is a beautiful and powerful aspect of humans and a good mind is an essential component of our best life.  In our everyday lives, many forces strain to capture and drive our minds.  These driving forces could be professional, cultural, religious, ideological, familial, political, financial, social, or relational.  Oftentimes, we are not really ourselves but are a product of some driving forces.  This is why too many people may never get to know or live their best lives and may never get to contribute their true worth to the world.

    As the world advances with its complexities, the wars and rumors of wars may continue, the problems of mankind and human nature may continue, science and technology may advance for good and for evil, diseases and catastrophes may surprise us, but through all these and in spite of all these we must learn to live our best lives.

    Rests, breaks, relaxations, and vacations, are very important for our mental health and can help determine what good or evil we contribute to the world.  You can try a simple experiment with yourself by writing a small paragraph on any topic within two minutes.  Leave it and come back the next day and rewrite the same paragraph on the same topic in two minutes.  You will most likely realize that you have made some significant change and your revised paragraph may be improved along the same direction or changed in an opposite direction from the first paragraph.  Yet in our world and in our lives, we continue with work, functions, activities, duties, and relationships and we embark on goals, interests, curiosities, ambitions, causes, ventures, missions, without the necessary breaks (functional brakes) that are checks and balances in our tipping towards good or evil.

    In our next articles we will look at rests, breaks, relaxations, and vacations and their role in our individual health and wellbeing for the peace and harmony of our world.

    Dr. ‘Bola John is a biomedical scientist based in Nigeria and in the USA.   For any comments or questions on this column, please email bolajohnwritings@yahoo.com or call 0816094463.