Her: Recovery

I often have to remind myself how important recovery is in order to be healthy and happy. I'm not talking about recovering from an illness or injury, which of course is crucial, but rather a broader definition of recovery that involves mostly mental and sometimes physical healing.

I've noticed that I've recently fallen into the habit that millions of people do, or fail to do, every day: truly and honestly taking time for oneself. If used wisely, recovery time need not be long - even 20min will suffice. Easy excuses to not taking this time for yourself ranges from believing you are too busy to believing that resting is a sign of weakness. I believe many workaholics out there easily make these excuses and thus fail to value recovery. Moms are especially notorious for this, actually, always giving of themselves to their children to the detriment of their own wellbeing. With a little one on the way, I know I have to be disciplined in setting time aside for myself once the baby arrives.

The act of recovery from your everyday activities is, of course, dependent on the person. For some, this recovery could be physical activity, praying or meditating, or even taking a bath. Essentially, this recovery needs to be something that you consider rejuvenating and mind cleansing. My personal favourite is swimming; there's just something about doing laps that really makes my worries melt away. From my experience, however, whatever your chosen activity is, a quiet mind is essential in order to fully benefit from it. I don't mean shutting off your brain, but really focussing on what you are doing in the present and nothing else. I think this is the crux of the matter, and is what provides the mental healing and leaves you feeling refreshed and ready to go again. This focussing only on your recovery activity is rather difficult, at least for me! Most of the time, I only skip in and out of that "zone," but the more I manage to do so, the better I feel.

So what are you waiting for? Take some "me" time!