Your Inner Self Needs Maintenance Too

My normal day starts most of the time with a bang. The telephone will ring. My patient is in the labor and delivery ready to deliver her baby. Off I go, often at a dizzying speed to the hospital which luckily, is about 10 to 15 minutes away. Most times, I get to the hospital before they deliver their babies. Sometimes, after all the adrenaline rush, on arriving at the nurses' station, I will hear a baby's cry and the joyful screams of the mother and her family members. Many nights would be spent in the hospital taking care of patients. The day is not any better. I forgo lunch most days. In the evenings, after office hours, I still have patients to call, laboratory results to review and completion of my patients' charts. I get home between 9 and 10 pm if I am lucky.

I am not the only one going through this. I am lucky to have one job. Some people have two jobs and go home to take care of their children. We are like the factories or cars that work day and night and can break down if we don't keep their scheduled maintenance up to date. Are you taking time to maintain your body and take care of your mental health? Are you burning your candles at both ends? Do you identify with what I am going thorough?

My solution is to carve out some time for myself daily, before I go to sleep and early in the mornings. I give myself about an hour in the morning to meditate and exercise. The day should start with recharging your batteries. The peace of mind that comes with carving out a quiet time in the morning and evening is enough to cut down stress and adrenal fatigue that otherwise could make you sick. How much time you need for yourself is up to you.

I begin sometimes with spiritual reading and meditation for thirty minutes. I will rather do that than exercise if time does not permit. I then exercise for about ten to fifteen minutes before I shower and get ready for work. I repeat the process in the evening without the exercise. In the hustle and bustle of our daily life, we need interludes of silence to reconnect and ground us to what is important in our lives .