Lifestyle Guru: Top tips for winding down

Whatever our profession, our working lives are busier than ever, with information being thrown at us from all forms of technology demands for meetings and paperwork as well as the increase in pressure in transport and daily tasks.

And yet it is so important to create the time and space in our lives for our own well-being.

To be a member of a caring profession requires a certain energy and qualities that are specific. As opposed to the traditional business world, where the ‘company’ comes first, and the individual’s success up the corporate ladder second, care professionals have to put their clients first in every situation.

That requires tremendous stability, a nurturing ability to connect and “feel” another’s needs, and a genuine desire to help another human being. And when the worker feels stressed, it gets a lot more difficult to give without absorbing another’s pain or negativity.

Just taking short, even one-minute, periodical stops from whatever you’re doing during the day will give you much needed release.

Meditation, or just the space between breaths, has been used for thousands of years as a way of coming back to your personal centre.

It’s a time which allows our true nature and vision to come to the surface, and when our most creative thinking can come to the fore.

Healthy nutrition and regular exercise are of course recognised as ways of alleviating stress and staying well. But finding a way to keep mental stress at bay will keep us physically healthy too. Today’s recognised connection between the mind and body is used as much in the healing profession as it can be in our daily life.

What we all need is balance – both in our professional and our personal life. Taking those little full stops for just a minute during our day will help us find it.

Visit www.just-a-minute.org and listen to some of the wonderful one-minute meditations for busy people offered by meditators, the Brahma Kumaris. It’s certainly helped me. You will also be able to see how easy it is find your own personal stillness and balance, and incorporate it in your life.

Author and lifestyle guru Lynne Franks is the founder of Seed, the empowerment and leadership network for women. For more about Lynne Franks’ books and workshops, visit www.seednetwork.com

This article appeared in the 3 May issue under the headline Mantra Magic