Are You Forgetting to Take a BREAK?
Pop quiz: As a small business owner what is your most valuable asset? You of course! This is even more true for those of us who are a one man (or woman) operation. Most of us do a pretty good job of investing in ourselves. We attend seminars, stay abreast of current developments in our industry and make sure we represent our brands well where ever we happen to be. However there is one thing that is an extremely important investment that I find many entrepreneurs forgetting. They forget to take care of their health and fitness.
When We Are Healthy We Can Take on the World.
As business owners we have more than full schedules. I understand this, being a business owner myself. I also know I could not keep up the schedule I do and live the quality of life I live if not for my investment in health and fitness.
Health and fitness is the foundation of everything we have and everything we do. If we do not make the time in our busy schedules for our health and fitness, we may be cheating ourselves and limiting our ability to be successful. When we are healthy we can take on the world. Our minds are clear, our hearts beat strong and our energy is limitless. When we are unhealthy we lose our focus. We must fight for clarity of mind and spirit and we spend too much time battling our bodies, wasting precious energy fighting illness instead of using it for productivity and creativity.
So How Do you Fit it in and Make it Work While Running a Business?
A few quick tips:
- Use your scheduling tool of choice and make an appointment with yourself. Blocking off even 30 minutes per day for physical activity can make a big difference. Treat the appointment just as you would one with a client.
- Cook in bulk. Make casseroles and soups with 6-8 servings and freeze for quick meals.
- Plan your health and fitness strategy just like you plan your business strategy. List out your goals and the objectives to achieve them. Develop a strategic plan at the day, week and month level.
- Use tools to work smarter not harder. There are iPhone apps to get nutrition information, online fitness communities for support and even healthy meal services to bring good food to you.
- Just like anything worth having in life, being healthy and fit takes work. It is work worthwhile, just like all those other aspects of your business you spend hours on. So before you think that health and fitness isn’t a priority to growing a successful business ask yourself this question. What would happen to your business without you?
Pamela Hernandez is the founder and co-owner of Thrive Personal Fitness, providing personal training and fitness coaching services. Please visit her at www.thrivepersonalfitness.com to find out more about her and approach to health and fitness.
How to Exercise Your Eyes
from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit
We all know how important it is to keep our bodies fit by doing things like going to the gym, jogging, and swimming. But, did you know that you can exercise your eyes as well? Eye exercising will keep your eyes healthy and help minimize eyestrain.
Steps
- Sit comfortably on a chair. Rub your hands together until they feel warm. Close your eyes and cover them lightly with your cupped palms. Avoid applying pressure on your eyeballs. Place your palms so that the nose remains uncovered, and the eyes remain behind the slight hollow of the palms. Make sure that no light rays enter the eyes, and leave no gaps between fingers or between the edge of the palms and the nose. You may still see other lingering traces of colors. Imagine deep blackness and focus on the blackness. Take deep breaths slowly and evenly, while thinking of some happy incident; or visualize a distant scene. After your eyes see nothing but blackness, remove your palms from your eyes. Repeat the palming for 3 minutes or more.
- Close your eyes tightly for 3-5 seconds, then open them for 3-5 seconds. Repeat this 7 or 8 times.
- Close your eyes and massage them with circular movements of your fingers for 1-2 minutes. Make sure you press very lightly; otherwise, you could hurt your eyes.
- Press three fingers of each hand against your upper eyelids, and hold them there for 1-2 seconds, then release. Repeat 5 times.
- Sit and relax. Roll your eyes clockwise, then counter-clockwise. Repeat 5 times, and blink in between each time.
- Sit about 6 inches (150 mm) from the window. Make a mark on the glass at your eye level (a small sticker, black or red, would be perfect). Look through this mark and focus on something far away for 10-15 seconds; then focus on the mark again.
- Hold a pencil in front of you at arm’s length. Move your arm slowly to your nose, and follow the pencil with your eyes until you can keep it in focus. Repeat 10 times.
- Look in front of you at the opposite wall and pretend that you are writing with your eyes, without turning your head. It may seem difficult at first, but with a bit of practice it is really fun. The bigger the letters, the better the effect.
- Imagine that you are standing in front of a really big clock. Look at the middle of the clock. Then look at any hour mark, without turning your head. Look back at the center. Then look at another hour mark. Do this at least 12 times. You can also do this exercise with your eyes closed.
- Focus on a distant object (over 150 feet or 50 m away) for several seconds and slowly refocus your eyes on a nearby object (less than 30 feet or 10 m away) that’s in the same direction. Focus for several seconds and go back to the distant object. Do this 5 times.
- Focus on an object in the distance (as far as possible) with a low contrasting background. Do this for a few minutes every half hour or so. This does not improve your vision, nor does any other technique. It can, however, maintain your best eyesight level during the day and prevent significant further vision deterioration.
Tips
- It’s more important to do the exercises regularly than to do them for a long time. Even 30-60 seconds of eye movement every hour is very helpful. For example, when your computer takes its sweet time to do something, most people just stare at the poor thing and waste the time, but you can make a few circles with your eyes. Even the first day you do this, you should notice that, when you finish working, your eyes aren’t as tired as usual.
- Taking short breaks from near work (e.g. staring at a computer monitor) to stare out to the distance also relieves some strain.
- Palming is a good method to help your eyes feel better. You close your eyes and put your palms over them, this will rest your eyes.
- Blink the eyes many times.
- Splash your eyes with cold water repeatedly when feasible, and especially when your eyes are strained.
Warnings
- Consult your optometrist (eye doctor) before doing any of these exercises. The last thing you want to do is add further strain to your eyes, or damage them permanently.
- When doing these exercises, make sure that you’re not facing anybody, or that they know you’re doing eye exercises. Otherwise they might think you’ve gone nuts.
- Doing these exercises when you wear contacts may cause them to suction to your eyeball. They might also move around and possibly become folded and/or dislodged, which can be extremely uncomfortable as well.
- Do not apply pressure on your eyes.
- Wash your hands before doing these exercises to avoid getting irritants in your eye.
Things You’ll Need
- Pencil
- Eyes
- Eye drops (Eyes may become dry)
Related wikiHows
- How to Take Care of Your Eyes
- How to See in the Dark
- How to Get a Job When You Are Blind or Visually Impaired
- How to Get Rid of Black Circles Under Your Eyes
- How to View Stereograms
- How to Exercise While Sitting at Your Computer
- How to Avoid Getting Dry Eyes from the Computer
- How to Cure Puffy Eyes
External Links
- Eye Exercises… Eye Therapy For Better Eyes, Eyesight And Vision Correction.
- [1]
- Eyezercise.com – Eye Exercises for Natural Vision Improvement
- Eyesight improvement the natural, affordable and easy way
- Eye Exercises for Eye Relaxation and Natural Vision Correction
- http://www.totemdog.com/eyesite
- http://www.rebuildyourvision.com
- http://www.CureYourEyes.com/blog
- http://www.HealMyEyes.com
Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Exercise Your Eyes. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.
