We all need it. Time to recharge, relax and unwind. Personal down time is something that quite honestly can easily get pushed to the side only to later leave us wondering why we feel so frazzled, exhausted or just plain blah! If you want to feel more balanced, energized and fulfilled, give yourself daily winding down time or personal down time. The simple practice of designating pockets of time in your day or evening of even 10 minutes for yourself to have personal down time will give you the benefits of feeling more centered, connected and calm.
What the personal down time looks like is different for each of us. That’s what is so great about it! You explore and figure out what relaxes you, what gives you breathing space and helps you recharge. When we allow ourself to have adequate and well spent down time, we can actually be more productive when we need to be. I find being outdoors, going for a walk along the beach, taking a bath, or sitting with my dog Scarlett to feel good and relaxing. For some it might be a craft, knitting, building something with their hands, or sketching. It could be a reading, gardening, or simply sitting in the quiet, stillness of the morning sipping coffee in your favorite chair. No matter what it is for you, making time and space for yourself to unwind is an investment to your overall well being.
Like most things in my life, I learn by experience or trial and error. For way too long, I didn’t do a very good job at establishing down time for myself. I tend to be focused, goal focused and pretty hard driven. Also, I used to be very tough on myself and wasn’t very good at giving myself grace. I started each day really early, wanted to get the most production out of each workday (I was a major list maker and felt so good to cross things off the list), often found myself working again at night after dinner once my child was in bed. Only to get up the next day, driven and focused to do my best but a bit more exhausted than the day before. I wanted to be the best mom I could be, the best wife, and so on and so on. I put tons of pressure on myself. In basketball terms, it was like my mind was constantly in a full court press and I didn’t want to drop the ball in any area of my life. I know many of you reading this can relate to that and also know how exhausting it is to put ourselves through this over the years. My beginning steps of creating my personal down time back then was to get up 20 minutes earlier (like 4:30 in the morning) and have some quiet time. In the evening I began to make a habit of taking a warm bath before going to bed.
Work-life balance wasn’t always so balanced and I don’t necessarily buy in to the whole “always living in balance” thing but I do believe in being mindful of how we spend our time and making adjustments as needed for our overall health and wellness. I like to explain it like driving a car for a long time but not stopping often enough to let the engine rest, fill up for gas, change the oil….you get where I’m going with this right? The car is going to just give out eventually. I know it’s a pretty simple example but hey, I like to break things down to just real plain simple talk. I know you get me on this one! No fancy words are needed to describe what flat worn out and tired looks like or feels like am I right?? So I found the more disciplined I was on giving myself pockets of time to unwind and recharge, the better I felt and lived and served those I loved and the work I loved. When I felt better, I had more creativity and was even more productive in all areas of my life.
If you already carve personal down time into each day, I hope you hear me cheering for you and saying “Way To Go!!! Keep it up!” If you need to create a pocket of personal time in your day, know that you can do it and I am cheering for you to saying, “You Can Do This! Know that you are worth it!” I’d love to hear how you like to unwind, spend your down time and recharge. Drop it in comments below because the more we share, the more we learn, and we can all learn from one another.
RELATED: Recognizing Signs of Burnout & How to Recharge Yourself
Until next time, keep shining bright!
