Work life balance
Work life balance: “You will never feel truly satisfied by work until you are satisfied by life.”
Heather Schuck, The Working Mum Manifesto
Work life balance is a good thing to plan for! It supports well being as well as helps us use our brains more effectively, whether in our private or professional lives. Extra curricular activity is an example of work life balance.
That phrase “Extra curricular activity” reminds me of school, with the extra curricular activities being something we did after school. For me it was football practice or the gym club.
The “extra” implies that there is something in addition to the normal, with the normal being either our personal life or our work life. It’s usually something that we enjoy doing, a passion, an interest, a hobby. Something that helps us unwind and get a perspective.
This is why work life balance is so important. If we are not careful we can easily get lost in worry about our families or work. We can be so overwhelmed that we even encroach into our sleep and dream life. Extending our day in this way we hope to find the answer to that so important work / life problem.
Unwittingly this can make things worse for us. Sleep, like water, is a valuable commodity and if depleted will impact on our ability to function. One way to preserve sleep is those “Extra curricular activities”.
How Extra curricular actives HELP?
How we at ACT Personal Development (of which ACT Hypnotherapy is a part) used “Extra Curricular Activities” for mental health. Mel is into crafting and I myself do Salsa. See Mel’s handiwork in the main picture of this blog as well as her crafting website www.plan-to.co.uk.
Creativity, music and rhythm moves us more into the right side of the brain away from the stressful thoughts. When we are there we relax and maybe even come up with solutions that we were looking for.
So these extra activities act as a pattern interrupt, and gives us a rest bite so that we can let go of tension, relax, think about something different, be creative and just enjoy ourselves.
So what extra curricular activities do you do or what are you planning to do ? Imagine developing that side of your life so that you have balance and something to look forward to each day.
An example of how having something enjoyable to focus on can make the difference between good mental health and ill health can be found in my home town. In my home town there were a couple of gentlemen that were widowers and retired, they had lost their purpose in life, they felt depressed not being able to motivate themselves to do anything.
Fortunately a friend of theirs invited them to a club night at the local model aircraft flying club. Amongst a friendly crowd and a new found interest and soon a passion, they went from feeling low to finding a new spring in their step.
The hypnotherapy perspective
From a hypnotherapy perspective “Extra Curricular Activities” fall into the 3P strategy of positive action, positive interaction and positive thoughts. When we take action and do some of the 3Ps we generate the well being neurotransmitter Serotonin. This helps us be more relaxed, cope better, be braver and even helps us with dealing with pain. Just think of something that you enjoy doing, have you already begun to feel better, just by thinking about it ? 😊
To find out more about Hypnotherapy and how it can help you, contact me for a FREE no obligation chat.
I’ll explain how the mind works, how we create anxiety, depression, phobias etc. but more importantly what we can do about them.
