Life
The Key to Being the Most Productive Person You’ve Ever Been

Research shows that people tend to require more leisure time when they are stressed. This extra bit of relaxation is used to boost the drop in mood that can come with excess stress, and the resulting lift in mood can bring a decrease in stress and an increase in productivity and balance. So a reasonable amount of leisure time can be a good way to relieve stress and become more productive.
The main issue with using leisure time for stress relief is that we only have a set amount of time in the day, and this time is valuable. Increasing leisure time can feel counterproductive for busy people (which probably includes most people in need of stress relief). There’s a danger of spending too much time relaxing and thereby increasing the pressure busy people face as a result–there’s less time to get things done, so back comes the stress.
Here’s how you can use leisure time for stress relief while maintaining balance:
Be Aware Of Your Needs
There are two things that can help you to relax without throwing you into full procrastination mode: Knowing what your goals are for your leisure time and having a list in your head to meet these goals. Do you simply need a break from work because you’re becoming mentally fatigued? Or do you need to get yourself into a better mood? If you are aware of what your needs are, you’ll know when they’ve been met. Most of us benefit from doing something that gets us into a good mood. If you just need a quick mental break, read on, that’s addressed next in this article.
Find Fast-Acting Pick Me Ups
One important key to fitting leisure time into a busy schedule is to find leisure activities that meet your needs in a short amount of time. It may seem counter-intuitive to “rush” through leisure time, isn’t the whole point that you get to relax and forget about rushing for a while? However, if watching a half-hour comedy can give you an adequate sense of relaxation to meet your needs, it’s important to think of doing this instead of seeing a movie.
Finding quicker leisure activities that work for you and keeping them in mind for when you need them, leaves you with more time left over to do everything else that needs doing. Here are some quick-acting pick-me-up activities. You can use them to start your list and add to them as you find more activities you enjoy.
- Take a quick walk.
- Look at a funny video or two online.
- Call a friend for a few minutes.
- Dance to a few songs.
- Do a sudoku puzzle.
- Ask a kid to share their favorite joke.
- Have a coffee break.
- Write in a gratitude journal.
- Meditate for a few minutes.
Motivate Yourself In Positive Ways
Sometimes you have the urge to take a break but you need to get back on task and stay there as soon as you can. If you’ve taken a break and need to get back to being productive, it helps to find self-motivation before you jump back into your day. Getting in touch with your inner motivation can also help you to avoid feeling depleted at the mere thought of facing the day’s challenges, and delving into procrastination mode.
But rather than beating yourself up for wanting to relax, or trying to motivate yourself with fear, here are some gentle ways to get yourself engaged in the idea of doing what needs to be done.
Review your accomplishments – When you think of the successes you’ve had already, you can find yourself wanting to do more. If you take a minute to think about all that you’ve done already, you can get yourself more excited about creating more of these accomplishments.
Think about what you’ll gain when you’re done – Why is it important for you to get back to your challenges? What do you gain? If you remind yourself of the rewards that come with getting yourself back on track, it’ll be easier to motivate yourself to cut the leisure time shorter so you can truly enjoy the rewards that come from being done.
Promise yourself rewards when you finish – If these built-in rewards aren’t enough to get you motivated to close your social media pages and get back to work, you may benefit from coming up with something extra. For example, I used to reward myself for going to the gym by letting myself get new clothes after a certain amount of visits until the workouts themselves felt like enough of a reward.
“There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.” ― Alan Cohen
Maintain Regular Resilience-Building Habits
How would you feel if you could make yourself less reactive to stress in general? When your stress levels are lower overall, you are less likely to need as much leisure time to balance out those stressful days–your stress levels will already be somewhat managed. Fortunately, it is possible to build resilience toward stress–certain habits really do make us less reactive to it over time. Maintaining some of these habits can take time, but not as much as you’d think, and they bring other benefits as well.
Here are some of the best ways to build resilience.
- Exercise regularly – It’s good for your body and your mind.
- Try meditation – It’s simpler than you may think, and it really works!
- Gratitude journaling – It can really build positive thinking and relieve stress. Give it a try.
Life
The Imbalanced Problem with Work/Life Balance
Balancing is for your checkbook, gymnastics, and nutrition; not for your people’s work/life ratio.

Balance…it requires an equal distribution of value between two or more subjects to maintain steady composure and equitable proportionality. (more…)

It’s 2023, a new year, new you, right? But how do we start over? How do we make the changes in our lives that we crave so much to see? (more…)
Life
Failing is More Important Than Succeeding
Failure is an integral part of life as life is incomplete without failures.

People often consider failure a stigma. Society often doesn’t respect the people who failed and avoids and criticizes their actions. Failure is an integral part of life as life is incomplete without failures. Not to have endeavored is worse than failing in life as at some stage of your life you regret not having tried in your life. (more…)
Life
5 Indicators of Unresolved Attachment Trauma

Trauma caused during specific stages of a child’s development, known as attachment trauma, can have lasting effects on a person’s sense of safety, security, predictability, and trust. This type of trauma is often the result of abuse, neglect, or inconsistent care from a primary caregiver.
Individuals who have not fully processed attachment trauma may display similar patterns of behavior and physical or psychological symptoms that negatively impact their adult lives, including the choices they make in relationships and business.
Unfortunately, many people may not even be aware that they are struggling with trauma. Research estimates that 6% of the population will experience PTSD in their lifetime, with a majority of males and females having experienced significant trauma.
Unresolved attachment trauma can significantly impair the overall quality of a person’s life, including their ability to form healthy relationships and make positive choices for themselves. One well-known effect of unhealed attachment trauma is the compulsion to repeat past wounds by unconsciously selecting romantic partners who trigger their developmental trauma.
However, there are other less recognized but equally detrimental signs of unprocessed developmental trauma.
Five possible indications of unresolved attachment trauma are:
1. Unconscious Sabotage
Self-sabotage is a common pattern among individuals with unprocessed attachment trauma. This cycle often begins with hurting others, which is then followed by hurting oneself. It is also common for those with attachment trauma to have heightened emotional sensitivity, which can trigger this cycle.
This pattern can manifest in lashing out, shutting down, or impulsive behavior that leads to feelings of guilt, shame, and self-loathing.
Many people with attachment trauma are not aware of their wounds and operate on survival mode, unconsciously testing or challenging the emotional investment of those around them, and pushing them away out of self-preservation and fear of abandonment.
This can lead to a pattern of making poor choices for themselves based on impulsivity.
3. Behaviors That Block Out Trauma
4. A strong need for control
5. Psychological Symptoms That Are Not Explained
What to do next if you’re suffering from emotional attachment trauma?
There are several ways that people can work to overcome emotional attachment trauma:
- Therapy: One of the most effective ways to overcome emotional attachment trauma is through therapy. A therapist can help you process your experiences, understand the impact of your trauma on your life, and develop coping strategies to manage symptoms.
- Support groups: Joining a support group of people who have had similar experiences can be a great way to find validation, empathy, and a sense of community.
- Mindfulness practices: Mindfulness practices such as meditation, pilates, prayer time with God or journaling can help you become more aware of your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, and develop a sense of spiritual connection and self-regulation.
- Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT): This is a type of therapy that is specifically designed to help individuals process and recover from traumatic events.
- Building a safety net: Building a support system of people you trust, who are there for you when you need them, can help you feel more secure and safe in your life.
It’s important to remember that healing from emotional attachment trauma is a process and it may take time. It’s also important to find a therapist who is experienced in treating trauma, who you feel comfortable talking with, and who can help you develop a personalized treatment plan.
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