What is the SECRET to a Middle of the Day Vacation?

REST: ease up, unwind, recharge, put your feet up, take a load off, just chill.

Because when you don't rest, you wear out, wear down and start running on empty. Then you're not much good for yourself or anyone else. Try to nudge your schedule in a more restful direction, refusing to add new tasks to your own bucket, taking more breaks or simply helping your own mind be less busy with chatter, complaints about yourself and others or inner struggles.

Easier said than done, right? Incorporate these 7 small steps in your daily life to rest and rejuvinate your day.

1. Upon first waking, bring to mind your fundamental purpose in life, whatever it is, and rest in the felt knowing of it, in giving yourself over to it, like resting in the warm cradling current of a great river.

2. At meals, pause for half a minute with your food before you start eating.

3. Be aware of that little space between the end of an inhalation and the beginning of an exhalation (or vice versa). From time to time each day, notice that space and rest into it.

4. When you complete a task, take a break for a few seconds or more before shifting gears to the next one.

5. Promise yourself that you'll take a minute or more each day to sit quietly and remain present with yourself while doing nothing (this is an essential type of meditation).

6. Have real times each day when you truly "clock out" -- no longer on task or accountable to anyone.

7. Encourage your mind to come to rest at least occasionally. Tell yourself you can worry/problem solve/grumble later. The mind/brain is like a muscle, and it needs to stop working sometimes to replenish and rebuild itself.

When you rest, sink into its pleasures, its rewards, and sense them sinking into you, like a warm rain falling on thirsty ground.

When you get more rested, you have more energy, mental clarity, resilience for the hard things, patience and wholehearted caring for others.

by Rick Hanson, Ph.D., a neuropsychologist and author of the bestselling "Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom"

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 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-hanson-phd/why-rest-is-important_b_906725.html

Is Happiness a Habit you can develop and teach your children??

What if happiness was a habit that we could teach children? We can. Qualities that lead away from happiness (strong negative emotions) and qualities that lead toward happiness (ethical actions) are all rooted in habits developed in the past.

Habits are easy to make, hard to break and everybody has them. Some habits are physical (cracking knuckles and twirling hair), some are verbal (using certain words or phrases) and some are psychological (worrying, daydreaming, judging and over-analyzing). By repeating a habit we reinforce the brain circuits associated with it and make the habit stronger.

There is a well-established, evidence-based curriculum that uses mindfulness to develop life-skills that make people happy. It rest on three universal qualities attention, balance and compassion. Mindfulness is a refined process of attention that allows children to see the world through a lens of attention, balance and compassion. When children learn to look at the world with attention, balance and compassion they soon learn to be in the world with attention, balance and compassion.

Making compassion a habit: To make compassion a habit all kids need to do is promise that everything they do will be kind and compassionate and keep that promise. Mindfulness is the mental quality by which children and teens remember to check-in with themselves throughout the day and make sure they are on track. Mindfulness helps kids remember their intention to be kind and compassionate and notice if they're acting and speaking in accordance with it.

Making concentration a habit: Concentrating on one thing and nothing else is a crucial skill in school. To develop concentration, and make it a habit, students use mindfulness to periodically check-in and make sure they are still paying attention to their chosen object.
Making balance a habit: The strong and stable faculty of attention that children and teens develop practicing concentration becomes more refined when they use it to see what's happening in, to and around them clearly even when what's happening is emotionally upsetting or charged. Mindfulness in developing emotional balance goes deeper by developing discernment a powerful quality of wisdom through which children and teens notice, among other things, patterns and habits of action and speech.
Hope motivates change: Parents want to be happy and they want their children to be happy. When they learn that mindfulness training is -- an evidenced based curriculum; with a long, reliable track record; universal in its approach; and taught in a secular way -- they feel hopeful again. Hope motivates change and explains the growing, grassroots social-action movement for mindful education.

Susan Kaiser Greenland, author of The Mindful Child and former corporate attorney, developed the Inner Kids program for children, teens and their families and teaches worldwide.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-kaiser-greenland/the-new-abcs-for-making-h_b_924032.html?ir=Healthy%20Living