Your Own Personal Relaxation Station
|
It's funny how trying to eliminate stress from your life often just leads to more of the same. Which only compounds your already-frenzied outlook, to where even your stress feels stressed. Which only works you up even more. Which is exactly the kind of added stress you don't need. Which ...
And round and round you go; when you'll relax, nobody knows!
The anxiety many of us feel during the holidays, not to mention those plain-old winter blahs, only make this merry-go-round twirl faster. Meanwhile, the longer you go without jumping off, the greater the risks to your health.
Even mainstream doctors have now joined the chorus declaring unrelenting stress to be bad for you. In the short term, stress can ratchet down your immunity, upping your risk of contracting a cold or other illness. Long-term, stress boosts your likelihood of such life-threatening conditions as heart disease and stroke.
Time-honored practices such as yoga and meditation offer the potential for deep relaxation, yet require a serious commitment that many people find too, well, stressful to make. Short, simple respites are, for most of us, a more-realistic place to start.
Still, easier said than done, right? Wrong! The solution could actually be as simple as a good hammock. There's a reason it's our culture's prevailing symbol of relaxation, after all.
"A hammock is an inexpensive way to turn the mundane into the magical," says J.R. Pelletier, manager of TheHammockCompany.com, an international leader in hammock sales.
Maybe Pelletier hasn't noticed, but it's now winter outside. No worries, he says. "A well-made hammock can be enjoyed whenever you want. It's your own personal relaxation station."
If woven from a weather-tough synthetic yarn such as polyester or the surprisingly soft DuraCord, a hammock can safely hang outside all year long. That equals as many opportunities for outdoor use as you have days of decent weather.
Treat yourself to a couple of tree straps and a quick-assembly hammock stand, and your relaxation station has just become a highly portable prescription for what ails ya', for outdoors, indoors, wherever.
"If you're in a hammock and you're not becoming relaxed," says Walter Perkins III, CEO of The Hammock Source, the world leader in hammock production and sales, "then you're either trying really hard to feel bad, or else you've got yourself a poorly made hammock!"
The Hammock Source includes such trendsetting brands as Hatteras Hammocks and The Original Pawleys Island Rope Hammock.
New hammock owners do need to exercise some caution, though. "A great hammock feels so good, it may just change your life around a bit," Perkins says. "Next thing you know, you'll start finding extra time in your day just to relax!"