Creative Health Tip 21 September 2009

Since tomorrow is the Autumnal Equinox, it seems appropriate to talk about balance.

What balance is not, is a state of frozen equilibrium. Balance is all about living in harmony with life’s up and down cycles.

Think back to playing on a see-saw or teeter-totter when you were a child. If you sat there in perfect balance, going neither up nor down, that was no fun. The fun was swooshing up when you pushed off with your feet, and then landing with a bump when you came back down.

Life is a dynamic process, and the fun is often found in the many activities that fuel your busy schedule like work, sports, family outings, and running those seemingly endless errands we all have on our To-Do lists.

However, in order to create or maintain excellent health, you don’t want to be landing with a bump at the end of the day or the end of the week. That’s what robs you of good health.

When you have a few busy days in a row, schedule some down time to relax and rejuvenate, finish reading that book you started, or call an old friend to catch up on the latest news, or go for a leisurely walk in the woods or a park to get some fresh air.

If you have to dine on fast foods while dashing between appointments most of the week, treat yourself to a home-made dinner of fresh foods on the weekend. Don’t look at cooking as a chore, see your meal as a gift to yourself of healthy nutrients!

Take some time out to meditate, even if it’s only a few minutes a day in which you focus on your breathing. The effects of meditation are cumulative; the more often you do it, the longer-lasting are the benefits of improved focus and attention, healthy blood pressure levels, and greatly reduced levels of stress hormones that deplete your immune system and leave you vulnerable.

So, have fun on that teeter-totter because that’s what life is all about; it should be fun, but make sure you are in control of how hard you land!

Have a great week!