If you want to live well, and live longer then it’s important to take some steps in the right direction. In addition to getting a good night’s sleep every night and having a balanced diet, regular physical exercise is very important to maintaining good overall health and fitness. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you do something. When you are engaged in that activity, whether it is playing a round of golf or ballroom dancing, it takes you out of your head and your thinking at least long enough to slam the ball off the tee or twirl, and most importantly catch, your partner.
I referee kid’s soccer games a couple of times a week in the summer and while I am doing that my mind is focused almost completely on following that white ball around the field. For a few moments during the game I can actually see the game being played in slow motion, as if time has slowed down to let me catch up. Which is a good thing since it takes me a long time to catch up. It is at those times that I realize that I am not only exercising my body but resting my brain as well.
If you don’t know where to begin then why not try walking? It is one of the oldest and still one of the best forms of exercise known to humans. That is why we crawled upright after being on our hands and knees for millions of years. The health benefits of walking are well known. It burns fat and builds muscles to speed up your metabolism. And walking an hour a day is also associated with cutting your risk of heart disease, breast cancer, colon cancer, diabetes and stroke.
Walking is cheap, efficient, and as a side benefit it clears your head. Get a comfortable pair of shoes and start with a brisk fifteen-minute walk at lunchtime. Try not to think about anything in particular and notice what you see or hear. You might be surprised that even in the heart of a downtown concrete jungle there are small pockets of life and green oases to rest your eyes and your mind.
In times of extreme stress or anxiety, nothing beats going for a walk. But to prevent stress and anxiety from building up, why not be proactive and plan to take a regular walk every day? It just might be your first steps in the right direction.
This post first appeared on my blog at www.jobs.ca
Mike Martin is a writer and the author of The Walker on the Cape, a mystery set in Grand Bank, NL. For more information please visit www.walkeronthecape.com
The warning signs are all there…. You have an unhappy personal life because you never spend any time in it. You are always grumpy because you never get enough sleep. You have a series of continual ailments like mild depression, high blood pressure and you doctor (when you saw her two years ago) told you that you had a high risk of developing serious coronary problems.
You spend every waking moment going to, thinking about or staying late at work. And you still claim that you are not a workaholic. Okay. Just remember that denial is not a river in Egypt. To test out your theory that you are not a workaholic here’s a short quiz to make your own determination.
Are you a workaholic?
1. Do you always feel rushed at work?
2. Do you feel trapped at work?
3. Is your health suffering from too much work?
4. Do you have trouble sleeping?
5. Do you feel unsatisfied about your work?
6. Do you have enough time for family and friends?
7. Do you have time for personal exercise or fun?
8. Are you satisfied with your financial situation?
9. Do you work 50 hours or more a week?
10. Have you tried to slow down at work in the past but have been unable to do so?
11. Have you cancelled or postponed vacations because of work?
12. Do you work on weekends?
13. Do you sometimes get stuck at work?
14. Do you think about work while falling asleep or when you first wake up?
15. Do you over commit yourself at work?
16. Are you afraid of failing at work?
17. Do you eat your lunch at your desk or read work during meals?
18. Have you cancelled or postponed social events because of work?
If you answered yes to three or more of these questions you are a probably a workaholic. So what now? Well, admitting that you have a problem is the first step to moving towards a solution. The next step is to get some help.
This help can range from the very informal like talking to a trusted family member or friend, to the very formal of joining a self-help group like Workaholics Anonymous. Yes, there is a twelve step program for workaholics. There are many other options in between. Find one that works for you and make a plan to change your life, at least the working part.
Start your plan slowly by making a commitment not to work every weekend and you can always add to your plan as you go along. Tell your employer that you will not be able to work any more than a fixed number of hours, any amount less than what you already do would be an improvement. Call your family and make plans to get together since they likely haven’t seen you for a while. Finally take a deep breath and try to relax. You can do this.
This post first appeared on my blog at www.jobs.ca
Mike Martin is a writer and the author of The Walker on the Cape, a mystery set in Grand Bank, NL. For more information please visit www.walkeronthecape.com
It’s not too late to take a break!! According to Expedia.ca, one of Canada’s largest online travel services Canadians have some difficulties when it comes to letting go of work, even while we’re on vacation. The Vacation Deprivation® survey conducted online by Harris Interactive on behalf of Expedia.ca is an annual analysis of vacation habits across multiple countries and continents. There are twenty countries in the latest survey from North America, Europe, Asia, South America and Australia.
For example most employed Canadians (62 per cent) say they regularly or at least sometimes check in with the office by email or voicemail when they’re on holidays. But we’re actually well below many countries measured including workers in India who were most likely to touch base with the office while on vacation (89 per cent) followed closely by Italy (88 per cent) and France and Japan, which tied for third place at 87 per cent. There are some regional differences within Canada as well with employees in British Columbia topping the list at 68 per cent and perhaps not surprisingly Quebec workers least likely to check in at 58 per cent.
But what else did this year’s Vacation Deprivation survey tell us? Well, we’re getting better at taking our vacation time and most people will take 15 out of 16 vacation days that they have coming. That’s better than previous years but on the downside about 25 per cent of workers said they couldn’t afford to go on vacation, an increase from past surveys. Other reasons for not taking a vacation or all of your due vacation include insufficient planning time, being viewed negatively by the employers and lack of managerial support. Regionally Albertans leave the most vacation on the table with many workers being entitled to 20 days a year but on average they only take 15.
One more interesting piece of information from this survey was a question that asked where Canadians were going when they go away on a holiday or vacation. No surprises here. A relaxing beach vacation is the number one choice of Canadians in every province. And with whom? Most often Canadians vacation with their full families including the kids but about 40 per cent confessed to just a couples only getaway in the last year.
Whatever you decide to do and wherever you decide to go on vacation, the most important thing is to get away and enjoy yourself. If you haven’t been able to do it this year, then block off your calendar and plan for a summer or winter getaway for next year. You can take the kids, but leave your laptop at home. It needs a break too.
This post first appeared on my blog at www.jobs.ca
Mike Martin is a writer and the author of The Walker on the Cape, a mystery set in Grand Bank, NL. For more information please visit www.walkeronthecape.com
It’s okay to try your very best, but nobody is perfect and to expect perfectionism from ourselves or others is a difficult path to travel. That’s because we are all human and we all make mistakes. A person who tries hard and makes a mistake gets up, dusts themselves off and tries again. A perfectionist who makes a mistake may just lay there on the ground moaning about how bad they are that they aren’t perfect.
There is a very thin line between that striving for perfection and wanting to be perfect, but the difference is a whole world of hurt. Children who have been trained to always be perfect often turn out to be very unhappy adults and workers because their best will never be good enough. Unless it is perfect. Perfectionism robs us of the simple pleasures of working hard and enjoying what we do achieve.
Perfectionists appear to be great workers but in fact what psychologists and psychiatrists have found is that that this creates many difficulties for the workers themselves, especially in regards to their physical and mental health. Another trait they have observed is procrastinating or delaying doing certain things unless the perfectionist thinks that they can complete the task to perfection. They also become risk adverse because they are afraid of making a mistake. All of these factors in turn lead to unhealthy adults and workers who have high levels of anxiety and low esteem.
There are enough pressures in today’s society without the added burden of having to be perfect. As Winston Churchill once said “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”
So if we have developed the trait of perfectionism is it too late to change? Not according to Dr. Martin Anthony, a psychology professor at RyersonUniversity in Toronto and coauthor of “When Perfect Isn’t Good Enough.” His tips:
Get to know your perfectionism by becoming more aware of your patterns of thinking and behavior, and their effects on your life and those around you. What are your triggers?
Challenge your thinking and question your beliefs and start doing things like weighing the costs and benefits of spending time making everything perfect.
Change your behavior by exposing yourself to what you fear: Practice making mistakes, though not if they will lead to terrible consequences.
Dr. Anthony encourages people who are perfectionists to deliberately send a letter to a friend with typos in it. And then laugh about it. Because one of the best ways to stop being a perfectionist is to stop taking ourselves so seriously. Lighten up a little and learn to enjoy both life and work a little more. It’s okay to make a mistake.
Basketball coach Chuck Daley once said ” It’s discouraging to make a mistake, but it’s humiliating when you find out you’re so unimportant that nobody noticed it.”
This post originally appeared on my blog at www.jobs.ca
Mike Martin is a writer and the author of The Walker on the Cape, a mystery set in Grand Bank, NL. For more information please visit www.walkeronthecape.com
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