Living a peaceful life can be a challenge in today's world. Crowded cities, extreme network development and tensions in work and daily life seem to conspire against such a choice. Finding peace of mind, however, is easier than you might imagine.
Steps
Method 1 of 3: Create a Peaceful Environment
Step 1. Organize your home to promote peace of mind
There are many things you can do to make your home a place of serenity even if family life is very active. Use the interior design and organization to your advantage and create a small domestic space to find moments of respite.
- Organize the entrance in order to reduce confusion. Being greeted by clutter as soon as you walk in the door is a recipe for stress. Reserve a place dedicated to shoes, umbrellas and other everyday items near the front door. This way they will be out of sight and out of mind.
- Reserve a space for confusion and try to confine it there. Keeping the whole house clean and tidy at all times is unrealistic, especially if there are children. Instead, dedicate a zone or two to places where you can store bags and packages, accumulate mail, and so on.
- Add some music. Classical music or other instrumental genres such as jazz can calm the nerves and calm moods. It should be slow and not boisterous music for a soothing effect. Having a small space to listen to music is an excellent solution for your balance.
- Pamper the bedroom. You spend a third of your life in bed - make sure this room is a refuge for you. It is the last place you see in the evening and the first you see in the morning. Use comfortable, soft and pleasantly patterned sheets and blankets to have a good night's rest, and consider the morning light as an alternative to a traditional alarm clock to start the day with more serenity.
Step 2. Create a quiet work area
You'll likely spend a good portion of your waking hours at work, so it's wise to set up a relaxing space where possible. The places you work vary a lot, from offices to outdoor spaces, so make custom changes to suit your individual needs.
- Reduce clutter and eliminate unnecessary items from the work area. This way you have fewer distractions and can focus on the task at hand.
- Keep it clean. Get rid of litter, stains and odors to reduce potential sources of annoyance. As well as clearing the clutter, this will be an ongoing battle, so don't let cleaning become a form of escapism or a source of stress. Working consistently is the key.
- Paper the environment with pleasant images. Photos of your family members or of idyllic scenes or places you want to visit can improve your working day and are a reminder of what is good in life and why you are at work.
- If you have your own office, keep the door closed. It will discourage visitors, keep noise away and give a sense of privacy and perhaps even loneliness. If your job requires frequent collaboration with other people, choose short periods to keep the door closed for a while before reopening it to the world.
Step 3. Take advantage of colors and light
The play of colors and lights can have amazing effects on mood and productivity. Changing the shadows, shades and intensity of the colors of the furniture around you is an underestimated way to make a peaceful environment.
- Go for soft colors over bright ones. The latter can create anxiety, so the former are a safer choice. To do this, use matte (anti-glare) finishes instead of glossy ones, to reduce reflections and distractions.
- Blue and lavender tones are preferable for bedrooms and for areas that should be calm and quiet.
- Use recessed lights, floor lamps or studio lamps to create coziness. It also dims the harsh, direct light from unshielded bulbs. Use those with white and warm light (check the packaging when you buy them) to keep the lighting subdued. The white and cold ones can give the environment the light tones of a factory and are violent to the eye.
Step 4. Stay away from everything
Spend time in natural settings to calm down and recharge. Anything from a quick walk in the park to a long walk in the woods can be soothing and rejuvenating, especially if you spend most of your time in the city.
- Do things calmly. Get out in the fresh air and spend time immersing yourself in the surrounding spaces. Watch the clouds for a while or take off your shoes and enjoy the sensation of grass between your toes.
- Take some pictures while you are out. If you come across a landscape that inspires you, capture the moment so you can see it again later and cheer up a little.
- Committed to nature. If you are so willing, pursue a hobby that involves active involvement with nature. Fly fishing, for example, requires you to have some quiet, relaxing motion and a willingness to learn about rivers, lakes and different forms of aquatic life. Rock climbing can allow you to see breathtaking views and gain some knowledge of geology. In any case, feeling closer to nature is a great way to relax and build a corner of serenity in your life.
Method 2 of 3: Relax
Step 1. Establish a morning ritual
A great way to reduce stress and agitation is to develop reliable and repetitive systems for everyday life that can keep you focused and reduce stress. If your days start to unfold at a frenzied pace, make a conscious effort to slow things down in the morning.
- Get up a little earlier, make your coffee, and engage in relaxing activities like yoga, meditation, or something else that's soothing to you. Incorporate this into your daily routine.
- Find out about the activities you'd like to do each morning, then adjust your ritual to have time to complete them without rushing or with additional stress.
Step 2. Be aware of how you react
If you find that you are often nervous in your daily interactions, get used to analyzing your reactions.
If someone cuts your way in traffic, take a break instead of hitting your horn and see if your reaction will resolve the situation or simply add more stress
Step 3. Don't do multiple activities together
Countless studies have shown that it is less efficient to operate in this way than to focus on a single task and that constantly shifting attention from one thing to another has the infallible ability to accumulate anxiety rather than reduce it.
- Simple changes, like leaving your phone in another room or turning off email notifications, can eliminate the common temptation to get distracted with too many things.
- Having a to-do list with their priorities can help. Finish the most important task before moving on to the next. Keep in mind that recreation, exercise, or family time may be other "chores" that add to work demands.
Step 4. Get regular exercise
Not only is it good for your health, it is also indicated as a reliable solution for reducing stress levels.
- Incorporate the exercises into your routine if you can. Twenty minutes of moderate activity can be enough to change your life.
- You don't necessarily have to make time to hit the gym. To get the benefit of the exercises, get out of your chair and go for a walk. Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
- Listen to soothing music or watch pleasant images as you cool your body down after exercise. It will help you maintain peace of mind as you resume the activities you were doing.
Step 5. Be creative
Creative activity, especially when you can do it using your hands, is a fantastic way to keep your thoughts and days calm. You can immerse yourself in your task and feel the sense of its accomplishment as you do it.
- Working with wood, pottery and knitting are great ways to keep your hands and mind busy and to focus on calming activities.
- Some find similar solace in art, be it painting, sculpture, or writing.
- The kitchen can also be a place for creative activities. Baking, cooking and carrying out more specific activities, such as brewing beer, can be a great outlet for stress and creativity.
Step 6. Try yoga or the meditation.
The health benefits of yoga and meditation are numerous and well documented. Both aim at peace of mind and stress reduction, plus yoga can also increase strength and improve elasticity.
- Yoga engages the parasympathetic nervous system by inducing a "relaxation effect".
- Yoga and meditation have the added benefit of being relatively simple to do almost anywhere. Try a few simple poses in a spare time at work or in the bedroom as soon as you get up to help remove the hardships of the day.
Step 7. Block the “fight or flight” reaction
The body's instinctive reaction to stress and danger is an evolutionary adaptation, but it is not always the right answer in modern life, relatively quiet and without the danger of wild animals and hostile hunter-gatherers. Thankfully, there are ways to mitigate this occasional unwanted reaction.
- Reflect on your emotions. It sounds like a cliché, but the simple act of identifying the emotions associated with panic, stress, fear or anxiety can block the neurological processes of the "fight or flight" reaction and help redirect your energy in a useful way.
- Focus on your breathing. When you notice that tension or panic builds, focus and take deep breaths. This reduces the instinctive tendency to take shallow, fast breaths and engages the autonomic nervous system which usually controls the body's involuntary physiological responses.
- Finally, try renaming the emotions you identified earlier to give them a positive semblance. You can force yourself to view panic as a form of excitement or frustration as a form of ambition, and you can regain control of the body's responses to stress by slowing your heart rate, breathing, and sweating.
Method 3 of 3: Calming People Around You
Step 1. Learn to cheer up someone who is angry
It is normal for someone around you, a friend, colleague or family member, to get angry, and that this risks creating problems for the people present.
- Use the E. A. R. to resolve the situation.
- Empathy: Show the person that you know they are angry with phrases such as “I realize how angry you are” or “I understand that you are feeling frustrated”, and express your willingness to help them.
- Attention: ask him to explain the problem and listen carefully. “Tell me what troubles you. I want to understand". Body language can help too - make eye contact and sit down or lean forward slightly to show your attention.
- Respect: people, especially those who get easily inflamed, often need to feel respected when they are angry. Take note of this in the best possible way with phrases like "I respect the way you are committed" or "I can say that you have dedicated a great effort and it shows".
Step 2. Defuse a tense situation before it explodes
A very angry person may not be available to argue until they have had a chance to calm down. You can help this process by redirecting his anger and taking appropriate action to reduce the level of tension.
- First, try to show respect for their needs or concerns. Recognize their importance and refrain from judging them openly. Try doing this with non-aggressive body language, without moving quickly and without assuming an aggressive posture with your chest out.
- Cooperate with the angry person as long as they are not causing harm to others. The goal is not to aggravate the situation in any way. Listening carefully can also help you. Don't interrupt, but take the opportunity to ask for clarification, both to avoid misunderstandings and to smooth things out.
- It redirects the aggressive attitude by reformulating its concerns in a less confrontational way. Formulate the phrase “I want to beat Enrica with a stick” in another way, for example “So you are angry with Enrica because she scratched the paint of your car and you want me to have it repaired”. This, if successful, can calm the person down and make them more willing to discuss their problem constructively.
- Don't keep interacting if your efforts are proving useless or if you are getting angry too. Your safety is increasingly important, so you should walk away and call security personnel, a supervisor or the police, depending on the circumstances.
Step 3. Be kind and humble
Research shows that being humble and kind to others can materially improve relationships at home, at work, and in social relationships. Being good towards others translates into goodness towards you.
- A study by the US National Institutes of Health found that being kind to others can help make you physically and mentally healthier.
- Humility - a form of propensity for self-criticism - can also help to heal broken relationships.
- Kindness is also related to happiness. Acts of charity and kindness release dopamine and endorphins in the brain, providing chemical support for your happiness.
