by Jane Brown

Although you may enjoy the stimulation of keeping busy, enjoying the excitement of staying on top of diverse things from your career to orchestrating family, it’s also important to do nothing important at all, to just take time off for yourself, unwind, and reconnect with your family.

Relaxing is a necessary part of life because the human mind and body need time to rest, recuperate and recalibrate. So while you may be excellent at keeping things on track, it’s also important to learn the art of chilling out. If you don’t, you’ll become increasingly stressed and overwhelmed, resulting in a huge dip in your level of mental clarity and productivity.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some ways to unwind (without feeling guilty about it).

1. Binge Watch TV
Binge watching is an especially good strategy for those long weekends when you and your family have done all the shopping, dining out, and house cleaning you can stand and still have plenty of time left before you have to go back to work. Another great time to binge watch is when you and your family have planned a movie night at home and pre-selected your favorite shows for the evening. If the idea of binge watching is alien to you and you’ve never binge watched before, then order DIRECTV, park yourself in front of your TV with your favorite snacks, surround yourself with your favorite people, and pick shows that you’ll all love. With literally hundreds of channels to choose from, you won’t have to make frequent trips to your local Redbox kiosk to figure out what to watch next.

2. Light exercise
Although this is the exact opposite of binge watching on a couch, it also helps you to relax and unwind. Light exercise can include activities like yoga, swimming at your local pool, or going hiking on a mountain trail. The change of scene and pace will help your mind and body reboot. You’ll be replacing high level of the stress hormone, cortisol, with endorphins.

3. Visit interesting places
A road trip doesn’t have to be long to be enjoyable, nor does it have to overnight either. Think about local areas that would be fun to visit. For instance, if you live in Southern California, then you could visit Solvang, the Danish Village, and enjoy the thrill of living in a different culture at an earlier time in history. If you don’t have any interesting towns or scenic destinations to visit, then go to a Natural History Museum in your city. Experiencing a different environment can help you rejuvenate.

4. Spend time with people you haven’t seen for awhile
If you have a day off with nothing planned, then why not take the time to visit family or relatives that you don’t see often, perhaps because they live a distance away or they are so busy with their own lives that you never get a chance to get together. Plan ahead so that your schedules work out. Do fun things like shopping, dining out, going to the movies, or playing board games at home.

5. Pursue your long-neglected hobby
Perhaps, you’re gifted at something but never have enough time to do it. On your day off, when you’re planning to chill out, you can now take the time to paint, draw, garden, read a good book, or build a shelf. Yes, it’s work, but since its stress-free work, it makes more sense to call it play. You will quickly step into the zone and time will slip by without a care in the world.

5 Good Reasons to Relax
If you’re still not sure whether you should take time out of your busy schedule to do nothing (after all, won’t you lose momentum and fall behind), Reach Out has listed some scientifically backed reasons to relax:

• You’ll keep your stress levels in check
• You’ll sleep better.
• Your mood will improve.
• Your memory will improve and you’ll find it easier to concentrate.
• You’ll be reducing your chance of physical illness in the long run.

Take time off for yourself when you find yourself getting flustered and out of sorts over little things. The clouds of confusion will clear and you’ll have clear mental skies again.