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Articles
Browse every published article connected to Serenity Health, or search within this exact expert archive.
We all know that work is one place we need to try and be more relaxed and not get stressed or anxious. We all know that every doctor out there tells us to control stress, learn how to relax, reduce anxiety etc. Well, just how do you do that in the workplace if you have a stressful job, a lot of responsibility or are in a fast paced environment everyday?
Control the things you can
Valentine’s Day has three basic gift options: flowers, chocolate, or chocolate flowers. My love language is “gifts,” and though I love getting roses on Valentine’s Day, I also really like being surprised. My favorite Valentine’s was when my husband ordered something off of Amazon and had it delivered on Valentine’s Day. When I got home, I saw the package sitting on the table and opened it to find the first season of my favorite television show was inside! It may sound strange, but that was way more romantic for me than a dozen roses.
Yes, it is possible to create a relaxing spa experience in the comfort of your own home! Of course, you won’t have the massage therapist but what if you could create the wonderful spa sounds and soothing smells to make your own relaxing spa-like atmosphere that you can relieve stress in everyday?
Are you one of the millions of people still smoking? Chances are you've tried several times to quit without much success. Maybe you've been trying to find the best way to stop smoking, but it just hasn't happened for you yet. If you need just one more excuse to go ahead and invest in that ...Are you one of the millions of people still smoking? Chances are you've tried several times to quit without much success. Maybe you've been trying to find the best way to stop smoking, but it just hasn't happened for you yet.
One of my favorite dates I arranged for my husband before we were married was an army man hunt in the park. I took a bag of army men, wrote numbers on the bottom of each one, and then hid them around the park for my husband to find. Each number corresponded to a notecard I had written describing a memory or characteristic I loved about him. He didn’t find them all--I mistaken had purchased the dark green army men which blend in remarkably well with park plants—but the ones he did find he loved.
Everyone complains about being tired. You’re tired at work, you’re tired when you go out, you’re even tired on vacation. There is no way to defeat the fatigue that sets in naturally with adulthood, right? Wrong. There is a surefire solution for the dreary cloud of exhaustion that follows you around every day. What is it, you ask? It’s sleep.
Have you ever felt down during the winter months, when days are shorter and you’re inside more? You may have felt symptoms of SAD – seasonal affective disorder. SAD is a type of depression that hits when days become shorter. In some it may be no more than a slight case of wintertime blues. But ...Have you ever felt down during the winter months, when days are shorter and you’re inside more? You may have felt symptoms of SAD – seasonal affective disorder. SAD is a type of depression that hits when days become shorter. In some it may be no more than a slight case of wintertime blues.
Most of us can use a tap on the shoulder once in awhile telling us to calm down, take a deep breath or relax. If it was that easy we would tell ourselves that every day and approach the day with a new attitude rather than feeling anxious, stressed or frazzled! Most people want to find ways to relax in natural ways. Here are a few tips to relaxing and starting each day off stress-free.
Control the things you can
We all know that work is one place we need to try and be more relaxed and not get stressed or anxious. We all know that every doctor out there tells us to control stress, learn how to relax, reduce anxiety etc. Well, just how do you do that in the workplace if you have a stressful job, a lot of responsibility or are in a fast paced environment everyday?
My wedding was two weeks after my best friend’s, and since many of the same guests would be attending and we were using the same reception hall, I was struggling with ideas of how to make my wedding reception look different. I wanted it to portray my personality and not look like a duplicate of my friend’s wedding.
Men’s brains are like waffles; women’s brains are like spaghetti. Maybe you’ve heard this illustration before? I had never heard it until after I had gotten married, but the illustration made me understand my husband a lot better. The basic concept is that men have waffle brains; their brain is split up into compartments, and their thought process moves from compartment to compartment in a linear, organized fashion.
Fall is here, winter is around the corner. For those of you that live in the Midwest or Northeast you know that the season brings shorter days and many more hours of darkness in our days! This can be hard to adjust to and often times leave us feeling restless, down in the dumps and like we can never get enough sleep. You may not realize that the type of sleep you get or the way you wake up can have more of an impact on how you feel than the amount of sleep you actually get.
We all find ourselves wanting to be outdoors more in the summer months with the abundance of sunshine, warmer temperatures, the sounds of the birds chirping and the longer days. I know that being outdoors always makes me feel much more relaxed and less stressed than being inside looking at all of things I could be doing!
Do you fear the upcoming short days and longer periods of darkness? Do you suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder)? Is it tough for you to get up in the dark every morning? These are all common problems for many, many people today, commonly called the “Winter Blues” or if you have been diagnosed, SAD.
Remember when you were a child you had difficulty waking up on time for school and your mom would set an alarm clock that made a noise that had the capacity to awaken the whole neighborhood? Waking up to such loud and noisy alarm sounds does make you grumpy and makes you hate the clock. Rising from bed early in the morning is the first thing you do at the start of your day, and the first thing you do at the start of your day affects the way your whole day is going to be.
As a part of evolutio Man has been on a constant upward slide of developing and exploiting technology in all forms possible and in the race for success he seldom gets time for himself. Human body is constantly under stress both exte al and internal owing to the machine-like life that we lead. However, this cannot pertain for long since there is a certain saturation point where a human body gives up and becomes victim of stress and strain.
Stressed out from your daily chores and your busy lives, in a world of today, you hardly find time for yourselves and your health. One cannot help but be victim to this routine and mundane lifestyle and find no time to relax your body, mind and soul using appropriate channels. Many working professionals and students finish off their work and return home to find themselves fiddling with the television remote or the computer. Both these may be a popular source of entertainment but do they really do justice to your body that deserves some relaxation?
Have you ever noticed that the way you wake up in the morning affects your entire day? It’s true. If you are “jolted” from a deep sleep with an annoying alarm clock or the sounds of blaring music you are probably going to start your day off on the wrong foot. These rude awakenings of everyday life contribute daily to the stress and anxiety we face. What if there was a way to wake up each morning the way nature intended, natural sunlight? One of the worst side effects of a noisy alarm clock is that in some people it can stimulate the fight-or-flight human defense mechanism.
Many people think of water fountains as the perfect musical accompaniment to the all-natural soundtrack of any garden or natural outdoor space. More than soothing sounds however, an outdoor fountain offers relaxing and steady motion, an element of natural movement to any garden or patio setting.
When I first got married, I had no cooking experience. I remember coming home from our honeymoon and in a moment of sheer panic thinking, “What are we going to eat tonight?” The answer turned out to be “Domino’s pizza,” but we couldn’t eat that for the rest of our life. I needed to learn how to cook, and fast.
Every time you turn on the television or open a magazine, articles warn about our failing health. Heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and a host of other ailments are being attributed to a number of things including poor eating habits, lack of exercise, too much stress, not enough sleep, etc. ...Every time you turn on the television or open a magazine, articles warn about our failing health. Heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and a host of other ailments are being attributed to a number of things including poor eating habits, lack of exercise, too much stress, not enough sleep, etc.
Going green doesn’t mean you have to renounce all your electronics and live in a solar panel fortress. There are simple things you can do around your home that help the environment without changing your entire lifestyle. Some of these easy tricks include recycling, buying recycled and environmentally safe products, reusing water bottles rather than buying them in the store, turning off and unplugging electronics and lights when they aren’t in use, and even decorating your yard can help our home planet. Recycling:
Anxiety can come out of nowhere and completely overwhelm you! Sometimes, you can acknowledge that your feelings are ridiculous but that doesn’t make the nerves go away. It can cover you in layers of self-doubt and self-loathing, impossible to wash off in the tub. Or, anxiety can be like a parrot on your shoulder, quietly whispering all your short-comings and dark secrets into your ear. When it gets too hard to continue, how do you snap out of your funk?
Childhood summers hold a significant stake in the memory real estate of people’s minds. One of my fondest memories was when my extended family would go on road trips to Sunset Beach, North Carolina. My immediate family lives in Minnesota, so that is where our trip began. Five hours later, we reached extended-family-central in Illinois. Every year we would spend the night at my grandparent’s house, and then at around 5:00 AM start our seventeen hour trek to North Carolina. These car rides were fun, but by hour twelve, everyone was ready to get to the beach house and relax.
What is art? Painting, drawing, sculpting, writing, making music, acting… and the list goes on. I’ll let you in on a secret. You can still be an artist without knowing how to turn a puddle of paint into a Mona Lisa or throwing notes on a page to create beautiful music. Art is about creation. Doodling chalk on the sidewalk with your kids is art. The combination of foods and flavors in cooking is art. Even telling someone a story can be art. You don’t have to be a published author or a well-known sculptor to be an artist. Art is a field open to anyone.
All dads love to tell those “Back when I was a kid…” stories to their children. When I was little, my dad told me many of these stories. One of the most memorable back-in-the-day stories my dad told me was about working. It went something like this… “Back when I was a kid I started working at twelve years old, and I’ve been working since!” Cue my eye roll and automated response, “Yeah, yeah dad, sure.” “No I’m serious! I used to walk ten miles…” And that’s where my teenage brain would tune out until I heard him say… “If you like spending money so much why don’t you go get a job?”r