How to Achieve Inner Peace in the Busy World?
Does it feel like you are constantly running around in circles, unable to catch your breath? The fast-paced nature of the modern world can challenge your well-being. It can make you feel frustrated, distracted, depressed, and disrupt your spiritual calm.
What is inner peace? Achieving this state is all about balancing your physical, mental, and emotional levels. If you are wondering how to find inner peace in your everyday life, here are 27 simple tips to enjoy life and find your inner calm.
1. Get Enough Sleep
Your body needs sleep to function most effectively. Sleep not only allows the physical body a chance to recover, but it also lets the mind recover from the everyday stressors you deal with.
Although you may have been taught from an early age that eight hours is the correct amount of sleep each night, this isn’t always true. The amount of sleep needed varies from person to person.
It is crucial to find out how much sleep you need. It may be more than those eight hours.
Ensure that your room is dark and free of distractions to get the best sleep. Cooler temperatures make it easy to sleep faster and stay asleep better than warmer temperatures.
It can take some trial and error to find your perfect sleep situation. But when you get a good night’s sleep, your mental health improves, and you will be ready to take on the world.
2. Drink Some Water
An estimated 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. How much water you need to drink will vary based on your age, gender, activity level, and other health factors. The average person needs around half a gallon per day.
Even mild dehydration can cause health issues like fatigue, headache, irritability, and confusion. These symptoms make it difficult to focus on work or relax when you’re not working.
Taking a moment to drink a glass of water when you’re feeling stressed helps re-balance your mood. Drinking water throughout the day gives you an excellent reason to take a short break.
If you are not a fan of plain water, try infused water.
Fruits, herbs, and even vegetables infused into water create a refreshing change from plain water. Cucumber or mint water is cooling on a hot day. Lemon or ginger water gives you a zap of energy.
3. Avoid Screen Time Before Bed
It can be tempting to watch some TV or spend time on a smartphone before bed. It feels like this should be relaxing because you aren’t doing anything active.
But screen time before bed keeps the brain engaged so that it cannot easily wind down. For instance, watching the news can cause your mind to focus on stressful events in the world. Taking time away from the day’s events helps reduce stress before bed.
In addition, the light from a TV or a smartphone confuses your body into thinking that it is still daytime. This can cause issues with sleep-assisting hormones, like melatonin not triggering in the body. Even just turning off your TV or putting down your phone half an hour before bed means that your body can recognize that it is time to get ready to sleep.
4. Exercise Regularly
Exercise is vital for keeping your physical body healthy, but did you know it also improves mental health?
Certain stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline, are reduced when you exercise. In addition, exercise increases endorphins, which are chemicals in the body that can improve your mood.
Unfortunately, most people don’t get enough exercise. However, it’s easier to fit exercise into your daily life than you realize.
Something as simple as taking short walks around the block, a few laps in the pool, or some gentle stretching can provide this benefit. It is crucial to find a form of exercise that you enjoy and can do without causing significant discomfort.
It is essential to exercise regularly, but it does not have to be every day. You should aim for a mix of endurance, flexibility, strength, and balance exercises during your week. Mixing up your exercise routine helps keep you motivated and provides health benefits to your whole body.
5. Practice Meditation
When you think of finding inner peace, meditation immediately comes to mind. There’s a good reason for that. Mindfulness meditation has been used for centuries to calm the mind and rejuvenate the spirit.
Today, resources to help with meditation are more accessible than ever. There are dozens of meditation apps that provide guided meditation which is great for beginners. Most workout subscriptions—like Peloton and Apple Fitness+—offer instructor-led meditation sessions as well. You can also find online videos, in-person teachers, and meditation podcasts.
You don’t need anything other than a few minutes of your time to start practicing meditation. Use it to take a break whenever life stresses start to build, in addition to having a set time during the day for regular practice. Simply get your body comfortable, relax, and let your mind be clear of distractions.
6. Declutter Your Surroundings
If your life feels like chaos, take a look at your surroundings. A cluttered home or work location adds stress to your body. Simple tasks like finding your keys or that bill you know you need to pay become more stressful if finding the items you need takes extra time.
Looking around at clutter puts stress on the body on a mental level. Even if you don’t say it out loud, you will be thinking about how you probably should file those papers or clean off that table. You may even feel guilt about leaving things undone.
If you don’t have time to declutter your house thoroughly, there are a few key places to start. Your bedroom is a place that should promote rest, so declutter that right away. Work can be a source of stress, so help minimize stress by having a decluttered workspace.
Another easy to avoid clutter is to take a few moments every day to put things away. That way you avoid having mountains of clutter built up over time.
7. Embrace a To-Do List Lifestyle
Do you always have the feeling that you’re forgetting something? If you find yourself feeling like you are always behind, a simple to-do list can help.
Every night before you go to bed, jot down a list of tasks to accomplish the next day. In a central part of your house, have a list that you and others in your household can add tasks that need to be completed soon, but not immediately.
By creating to-do lists, you can see right away what tasks require your attention. This makes it easy to prioritize what needs to be done or to identify tasks that can be completed with minimal effort. Every item you take off your to-do list means one less thing to worry about.
Checking off items on a to-do list can also give an emotional boost. You get a sense of accomplishment when you cross off an item. Even on a day when nothing seems to go right, items removed from your to-do list affirm that you did accomplish something that day.
8. Talk Out Your Feelings
As the saying goes, a burden shared is a burden halved. Try talking through an issue on your mind with a friend or family member. If you don’t have anyone to talk to at that time, talk through it out loud.
Your mind can get stuck in a loop when you have thoughts that need to get out. Just speaking them out loud gives you the ability to let them go, along with any stress attached to them.
If you are talking through a concern with a friend or family member, let them know whether you are looking for advice or just need to vent. In some cases, just the act of talking can bring you more peace. In others, you can get their views of a situation. They may have a perspective that you hadn’t considered.
9. Eat a Healthy Diet
Besides physical health, a nutritious diet improves mental health and reduces stress levels. Additives like salt and caffeine can increase blood pressure. These can put a strain on your body which impacts your overall well-being.
Chocolate itself isn’t considered a healthy food. However, studies have shown that small amounts of dark chocolate are an incredible mood booster.
Other foods like fresh fruit and vegetables improve your mood when consumed over time. This is because fresh fruits and vegetables contain micronutrients needed by your body. When your body has what it requires to function at its best, it is less stressed and more at peace.
10. Listen to Music or Other Pleasing Sounds
For a quick way to bring calm to your life, pop on some music. Soothing sounds like classical and new age music bring a relaxed mood to any environment.
But you don’t have to just listen to calming music to improve your mood. Try playing some upbeat pop songs from the 80s or a peppy jazz number. Music that you have a positive emotional connection to can bring back the feelings of happier times.
Soundscapes and other ambient sounds also work to relax your body. Think of how relaxed you feel when listening to ocean waves or gently falling rain. Try different sounds to see what works best for you.
Are you looking to take work with sounds to another level? Try using Tibetan singing bowls, drums, tuning forks, bells, or chimes to improve your mood.
11. Pick Up a Hobby
If you feel stuck in a rut, the best thing to do is try something new. When selecting a hobby, try to pick something different from what you do for your job. For instance, if you work on a computer all day, start a hobby that takes you away from your desk chair.
Some hobbies can provide physical or mental benefits as well. For example, counting stitches for knitting or crocheting can be meditative. Riding a bike or fishing gets you into the fresh air and sunshine.
It may take many tries to find a hobby that is just right for you. Don’t be discouraged if the first hobby you try doesn’t work out. There is a hobby out there for anyone!
12. Practice Self Care
It is easy to be over-committed with work and life responsibilities. Take steps to schedule a time just for you.
To make sure that you take your “you time,” put it on your calendar. Let friends and family members know that you are taking time for yourself to practise some self care. Set your phone to not disturb mode.
What should you do with your time? Find something that you are doing just for yourself. Whether it is a spa treatment or massage, going out for ice cream, or just sitting down with a good book, only you can decide what works best for you.