Medicinal Moments

By: Hope Osborn

A Smart Device Schedule

Tap. Tap. Tap. Slide. While gulping down breakfast, you check the schedule on your smart device. Hit the gym in 30 minutes and you can grab a quick workout before heading to an 8:30 appointment. Your workout and the health club software mobile app remind you to sign up for yoga. An alert for your brother’s birthday in a week—need to think about what to get him and schedule time for shopping online or in store. Lunch meeting at 12:30 to discuss financial options. Lucy’s doctor appointment means early school pick-up …

Whatever the realm—home, office, car, ‘floor’, or classroom—the demands are ongoing. The demands of life build tension, moment after moment, day after day, draining our body, fogging our mind, and destabilizing our emotions.

Stop a moment and you can feel it … tight … unyielding … tender … In your neck … shoulders … back … In your interactions … impatient … irritated … self- centered.

Stress or tension can lead to aches, pains, fatigue, aggravation of existing conditions, and development of new ones which then leads to the demand of a doctor appointment. Although we aren’t totally able to avoid doctor’s appointments, or aches and pains for that matter, we can reduce them with healthy habits in exercise, diet, and relaxation or ‘medicinal moments’. Prevention is the best medicine so add the demand of medicinal moments to your schedule.

A Medicinal Moment

When—Schedule Time

Schedule ‘medicinal moments’ of 7, 10, 15 minutes or hour or occasional day on your smart device like you do to make everything else happen. Schedule it to repeat. Schedule a chime for Moment’s end so clock-watching isn’t a distraction.

With—Prepare Tonic

Hydrate to renew and refresh. Minimize sugar and caffeine. Wrap your hands around a warm cup of chamomile or green tea. Sip a glass of red or white wine. Refresh yourself with cooling cucumber, lemon, or strawberry slices in your water.

Where—Create Space

Find a quiet, comfortable place that is available most if not all the time. Shut the door. Go to the car. Sit in a park. Dim the light. Adjust the temperature. Add a light, soothing fragrance or dispel an unpleasant one. Quieten with white noise or soft, instrumental music. Silence your phone (even vibrate!).

While—Enter Space

(Don’t think about it! Not about who you need to call, what you need to do, or what is nagging you.) Close your eyes. Slow and regulate breathing. Concentrate on taking one slow deep breath in your nose and slowly releasing it from your mouth.

Continue easing into relaxation one body part at a time … toes, feet, legs, fingers, hands, arms, buttocks, abdomen, lower back, upper back, shoulders, neck, face, head.

Enhance the experience of your created space—breathe in cleanness or fragrance, tune in music or quiet, drink in refreshment. Consider the details. Consider a warm memory or image the fragrance, melody, or flavor remind you of. Consider the details. Consider the beautiful, the humorous, or the pleasant. Consider a gift of flowers, a shared laugh, or a delightful dessert.

Whereas—Continue Considering

Slowly enter back into life’s demands after your medicinal moment, but try to never completely leave it.