Day Four: Stress Relief Techniques

Posted by Bonny Albo Jan 7, 2007

If this is your first time visiting the thirty-day Make Money without Spending a Dime Challenge - Welcome! If you want to start from the beginning, you'll find the first posting here, and a list of all of the challenges to date here. Also, don't forget to join in the discussions and let me know what you think.

I woke up today and felt like doing absolutely nothing - which told me I needed to take the day to myself and work on some stress relief techniques.

It wasn't even that I felt stressed persay, but rather what I didn't feel that concerned me. Upon awakening I didn't feel my usual "get up and go" that I normally did. I didn't get up, start the computer and get Eudora running while I made myself some cinnamon tea like I normally did. (Routines and daily task lists are incredibly important for business success BTW). Instead, I just wanted to lounge around and... do nothing.

So for a while, I did. Sure, I checked my emails, and was thrilled to see that I had an appointment with the Okanagan Home Based Business Association to discuss speaking at one of their upcoming meetings. I also had tons of automated feeds from Google and Indeed, telling me about the keywords I had punched in on Day Two. Did I really want to read through them though? Nope.

Instead, I went back to bed and did some breathing exercises. It probably looked like I was sleeping, but in reality I was trying to restart my day with a better mindset, using a well-known stress relief technique. I felt noticeably better upon arising the second time - but still not very motivated.

A walk didn't help much either, although the spring-like air did make my lungs feel fantastic. Reading something inspiring was nice, but again, I couldn't focus for more than a couple of minutes at a time. My eyes were feeling the stress of spending too much time in front of a computer, so I forced myself to do a search for "cyber eyes" and then took the principles to heart. All roads were leading to relaxation and more stress relief techniques.

Next, I ate an amazing stir fry with poached whitefish for breakfast (made by a good friend of mine who realized I needed something nutritious but was too lazy to do it myself). Just the act of eating made me feel incredible. Perhaps my mood was merely due to low blood sugar.

Then I had a hot shower and performed a bit of shiatsu on myself while in there. The rest of the day was spent knitting, a hobby I am just learning but absolutely love.

By the time I was ready to hit the hay, I had to check my email again, remembering a study I read years ago. It said those who checked their email more than eight times a day were creating the same amount of brain loss as a night out of heavy drinking. I couldn't find the study today to share, so perhaps it was an old wives' tale, but I still felt good knowing I had checked it infrequently at best on my day of stress relief.

I think I'm ready for Day Five now.

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