Finding Harmony in Your Every Day Life

Finding Harmony in Your Every Day Life

Life can be turbulent and stressful at the best of times, and these days, it’s not exactly uncommon for people to feel as though they are being swept off their feet more or less 24-hours a day, and seven days a week. If you’re desperate to regain a sense of balance and finding harmony is a priority, it’s important that you actually make some changes that can lead you away from the constant feeling of being overwhelmed.

So, here are a few tips for finding harmony in your everyday life.

Finding Harmony By Eliminating Negative Habits

Often, when we are stressed, we will turn to unhealthy “bad habits” as a way of helping to curb the negative feelings, and to “calm ourselves down.”

Of course, if you are turning to habits such as drinking or smoking in order to regain a sense of balance, you are deluding yourself – because the short-term feeling of “relief” that you get is always going to be fleeting. This short-term gain will come with various harmful side-effects that will ultimately leave you feeling pretty awful, down the line.

Consider swapping out some negative habits with more positive relaxation techniques. 

That could mean something as straightforward as switching out your smoking habit for a temporary vaping habit courtesy of Vsavi equipment.

In the longer term, though, look into the benefits of regular exercise, holistic routines such as yoga, and walks in nature – things that have been consistently proven to aid relaxation, in addition to various other benefits.

Finding Harmony: Filter Out The Ever-Present Noise

Life is really noisy today, which is a major source of the stress and turmoil that we all typically feel on an everyday basis. It is certainly something that I struggle with from time to time, hence my determination to reduce digital noise especially. According to the famous Norwegian explorer, Erling Kagge, one thing that the modern world really lacks is opportunities for “silence”, by which he doesn’t just mean “a lack of sound.”

The kind of “Silence” that Kagge is referring to includes things like shutting off the stream of information and distraction that comes from scrolling through social media on your smartphone, for example.

When you allow yourself opportunities for daily silence and stillness, your thoughts can get an opportunity to calm down, and you can free yourself from the constant sense of panic that comes with always having to consider and deal with different forms of media and mental input, day and night.

Embrace Planning and Preparing in Advance

Stress massively expands when you are unprepared and have to try to scramble to deal with events “on the fly.”

Instead of constantly falling this way and that in order to try and get a handle on the latest drama that presents itself to you, work to plan and prepare everything in advance, as much as possible.

If you know that there is nothing to eat for breakfast, and you know that this might cause you to have a mini freak-out tomorrow morning and grab some unhealthy junk food on the way to work, take a bit of extra time in the evening to prepare yourself a nutritious meal, instead.

The less often you are caught by surprise, the more harmonious your life will feel. Finding harmony, peace and a good amount of quiet is key to a happier more balanced life.

Putting The Nostalgia Back Into Gift Giving

Putting The Nostalgia Back Into Gift Giving

Gift giving is very much on my mind at the moment. It’s Father’s Day next weekend and our eldest turns thirteen in July. The options for gifts these days is phenomenal. It’s no longer a case of popping to the shop There are online shops, sure but it’s more than that. Nowadays people give vouchers and giftcards, kids ask for points or whatever they want for their latest digital game and I sometimes we’ve become a little disconnected from the art and joy of gift giving.

The sheer joy of unwrapping a beautifully packaged box complete with gift tag and bow has faded away as people have become more enamoured with their smartphones, laptops and tablet screens. This is not something we can say happens only with the younger generation either. Us grown-ups are just as bad. We all get a warm feeling in the pit of our bellies when we remember unwrapping our first bicycle or the teddy bear we ached for. We need to try and inject some of that joy and enthusiasm into the youth of today. It doesn’t have to mean moving away from less traditional gift giving but it won’t hurt to mix things up a bit. Take a look at how you can put the nostalgia back into gift giving.

Traditional Toys

We are an incredibly geeky family, being Dungeons and Dragons players and so on. We love our board games as not only they get you thinking, they are great for encouraging quality family time. Although they might not say it, your offspring love nothing more than spending time with their parents. Whether it’s heading outdoors for a picnic, venturing off on a holiday or simply spending some time together playing games, kids adore being with their parents. They’d never admit it but we know even our Kevin and Perry teens like us (most of the time).

For gift giving you could choose a traditional board game to prompt some quality family time or more modern alternatives. Alternatively, you could choose to explore the world of ravensburger jigsaws. These incredible puzzles are real brain teasers with some jigsaws going up to forty thousand pieces. I have to admit that I am terrible at jigsaws but perhaps a family one would be a good idea?

Experiential Gift Giving

Sometimes a physical gift just won’t cut it. That doesn’t mean you have to retreat to money or the online world yet again. Instead, look at experiential gifts. These can result in the most wonderful days that lend themselves to quality family time and memory making moments. If you have a son or daughter who adores animals, why not purchase a zookeeper experience for them. A friend of ours did this with his new wife for their honeymoon and loved it. They could end up spending the day feeding the penguins or playing with meerkats. If your children (or big kid) is a  mini adrenaline junkie, you could look into go karting, a rock climbing experience or a white water rapid ride. These experiences are out of the ordinary and unusual. They are special and are the perfect way to give a bespoke gift to someone that you love.

Parties

We are those parents who don’ do birthday parties. If we did though we would sit down with the children and let them know what our budget is (not actual pounds and pence, more managing expectations) and use this to let them choose what we’d do (within reason). We might choose bowling, go swimming or venture to a park and have a birthday barbecue. I’d probably choose some fun and quirky goody bag gifts even if we didn’t opt for a traditional party.

Retro Gift Giving

The concept of all things retro and vintage is on trend at the moment. As we accelerate forwards with our technological advancements, we yearn for the more familiar, more straightforward entertainment options. We’re introducing the kids to some of our old video game consoles. A SNES with a 2D platform game like Mario or Donkey Kong could be ideal if you want to show your kids just how good you were in the arcade back in the day. Perhaps you were more into the Sega games. Sonic and Zelda could be played on the Mega Drive or the handheld Gamegear. I was overjoyed to see that the Commodore 64 was coming back. I want to see how they react to having to wait for the games to load up.

Gift Giving: In Summary

I’m definitely going to be adding the nostalgia factor into my gift giving from now on, alongside the more modern bits and pieces. This is for children and the grown-ups! What about you? What’s the best gift related memory you have from when you were younger?