5 Ways to Make a Workless Guilt-free Day Work for You
It’s Sunday and for many, in America, that entails vegging-out on the couch, munching on tortilla chips, wings, hot dogs, pizza and grilled treats while savoring nectar from the gods, while glued to the (football) tube for a few hours.
The nectar of the gods refers to something entirely different in ancient Greece where in ancient Greek myths, ambrosia was sometimes the drink or food of the Greek gods, often depicted as conferring longevity or immortality upon whoever consumed it.
This isn’t that variety. But rather the go-to Sunday beverage of choice for tailgaters from the Bay Area to Texas, to Midwest cities to the deep south and all the way up to New England and beyond:
Beer.
It’s the third most popular beverage in the world-right after water and tea.
Americans, albeit not surprisingly, spent more than $37 billion on beer at retail stores over a year-long period ending in February 2017, according to data from Nielsen.
Maybe it seems like a horrible waste of time, staring at the flat screen for a few hours. After all shoveling down chips, wings and beer certainly isn’t healthy. But maybe it isn’t such a bad idea. We all need to unwind. Besides, it can be a lot of fun to get together with family and friends for a stress-free bonding moment.
Photo by Quentin Dr on Unsplash
One thing is for certain, no one can work all of the time and realistically expect to turn out high quality material.
Here are five ways to make a workless guilt-free day work for you:
- Get Moving: whether you’re walking, cycling or jogging for 30 minutes per day (on a normal day), extend your workout session to 60 or more minutes, just for today. There are myriad health benefits to breaking a sweat. So get moving and feel good knowing that you’re not immobilized at your desk or on the couch.
- Read: Do you feel as if you must accomplish something with every waking moment of your life? Then pick up non-work-related reading material. From Bronte to Tolstoy, to Ellroy to Atwood, the books to enjoy (Yes, enjoy!) are too numerous to list. Better still, pick a book from a genre which you typically never read, and savor the offbeat path of another’s perspective. It sure beats studying spreadsheets and graphs.
- Meditate: You can use meditation to increase your awareness of yourself and your surroundings, while decreasing stress and improving concentration. Some forms of meditation can improve depression and create a more positive outlook on life while also improving sleep, blood pressure and increasing your attention span, just to name a few. In short, the benefits of meditation are many. Meditation should be practiced daily for better long-term health benefits.
- Cook: Make-ahead dishes can help you to live more stress-free during the busier-workdays-of the week, so make today your meal-prep day for the week ahead. Cook and freeze if you’d like. It’s always better to munch on a home-cooked meal than wasting money on pricier take-out options while at the office. Click here for some great make-ahead meal options.
- Spend time with your kids or pets: The workweek leaves very little quality time for our loved ones. It’s just the way it is. Make today the day that you help your kindergartener with her art project. Take your dog to the dog park, assuming that he’s friendly and loves the interaction-mine sure does. Go to the local Y and get into the swimming pool with your kids and swim with them. Don’t take them and occasionally glance in their direction while scrolling through social media accounts. Because if you do this it will become the lasting memories of your children. You’ll always be that tired cliche: “the emotionally unavailable parent,” who doesn’t really care about them. Nobody wants that.
I hope that these 5 ways may help you to break out of the self-imposed prison that is work. Ask yourself this: If I died today would my work get done by someone else? The obvious inverse here is: “If you died today would your loved ones miss you? So get moving now.
