A Stressless Weekend

I'm sort of obsessed with Women's Health Magazine.  It, along with Sunset, are the only two magazines I really ever read, and are definitely the only ones I read cover to cover. 

This months issue included a great article about using your weekend downtime as (gasp!) actual downtime.  The article, called "Take Back Your Weekends," points out our tendency to live our lives like a seven-day workweek because we try to use our weekends to catch up on all of the things we didn't have enough time to do during the week (i.e. laundry, grocery shopping, paying bills, etc.).  Not only does this cause the obvious sort of stress when we realize we have no free time, but it also causes some unhealthy trends in both our adrenaline and cortisol levels that prevent our bodies from being able to recoup and recharge, as well as ailments like fatigue and headaches.  I know this may not sound like news to some, and it sort of does seem like common sense to me too, but I can't imagine we're all aware of what our habits are doing to us.  There has to be a reason why as a culture we Americans tend to be sleep-deprived, over-worked and generally just stressed out.

I've actually been noticing this about myself as well: I typically want to pack every single minute of my weekends with new and exciting things to do because I worry that by not doing, I'm wasting.  But in the end all of that doing just prevented me from resting and appreciating the downtime I so look forward to.  Additionally, trying to think up all of those weekend adventures is just plain exhausting.  So I've destroyed my weekends because I'm not prepared to function with free time.

Isn't that sad?

It was sad to me, so I decided to take the advice given in the article and give it a shot this past weekend.  What was the worst thing that could happen?  I would lazy ass around, no big deal. 

I'll leave you to check out the article tips on your own, but here's what I took from it and how it worked out:

• I planned no more than 3 activities this entire weekend.  Nate and I had dinner and drinks with friends on Friday night, dinner with Nate's mom on Saturday night, and I scheduled in some much needed alone time for late Saturday night while I ushered the boyfriend off to a party.  
• I set aside time to do chores and if I didn't finish in that allotted time, the chores were not going to be done this weekend.  What I did do: grocery shopped, a load of laundry.  What I didn't do: the other load of laundry, clean the house.  Those things will fit themselves in either during the week, or as part of next weekends chore time.
• I didn't look at my phone even once on Sunday.  Taking a break from my phone (which I usually check frequently obsessively for email, tweets, Facebook updates, texts from my sisters, phone calls, etc.) was such an interesting and welcome treat that I'm thinking of making every Sunday my "unplug day".
• Nate and I planned something for Sunday night.  What usually happens on Sunday is that, while Nate catches up on his never-ending stream of work, I spend most of the night moping around the apartment and dreading going to bed because it means morning will be here soon and I'll have to go to work.  To ward this off, we instead put away all thoughts of the workweek and made a great Sunday dinner together, then curled up on the couch and watched a movie.  As a result, I went to bed sleepy and relaxed.  We've decided to make Sunday night our stay-at-home date night.

Overall, my weekend was much less stress-filled than it generally is, and I began this week feeling more prepared and rested than I have in a while.  It was really nice to be able to just shut everything off for a while and know that that was exactly what I should be doing.  I'm not saying I don't want to do things -- I love day trips and weekend activities way too much to do nothing all the time -- but maybe I won't do as many things as usual.  Resting doesn't mean wasting and, while that's a whole new concept for me, I'm looking forward to putting it in practice.

Of course, Mondays still suck and I still dislike my job, so chances are I'll be stressed to the brim by the end of the day anyway.  What can you do?