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In a bubble of serenity: indulge yourself with a moment of relaxation

22 October 2009 One Comment

Submitted by Nicolas

Relax

I’m a happy man. I love my digital nomad life.

I consider myself very lucky to be able to choose every day from where I want to work, how I want to organize my time, but most of all to rediscover the pleasure to ride my bike or drive a car in an empty street. Rush hours? Would you mind reminding me what that is?

Traffic congestions has literally poisoned my life for years. Beside the disgusting smell of exhausts fumes that soaked my clothes every day (I ride a scooter), stress was everywhere, all the time: stress of traffic congestion, stress of the always possible accident I could have with my two-wheels-hell-engine, stress of not being able to find a place to park, stress of running late, stress of stressed people ridding their car… before landing in an office full of stressed people who got stressed in the same traffic jams. Damn. That was a bad era of BAD stress.

Then things went a little bit better. I did not have to ride any more to my office every day. The telecommuting arrangement I obtained from my management, allowed me then to have a 5 days stress-break every two weeks. Not too bad. However the issue was that I was supposed to telecommute 1,000 miles away from my office, and getting there was no piece of cake. Imagine a 1,000 miles journey starting after a day of work, split between metro, train, bus, airplane, bus, train again and taxi. All of that in 8 hours and following a VERY tight schedule (I only had a 10 minutes window to jump from my plane, grab a bus to arrive on time at the train station to get the last train to my final destination… If I had luck – this means no strikes in Paris or no bad ass air traffic controller in Vienna – I could expect to get home the next day at 2.00am… before getting back on-line at 9.00am.

Wow. Wouldn’t you call that “love” if all of that was for someone? Charlie and Craig Reid, you’re amateurs.

Anyway. After following this “diet” for a couple of month, I started to experience a general weariness. I was tired, easily irritable, and had the feeling that whatever I would try to do, I wouldn’t be able to achieve it. I was not experiencing a confidence crisis. I was just overwhelmed by the stressful idea of my upcoming journeys.

Sooth your mind I personally believe in all the positive effects of those Zen-relaxation-hypnosis like programs. Relaxation is perhaps the single most important key to health and well-being. It is the antidote to stress which is known to contribute to the development of many diseases and ruins the pleasure to leave our lives. When we relax, our body has an opportunity to unwind. I just thought it would be too bad not to carry something all the time with me that could sooth my mind in the middle of my stressful journey.

Then I came up by chance with “Recoding your mind”, a very effective 20 minutes podcast I downloaded on fluentself.com. I first tried it at home and it worked so fine with me that I’m now carrying it everywhere in my mobile phone in case of stress-emergency. You can find plenty of downloadable podcasts featuring relaxation exercises on the Internet, like here for instance. Personally, I found what I was looking for in terms of relaxation programs with the following selection of MP3.

free relaxation on the go (downloadable mp3):

For a short commuting: 8 minutes relaxation program

For a longer commuting: 20 minutes relaxation program (Recoding your Mind by Havi Brooks)

Relaxing at work or during a flight: 60 minutes of soothing relaxation (Hearing Solar Winds by David Hykes on preview on amazon.com – a special thanks to Kerolic for making me discover this great artist). Hykes is a composer fascinated by the deep connection between music and human spirituality. He’s also a pioneer in bringing certain extended vocal techniques to western music. The amazing sounds on this excellent recording are all produced by the human voice, and Hykes’ compositions bring these sounds together into a coherent and engaging whole.

I just recommend that you browse the Internet for similar podcasts, download those you find, and then make your selection on the go, keeping those which work the best with you. Each of us is different, and our preferences (tone of voice, background music, length of the file, topic, etc) vary from one person to another.

Namaste नमस्ते

***

Find your own balance

Why you should take time to relax

gives the heart a rest by slowing the heart rate
reduces blood pressure
slows the rate of breathing, which reduces the need for oxygen
increases blood flow to the muscles
decreases muscle tension

As a result of relaxation, many people experience –

more energy
better sleep
enhanced immunity
increased concentration
better problem-solving abilities
greater efficiency
smoother emotions — less anger, crying, anxiety, frustration
less headaches and pain

Relaxation is perhaps the single most important key to health and well-being. It is the antidote to stress which is known to contribute to the development of disease. When we relax, our body has an opportunity to unwind. The benefits of relaxation have been well researched and some of these are summarized below.