Self-Help Happiness Blog

What do you do with your free time?  Is it productive?  I don’t mean by “productive” whether it makes money or builds something.  Here is a checklist for your downtime activity:

- Does it get your heart rate pumping?
- Does it make you think in new ways?
- Does it improve the world?
- Does it deepen friendships?

If not, maybe it’s time to rethink how you spend your free time.

This was in A Daily Dose of Happiness a couple days ago.  I like it enough to repeat it here…

Here is a game you can play with your family: Academy Awards.  Decide what each person in your household has done that week that is deserving of praise.  Make the announcement.  Everybody applaud.  Have the person make a speech thanking everyone else for helping.  What a way to create a team atmosphere…and if a family is not a team, what is it?

Let the breeze blow in. There is nothing quite like fresh air to carry our spirits higher. Our lungs know the difference, and they crave real air - the kind you don’t find indoors. Open the windows.

Inhale.

Ahhh…that feels better.

On a footnote, wind is itself one of the four ancient elements, along with fire, earth and water.  What these four elements have in common is that they all have a therapeudic effect on our spirits.