Especially with our world today offering such a diversity of challenges,
daily life can distract us from what really matters to such an extend that we forget to take good care of ourselves.

Breaking news flashes, famous people dying, terrorist attacks, presidential elections fought over in the media;  commercials attracting us into thinking we need certain products in order to be happy, it simply doesn’t stop!
Thousands of impulses a day attack us from television sets, computers,  cellphones, billboards, shop windows and friends who go through exactly the same experience and share that again!

It can make you weary; by the end of the day feeling you’ve done all sorts of things, yet very little of it had to do with you.
Eventually, when you have many of these days in row, body, mind and spirit start to protest. They start to feel drained, perhaps even to a point where certain ailments start to surface, physical aches, colds, lack of resistance, mental issues, feeling wobbly, mental tiredness.
As a result; the next day like this, will take up even more energy to perform.

One option to escape this vicious circle  is to take a break, go on a holiday.
Unfortunately this is only a short term solution, for after the holiday it’s back to normal and the same cycles start all over again

Holidays are also infamous for fatigue that finally gets a chance to surface once daily pressure falls away, igniting anything ranging from mild irritability to illness and escape into excess drinking or eating.
Or holidays can be overshadowed by an inability to actually enjoY being away from it all, as too little energy  is left to do that.

So….what we can we do to break this cycle?

When ever I catch myself reading my mails or watching the news straight after waking up;
or spending too many hours behind my computer;
or using my time off to meet dead lines rather than relax;
then I know its time to think of our ancestors, the hunter and gatherers, who had to live without holidays, who couldn’t break the vicious cycle by going away for a few days and had to regenerate on a daily basis in order to stay tuned.

Suppose they would have jumped out of their animal hide beds first thing in the morning;
pick up their spears and start hunting and gathering for 8 hours or more, 5 days a week or more;
how long do think they would have survived?
And they didn’t even have commercials, presidential candidate debates, terrorist attacks or breaking news from all over the world thrown at them many many times a day.

So what did these people do differently from modern day men and women?
The answer is: they took their time and created their own space.
They took care of themselves while life was happening; nourished their needs on a daily basis, wove relaxation into every day activities; integrated well being into their daily life occupation no matter where they were went or what they did.

In my next blog I’ll reveal what our hunter and gatherer ancestors did to keep fit during daily life, using their own body language and their own healing powers.

Ingrid Schippers Friday 6 May, 2016

This blog is featured as spoken end note of the Dutchbuzz edition of May 10th 2016 and can be listened to on The Hague FM from 10.00 tot 11.00 pm or on the Dutchbuzz podcast of May 10 2016