5 Happy Activities for the Work Week

Most of us working women and men often get so busy in our daily lives that we forget to take some time to breathe, relax and calm our minds. We wake up, we get ready, we drive to work, we spend most of our day confined in the work place, we get home, we are tired, cook/buy dinner and then watch TV and go to bed and this repeats day after day.  Some of us who are focused on self care would also fit in a workout in the daily routine, which is great. But once we fall into a routine, we sometimes miss being happy, being excited, taking some time off to spontaneously relax. I'd like to share 5 happy activities that one can do during the workweek. I tried these things myself when I started feeling the monotony in my routine and needed something to cheer me up every single day.



1.     A visit to the nearby Barnes and Nobles bookstore on my way home from work

        It had been a long time since I visited a book store or a library and the moment I entered this place, I instantly felt refreshed. There were books from all categories and I was attracted to the sections labelled 'Lifestyle', 'Personal Growth', 'Interior Design', 'Letter writing stationery'. I suddenly felt reconnected with my creative mind and remembered how much I enjoy these things, and that I should take more time in my life to read such books, to hand-write letters to my near and dear ones. There was a calm feeling to the whole experience and I didn't realize when 45 minutes had passed by, at which point I had to go home for dinner, but I promised myself to do this once every week to feel refreshed and calm. I also ended up buying the following books:

 

                                                                       

2.      A fondue night

       I typically eat healthy (in reality,  force myself to eat healthy) to avoid further health issues. But, there is a part of me that simply LOVES all kinds of delicious food which a nutritionist will typically ban for me, and one such item is fondue (both cheese and chocolate). I had been missing the fondue experience for several months now and my mind was quietly rebelling. Thus, on a Tuesday evening, I made an impromptu plan to have a fondue dinner with my husband and we went to our favorite fondue place after work. The experience was surreal and I felt so much joy. It need not be fondue for you, it may be something else, like chicken wings or your favorite spicy street food. I realized the emotional healing that such occasional experiences bring sometimes outweigh the nutrition labels and gives you something to look forward to every week. You could certainly eat super healthy the next day and do some exercise if you are worried about the nutrition aspect of it, but treating yourself to such experiences once in a while is so worth it.

3.     An extra long evening walk after dinner

      Many of you probably already do evening walks like me, but on one of the evenings, I and my husband decided to add some novelty to our walk and we not only took a different route but also walked longer than we typically do and this little bit of novelty made us a lot more happier. We were appreciating the green grass, the wild flowers and talked about so many things. We also slept extra well that night.

4.      Massage night

     I typically work out every other day in the workweek and on the weekends, but I decided to go for a massage instead of gym on one of the workdays. The experience was heavenly, and I still got the blood circulation benefit of workouts. For all the busy bees out there, I strongly recommend doing this once during the workweek to give you that super-revived feeling.  Massage Envy, Foot Spas, there are many clean, not-so-expensive options. It need not be the super-expensive Burke Williams like spa where not only is it expensive, but you'd have to book treatments weeks in advance.

5.    Journaling with a comforting cup of hot beverage

       It wasn't until recently that I realized that I love reading and writing. I'm a software engineer by profession and most of my adult life has been spent writing and debugging code. But a noble blog recently introduced me to journalling and ever since I have been collecting various journals. But, on account of my busy life, I never took the time to actually write into one of these, so, that Friday evening, after dinner, I made myself a hot cup of spearmint tea and sat down to write in my journal and felt very happy and calm as a result.  There is something about writing in a piece of paper that feels refreshing, especially since all of us are so used to typing at the keyboard. I decided to pursue this activity every week and enjoy the comfort that it brings