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7 Ways to Add Slack to Your Life for Better Health - SW

By on July 8, 2015
healthy living for your family

By MariaShriver.com from our partners at NaturallySavvy

Pup professors are one of my favorite life teachers, especially when it comes to better health. The latest lesson a canine companion taught me was about creating slack in my own life. Ever see someone walking a dog “sled-style”…in other words, the dog’s walking demeanor looks more like arctic transportation than exercise? Leash pulling is definitely no fun for either party in the walking experience.

The funny thing is: as humans, we pull life’s leash ALL the time! No matter what your paycheck is, chances are you “pull” that check as far as it will go in all your financial affairs. If given some financial slack in the form of a raise or cancelled expense, chances are something “needed” would pull your finances right back to stretched status.

Read: Stop Counter-Productive Habits in 4 Seconds

We also like to pull on our time strings. If we find a way to streamline our day’s activities and end up with an extra hour or two, chances are we will immediately consume that new time window with more responsibility.

Here are 7 ways you can make your walk through life more leisurely by adding space for slack.

1. Put down the putter.
This is somewhat of a physical and mental challenge. When faced with down time, sit free of distractions for at least a week. (P.S. This will seem like an eternity.) When you do this, you’ll realize how good we are at filling our action gaps with mindless putter. The best ideas always hang out in the quiet corners of the mind. Consider them the introverted kid in the chaotic lunchroom of your mind. You’ve got to make a special point to get on their level, which means simmering down.

2. Tweak your bedtime agenda.
Sleep is medicine to your body and soul. There is a reason doctors say rest is truly the best recovery and preventative tool. Even our emotional circuits benefit from quality time with our pillow. And an interesting side-note is several of our greatest artists confess to getting their ideas during dreams (Paul McCartney and Stephen King for example). The best way to make room for more sleep is to just do it; automatic, don’t think about it style. When you try to negotiate more sleep into your schedule, it A.) Never works out and B.) You could be using that scheduling time for more sleep.

3. Lie to yourself about arrival times.
Know that your meeting starts at 8 AM? Train your brain to translate that to 7:50AM. Just by adding an extra 10 minutes to your “get ready” time, you’re less likely to be rushed and driving like a finger flipping maniac.

Read: You Are the Inventor of Your Life: How to Create a Better One

4. Know there’s a difference in being clueless and being uncertain.
Life is a mystery on purpose. We are meant to learn through life’s color wheel of possibility without knowing what exactly we are coloring. Give yourself permission to not have all the answers. It’s even ok to not want the answers sometimes.

5. Set yourself up for slack days.
Keep your body healthy enough that a few pounds gained on a fabulous trip will not send your body image into a purgatory orbit. Also, by choosing to stick to productive momentum when you’re fluidly producing solid work, in lieu of breaking your train of thought with a group text series, checking your inbox or heading out to run errands, you are planting slack seeds for days when you wake up and not even your 2nd cup of coffee will save you.

6. Walk closer to your “leader”.
Just as our pups sometimes fail to acknowledge the relationship between walking closer to their leader and having more slack, you will also notice the benefit of having more room to “breathe” when you draw closer to whatever source or force that moves your spirit.

7. Have an emotional yard sale.
Embrace the “less is more” philosophy. By throwing out your old distractions and out-of-date grievances, you create ample room for fresh experiences that provide a more suitable usage of your time.

Some days, slack will be harder to come by than most, but we can choose to tap into a creative and proactive mindset by crafting slack window possibilities.

Written by Kat Cowley. This article originally appeared on MariaShriver.com.

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