So "Wellness Wednesday" got abandoned until today, Thursday. Why? Because I just did not have enough time or energy. Funny isn't it? Most of us don't feel we have enough time. Why is that? We all have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The April 2012 edition of "Real Simple" magazine did a survey regarding women and time. The results? About 1/2 of America women say they don't have enough time. 46% said, what time they have is interrupted constantly. Quoting page 58 of this magazine and article:
never-ending to-do lists aren't bad just for our psyches (and our relationships) but also for our physical health. The stress hormone cortisol has a strong diurnal patter - it peaks shortly after waking and drops throughout the day. The steeper the decline from afternoon to evening, the healthier and less stressed you are, since elevated end-of-day cortisol levels have been linked to burn out, depression, and earlier mortality.... "Our bodies need to recover physiologically after work," says Darby Saxbe, one of the study's coauthors and a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. " These couples were returning to homes where dinner needed to be cooked, laundry needed folding. Instead of unwinding, these couples took on more work."
Later in the same magazine it compares the way we do life to a marathon. We think we just have to keep on moving until the end - way down the road. It suggests it might be healthier to live like we are doing weight training. Work out, then rest. A popular way of training these days is called interval training. You work hard and fast and then you slow the pace for a bit. Any way you look at it we were created to have time to work and time to rest. Anything short of that is cheating our self. The Bible admonishes us to have a sabbath, a day of rest. Most statistics show that we are actually more productive if we have a regular time of rest.
So what do you say? Do you realize your need of rest or do you ignore it and just keep going?
never-ending to-do lists aren't bad just for our psyches (and our relationships) but also for our physical health. The stress hormone cortisol has a strong diurnal patter - it peaks shortly after waking and drops throughout the day. The steeper the decline from afternoon to evening, the healthier and less stressed you are, since elevated end-of-day cortisol levels have been linked to burn out, depression, and earlier mortality.... "Our bodies need to recover physiologically after work," says Darby Saxbe, one of the study's coauthors and a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. " These couples were returning to homes where dinner needed to be cooked, laundry needed folding. Instead of unwinding, these couples took on more work."
Later in the same magazine it compares the way we do life to a marathon. We think we just have to keep on moving until the end - way down the road. It suggests it might be healthier to live like we are doing weight training. Work out, then rest. A popular way of training these days is called interval training. You work hard and fast and then you slow the pace for a bit. Any way you look at it we were created to have time to work and time to rest. Anything short of that is cheating our self. The Bible admonishes us to have a sabbath, a day of rest. Most statistics show that we are actually more productive if we have a regular time of rest.
So what do you say? Do you realize your need of rest or do you ignore it and just keep going?
No comments:
Post a Comment