Life update: Being your true happy self

Life over the last couple of months has been really busy with so much going on. This has meant more and more of my time is spoken for, between caring for Noah, a busy job, commuting and a rather manic life I can sometimes feel overwhelmed. 

I never really have a moment anymore just to be me and relax. In my twenties I thought nothing about sitting reading a book for a whole day. Exercise was a frequent activity and a past time I enjoyed. I loved going for long walks and enjoying the outdoors. I could regularly be found relaxing in a deep bath with a pampering face mask. 

If I have a moment now I'm riddled with guilt that I should be doing something else. 

I can be found doing two or three things at once on a regular basis, which means I often feel flustered that I’m not doing a good enough job in any area of my life. 

We live in a world and society that is constantly striving for perfection, encouraging us to do more and more as well as wanting everything done now. This can often lead to us overworking every area of our lives, but if we had more balance could we be more productive and happier.

Recently I have been left with the hanging questions:

“Am I applying my time and energies in the right places, to be my true happy self?”. 

"How do I take time for myself".

So I've been looking at how long I spend time on different areas of my life, looking at what I spend most of my time doing and how I can reduce the time I spend on some tasks to have more time for myself.  

Everyday I have been setting aside ten minutes to meditate, which has been a wonderful way at making me stop, take time for myself and bring about a sense of greater calmness. It has also helped to root me in the here and now. So I thought I would share some apps that I have been loving.

Being in the moment and relieving stress:

Calm: The app is free to download and has some great content that you don’t have to pay for but a paid subscription of £35.99 a year, gives you over a 100 hours of brilliant content which is constantly added too.

I use the beginning journey to calm which is a great introduction to mediation with a seven day session. The perfect place to start with focused sessions to relieve anxiety, overcome stress and the app also has wonderful sleep stories to send you off into deep slumber. 

Headspace: I have been using this app for over a year now and love it. It is easy to navigate, with defined timings of 5,10,15 and 20 minutes to meditate, so even those with the least amount of time have no excuses. It offers short and easy to do sessions, which have helped to alleviate stress and sleep problems.

If you love the app and want to have access to all the content then a yearly subscription of £74.99 is needed.

Rituals have a wonderful free app with guided meditation for three areas: relaxing the mind, relaxing the body and enjoying the moment. In which you can do 5, 10, 15 or 20 minutes of meditation. They also have a guided yoga follow along too.

Still not convinced that meditation could help here are some additional benefits: 

I've personally have found the benefits of meditation to be huge. 

Do you meditate? How do you relax? Share in the comments below.  

Know someone that could benefit from this post please do share.