Lifestyle – Page 21

How to Overcome Distractions in Life

Well, we have all been at that point when we are tempted to join social media when we should be working on an assignment or studying. And then there are those notifications we ache to see once there are notification sounds on our phones or the emails you keep on checking every 5 minutes so that you don’t miss any important message.

Well, distractions are here to stay, and research shows that they lower your productivity at home, school, and work. Therefore, if you want to avoid distractions, it’s essential to incorporate structure in your lie by managing your time properly and removing distractions. These few changes will enable you to overcome distractions and improve your productivity in your tasks.

Top 4 ways of overcoming distractions in your life

01.Avoid Electronics

The top way of eliminating distractions is putting away that smartphone, tablet or computer. They should be as far away as possible and powered off. Or better place them in the drawer or a room it will be hard to access them. If you’re using the device at work, then limit those apps that will lower your productivity.

Also, don’t forget to turn off notifications on your phone as social media apps can easily distract you for a longer time. Only turn on the important notifications, and you can utilize the “Do Not Disturb” feature that is available in many smartphones to avoid these notifications. Later on, you can check them when you’re finished with the current task.

02.Set Clear Objectives Each day

If you design many objectives, then you will feel overwhelmed and fail to achieve them all together, even before starting. But you can easily accomplish more and avoid distractions by listing only three objectives you want to accomplish each day. Write them on a note that you can easily access anytime. By listing a few daily goals, you will clearly define what you want to start working on. And you will focus more on these tasks; thus, your mind will less likely stray anymore.

When you wake up each day, ask yourself of the most important goals you want to achieve and note them down in a to-do list. Once you accomplish the most critical tasks, you can handle the rest later.

03.Give yourself a shorter time

If you have more hours, then there is no guarantee that you’ll accomplish more. This is because you give workers more time, then they will find ways of accommodating the remaining time with distractions. That way, if you don’t dedicate some extra time to other activities, then you will be tempted to play a video game or watch some YouTube videos. But when you have less time, you will avoid distractions and figure a way to complete the task on time. Therefore, with a short deadline, getting distracted will be more challenging.

04.Reward Yourself

Finally, it’s essential to reward yourself to ensure you keep the spirits and motivation high. By bringing in rewards, you will make it more enticing to complete a particular task. For example, if you reward yourself with a cup of tea, a television show, or internet time, then you will tend to avoid distractions as you’ll think of the reward you’ll get by avoiding it.

Avoiding distractions is the best way of hastening your productivity in different environments. Luckily, with our guide, it will be easier for you to avoid the distractions coming across your way.

How to Let Go of Anger

Life sometimes becomes too much for our inner self to handle and one of the ways we lay out this stress is through anger. Although anger can occur naturally, we always have reasons, including frustrating experiences and feeling like someone hurt us. Additionally, there are two kinds of persons when it comes to anger; those that get angry often and those that show a burst of rage when seriously annoyed.

Our body works by tricking us that we need anger to reverse an unpleasant experience or feeling. If we allow this to happen, the signs of annoyance may escalate to the point that we cannot control them. If you are struggling with anger and would want strategies to let it go, keep reading through the following tips:

01.Change your perspective

Learn to view problems in your life as critical lessons in a typical growth journey. Although it may be hard for you to overlook your problems for the first time, this strategy becomes more effective after assuming many minor life problems.

02.Take slow deep breaths

Breathing is a mind to body activity that can help trigger your entire system to calm down. Provided you change your breathing pattern, you can quickly come to terms with your relaxed state as you await full healing. To take good deep breaths, find a comfortable seat to relax on, breathe in through your nose and for a while and exhale heavily though your mouth to let off the breath and the frustration.

03.Meditate

If you are dealing with chronic anger, this might be the perfect solution for you. With meditation, you change how you view things around you, including people who have annoyed you. This kind of satisfaction is the number one anger killer for many down to the gut. Hold the breath people.

04.Forget awful past events

As mentioned in the beginning, life will never be fair for everybody and unpleasant events will always be there. However, it would help if you learned to move on even after an awful happening to keep anger away and live happily. An effortless way to help you forget things that made you mad is focusing on the good thing about the subjects that hurt you.

05.Keep yourself physically active

Any physical activity that will shift your focus from concentrating on the wrong side of your emotions can help keep anger at bay. Actually, with physical exercise, the tension will be over within a concise time and you can right away regain your joyous mood.

06.Contact a health professional

If you find that getting rid of emotions that results in anger is challenging for you, consider reaching out to a reliable psychotherapist. Always keep in mind that anger can easily consume you and your best self within a concise time. It would not hurt to hear what people who have interacted with several other resentment cases would advise about your situation.

The bottom line

It is serious that you may never know how dangerous anger is until you have entirely lost control of your emotions and the people’s connection very dear to you. To avoid these risky outcomes of anger, you must be ready to let it go as soon as you notice that you are not in your best behavior. Follow the above tips to get rid of this powerful but useless emotion and live a happy life after that.

Best 07 rules for a happy marriage

Well, what is the secret to a healthy marriage? If you get around relationship experts, wives, or husbands, you will likely receive multiple different answers. According to relationship expert Dr. Dave Maurer, healthy marriage doesn’t mean the couple is perfect; it occurs once the imperfect couple begins to understand their differences.

Every story is quite inimitable and different. Marriage is built on respect, freedom, disagreements, love, hardships, and more. Your marriage is worth taking care of. To steer you in the right direction, these are the best seven rules for a happy marriage.

Read on to find out more.

01.Keep the Intimacy Alive

Being close with each other, in whatever way possible, is significantly vital for any marriage, be it physical, spiritual, or even emotional. Experts advise married couples to practice intimacy by being vulnerable. Once you are vulnerable to your partner, intimacy is given way, from having sensitive conversations about yourselves, a great sex life, and more.

02.Be Supportive of Your Partner’s Dreams and Goals

In the past, society expected the woman to leave all her dreams and goals to support her man’s. However, in the present-day couples, things are more fluid as both partners can have separate dreams, social network, and careers. A supportive partner should offer encouragement and help the other build a platform to achieve their goals.

03.Build Admiration and Fondness

A happy couple respects and generally thinks positively about one another. For a long and satisfying relationship, admiration and fondness are two crucial elements. Without these elements, your marriage will be built on rocks.

04.Spend Enough & Quality Time with Your Spouse

Spending quality time with your partner should be the number one thing couples should embark on to maintain a healthy marriage. For instance, you can take some time out with your spouse daily, even if it interrupts your schedule for only several minutes. Put away your laptops and phones and seek to connect with one other.

05.Good Communication

Another critical fundamental to a happy marriage is good communication. Both you and your spouse should try and verbalize your needs. You can determine what works out for you and your partner- maybe it’s a lunchtime facetime, random call during the day, pillow talk, and so on.

06.Work as A Team

Most relationship experts claim that another key to a happy marriage is building a team mindset. All marriages are different, so when we say ‘working as a team’ – it might have varying meanings across different relationships. Nevertheless, communicating nicely to your partner and seeking to find ways to work together will significantly help you improve.

07.Set Distinct Boundaries with Others

Today, many couples are struggling due to the lack of setting boundaries with others. This includes letting other people influence your marital decisions, being flirty with someone else, or not making your marriage a priority. Often, people make the problem of assuming that these sorts of behaviors are harmless and innocent, but that’s where they go wrong. The best advice for a healthy marriage is to keep your circle small and make sure everyone in it respects your boundaries.

To sum up, married life does not have to be unhappy and unsatisfying. With just some effort and dedication, you can enjoy a happy marriage. Regardless of how times will get rough, always bear in mind the seven rules for a happy marriage we’ve discussed above. Work on them day-in-day-out and get to enjoy the brighter side of relationships.

How to Motivate Yourself When You Feel Depressed

Depression has become quite common and is widely known as the number one motivation killer. When depressed, you lose your focus, energy, and drive, and you get a feeling that makes you want to stay out of the light and let the darkness consume you.

The reality of depression is that the individuals who face it won’t easily accept lifestyle changes that are supposedly meant to make them feel better. A common response for such changes is “Easier said than done”.

The truth is that majority of the individuals who face depression already have ideas of what they should do to make them feel better, only that they don’t know how to do it. Besides, depression is a motivation, focus, interest, and energy killer.

Even though finding motivation when depressed is not easy, these ideas should make it easy to get you started, and find your way to recovery:

01.Set the bar low

When not depressed, your functioning ability is usually somewhere between 70 to 90%, but this goes down to about 20% when you’re fighting depression. As such, you can’t set expectations for yourself that are the same as or close to what you had when you were feeling good about yourself.

If you do so, there is a high probability that you will end up feeling anxious and overwhelmed, hence fail. This will make you feel ashamed and defeated, hence worsen your condition.

Rather, you should focus on accomplishing smaller, manageable tasks. If, for example, you wanted to finish your math assignment, aim to finish one problem first, then you can raise the bar once you’ve met your goal.

If it becomes hard to raise the bar and solve other equations as well, be content with what you’ve done already since you already accomplished your initial goal. Keep in mind that setting unrealistic goals only sets you up for failure.

02.Be compassionate to yourself

No matter the situation you are in, avoid beating yourself up for being “unproductive” and “lazy”. Doing so will only make you feel worse about your situation.

Instead, try to think about how you would encourage a friend who is facing depression and practice self-compassion. You can use a mantra or the same encouraging words that you would say to a friend who’s struggling with depression.

03.Exercise

If you can, it’s always advisable to engage in physical activities that will awaken your happy spirit. Exercising raises levels of the good-feel hormone in you, making you less susceptible to depression. Your exercise sessions should take preferably 2-3 hours a day, twice or thrice a week.

04.Get support or seek help

Some, if not most of us, have trouble holding ourselves accountable even at the best of times. You can only expect it to get harder with little motivation or energy. When such times arise, it’s always advisable that you confide in someone you can trust, and get help from them

You can get a friend to ensure that you stay true to your commitment or ask your partner to accompany you to a yoga session. Never be afraid to ask for whatever support or assistance you think may help you overcome your hard times.

05.Focus on how you’ll feel after a task

When fighting depression, even the simplest of tasks seem daunting. But that’s because you more than likely are focusing on the effort involved, rather than envisioning how you’ll feel after completing the given task. That’s why you should aim to focus on how you will most likely feel after completing a task, rather than during.

06.Set rewards

If you’re able to make the effort of achieving your goals despite your situation you, definitely do deserve a pat on the back. One thing to keep in mind is that if you want to reward yourself, you should aim to earn the thing that you love to do. Rather than binge-watching your favorite show, earn each episode by completing the tasks that you need to.

A caveat that you ought to consider, however, is that you should never come up with a reward system that only ends up feeding your depression. If, for example, your depression makes you want to stay in bed all day, avoid rewarding yourself with a nap. If the show you like watching the most is a downer that will probably make you feel worse, just reserve it for times when you’re feeling better.

The goal is to congratulate yourself for making the effort to do things that you, otherwise, wouldn’t have wished to do as a result of low motivation.

Final thoughts

The truth of life is that we move at different paces, and through the process, we face struggles and moments where we feel like we can throw in the towel. One thing to keep in mind is that such moments are normal. With roughly 121 million people around the world suffering from depression, you can be sure that you are not alone in your troubles.

The good thing is that there is always light at the end of the tunnel, and there is something that you can do to help you step out of the abyss. The strategies discussed above should go a long way in helping you get your life back.

Home Tranquility: 7 Ideas for Leaving Work at the Office

For most people, it’s a struggle to completely leave work at the office when going home. This means that you carry the thoughts and ideas about work straight into your house. As a result, you kick up your feet and relax on the couch, but you find yourself constantly thinking about the office.

Note that this makes sense since we depend on our jobs for paying bills, buying clothes, and feeding us. However, you need to set a clear boundary between your work and the time you spend at home. This ensures you enjoy optimum home tranquility, while you prepare to head back tomorrow for another day.

Below are 7 ideas to help you completely leave work at the office and employ tranquility once you get home.

01.Stop overdoing it

As humans, we all have the desire to grow and become better than we already are. And for this to happen, hard is a constant aspect. That’s why most people overwork themselves to achieve more productivity in their field.

While this might be viable, you should know that we weren’t programmed to work 24/7. You need time to rest, and hard work doesn’t necessarily mean more productivity. So, once you are home, erase all thoughts concerning your work and take the time to rejuvenate yourself.

02.Reach out to a friend

Often, we are so caught up in the system that we even forget we have friends. And for most people, friends are only for weekend hangouts. This shouldn’t be the case and you should actually phone a friend to see how they are doing in the midst of the week.

This will take your mind of work as you’ll find someone to converse with and exchange non-work related ideas.

03.Prepare a routine

If you are a busy person working in an even busier environment, it’s easier to get overwhelmed with your work. Therefore, it’s necessary to set a routine for yourself and strictly adhere to its directives.

In the routine, distinguish work from home time to ensure you gain optimal productivity, while enjoying home tranquility.

04.Be present on your drive home

Paying attention to the surrounding environment when driving home will help you forget about the office atmosphere. Sightseeing is mind freeing will kick start you on leaving work at the office before getting home.

It doesn’t matter whether you know everything about the route you use back home from work; being present on your drive home is an easy way to forget about work.

05.Meditation

Meditation takes different forms and each of them can be a great way to help you forget about work once you are in the house. You can set aside at least 10 minutes to meditate and just shut down everything concerning work or how the day went.

This helps you eradicate any baggage and helps you relieve yourself of anything related to work.

06.Watch a show

Once you get home, that is your free time and you have to use it appropriately. You can decide to watch one or two of your favorite shows before doing anything else. This will convince your mind that you are at home and now, only home related issues matter.

07.Read a book

If you are not a big TV fan, seek tranquility in reading books after getting home from a long day. You can either office write a reading routine before leaving the office or just do it once you are at home.