Take a Break!
When building a practice of stress reduction, it is essential to give yourself permission to take a break from anything and everything every once in a while. The idea of taking a break works well for two distinct reasons:
1) Even the best [cake, vacation, sex, show, game, etc.] would grow boring and ‘not as much fun’ if you did nothing but experience it everyday! Taking a break, meaning shifting your focus for a while, allows the things you enjoy to remain fun and enjoyable. It also gives you the opportunity to approach work, fun and life from a different angle.
2) They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. In many cases this is true. Habits are best formed when you actually have the opportunity to miss the behavior. For example, let’s say you have made the commitment to go to the gym everyday. You work out everyday for a month. At the end of the month, you take two days off. During your time off, you miss something about this new habit that you have formed. It may be the way you feel physically or emotionally after a workout. It may be some of the friends that you have made at the gym. In this way you build lasting habits because you MISS them when you are not practicing and you build them in the nature of fun and want rather than ‘have to’.
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