6. Meditate
Meditation is a widely used tactic across some ultra successful people. See my post about How 4 Ultra Successful People Start Their Days for some examples. For me, I have been dabbling with it recently and it has definitely helped. It’s a good idea to get in the habit of taking some time to clear your head during the day. I know many folks out there are skeptical about meditation. When I first started reading about it, I pictured a monk sitting at the edge of a lake humming for an hour. The thing is, meditation doesn’t have to be anything formal, especially in the beginning. It’s important not to build it up to some crazy out of this world practice. Five minutes is long enough to start and if you are able to commit to that each day, you will naturally find yourself meditating for longer. I have to say, after dedicating some time to being open minded towards it, I have found that it can make all the difference. On average, it takes about a month to develop a new habit. Therefore, it’s important to allow ourselves the time to become comfortable with this new practice and develop consistency before we start judging. Five minutes at a time is a good start. An app I love that helped me get started is called Calm. This app allows you to trial a basic 7 day program for free. Give it a go and let me know how it works for you!
If meditation isn’t in your bag of tricks or isn’t something you want to dabble with at the moment, another great option with similar benefits is a power nap. These are naps that are around 15–20 minutes long. This window of time has been shown to elevate our energy levels when we wake up. Any longer and we tend to wake up drowsy. A lot of the time during a power nap you won’t completely fall asleep. That’s no big deal. It’s about allowing the body to relax by focusing on maintaining a clear mind. Set the timer for 15–20 minutes and put the phone on silent, not vibrate, silent, and relax.