7 Reasons Why Being Alone isn’t Bad

Dance like no one’s watching

We’ve all heard this quote and we’ve all embraced it. However, there is problem: someone is always watching. Someone is always there around you when you work – squinting their eyes and giving unasked opinions.  Sometimes, you value these opinions so much that you become afraid of being along – forgetting that being alone it isn’t bad at all. In fact, being alone is the greatest gift you can give to your stressed self.

As an only child who spends his days dreaming up fictional creations and living in amazing scenarios, let me tell you this: being alone let you do as you think, and you can always think amazing things.

And that’s not all I got 7 more reasons to play an advocate of solitariness.

Here are the 7 reasons being alone is not bad

Outline:

1. You no longer seek validation from others: Being around people is good, but it also limits you. For an insecure person, being in a crowd is like jumping into the pond of great whites. You constantly seek their validation from all the judgemental eyes. As a result, you try to change yourself for others, even before knowing what you are. Spending some time alone helps you validate yourself.

2. It helps you prepare for a conversation: What do you do when you have an interview schedules the next day? You go in front of the mirror – alone – and have a conversation with yourself. You try to get all the answers and the mannerisms right so that once you face the interviewer, you are confident. The same happens when you go out on a date. Being alone helps you prepare.

By running all possible scenarios and having fictional conversations, you make yourself ready to face anything.

3. You don’t have to compromise: I can’t tell you how many times I had to choose a way expensive restaurant to eat out because of expectation of my peers. I am a guy who likes cheap food, and is comfortable in cheap places. Being alone lets me be me.

The same can be with you. You can do whatever your heart desires, on your own time, and at your own pace. You don’t have to listen to anyone.

4.  It’s the only way to know yourself: Do you think you enjoy watching The Dark Knight Rises? Or you are merely tolerating it because your friends like it so much? Do you know what gets you motivated? Do you know what makes you a better person?

Answers to these questions can only be found when you spend some time alone. When you put these questions to others, they are going to answer with their own perceptions. But here is the thing, it’s their perception. Listening to their perception over and over will drive you away from the real you. So, spend time alone and inquire yourself.

5. It recharges your brain: When you are alone, your mind can finally relax. You can get lost into your imagination and come out with great ideas. Then once you’re ready to work, you work with more vigour, creativity and excitement.

Also, once your brain is charged, you become full with self-motivation to move forward with your day and conquer it.

6. It lets you tackle stress: You always seek distraction to curb stress. You choose it not out of necessity, but out of fear. Fear that once you are alone, we are going to over think and your brain will explode. This fear is a lie of limitation that you have to overcome. In fact, spending some time alone is one of the many secrets of a stress free life. 

Being alone will make you ask yourself questions. Why is this problem unsolvable? Is there an alternative solution? Why am I stressed? The closer you are to their answers, the less stressful you feel.

7. You’ll have more freedom: There is no feeling greater than being free to do whatever you want, be whatever you want, and eat whatever you want. Even when you make mistakes by doing anything, you’ll realize it on your own. This way, freedom will make you wiser.

Conclusion

If you can’t Dance like no one’s watching, you can dance when no one is watching. Have some fun on your own, with yourself, looking into your own being. Spending time away from prying eyes is the key to know oneself. Because if you define yourself, others will do it for you.

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7 Secrets of Leading a Stress-Free Life in This Age of Constants

We live in the age of constant motion. Constantly, either our bodies are moving, or our minds.

We are:

• Constantly worrying about something,  
• Constantly trying to come up with a new hustle,
• Constantly enraging looking at that politically incorrect blog,
• Constantly critiquing things we don’t agree with.........

You see where I am going with this. In this constant age of information, we have many things to engage with. And most of the time, our engagement isn’t healthy.

As a result, the only thing constant in our lives is stress. And we don’t even realize it. We have become so enamoured with what goes on around us that we aren’t looking inside. We don’t give to licks of squat about our own feelings. The longer we ignore them, the longer they burn us from the inside.

And you know what happens when you feel like you are burnt from inside – you lose your will to move forward. That’s why; most of my blogs have been so focused with dealing with depression and other things.

But still, what if we attack the root of the issue? What if we attack stress? After watching so many MindValley videos myself because of the stress I’ve imposed on my life, I decided to write something that’ll help us both.

Secrets of a stress-free life

The secrets of leading a stress-free is this: there is no secret. Yeah, you are right. I just pulled off a Kung Fu Panda lesson for this blog. It’s all about you.

Your stress happens to your brain. Your brain acts upon your commands. Your commands are often a reaction to what you see, feel, hear, perceive. Control your actions and you’ll control your stress.

Keep this mind as I talk to you about the seven “secrets” of leading a stress-free life.

1. Look for positive in every situation: Many of you might feel that this statement is too sanctimonious, monotone and even cliché. The truth is – IT IS! However, just like any cliché, it works.

It’s difficult to feel positive when you’ve failed in an exam, got rejected in an interview, or rejected from a relationship. But you don’t have to feel it; you only have to look for it. Alter your perception. Promise yourself that you’ll be better next time. Be optimistic that there are better things coming up. Motivating yourself through the thick and thin of every situation and your mind will start to unload.

2. Embrace your creative side: We are all creative in some shape or form. Some of us know how to dance. Some of us know how to sing and some of us know how to showcase our writing an audience (shameless plug alert). However, all of us have to put in a fair bit of thinking in doing what we do.

What do you do when you stress? You think, mostly with a train of thought that goes in a circular platform. There is exit. Creativity gives an exit to that train, that’s why we say Creative outlet:  creatively letting the stress out.

3. Support, don’t criticize: The very first chapter of Daniel Carnegie’s “How to win friends and influence people” is an eye opener (and the only chapter I’ve read so far). It focuses on how you can win people’s hearts when you act as a friend, rather than a critique. But what’s the relationship with stress? It’s really simple.

Your actions are reactions to what you perceive. If you give a positive response, you’re going to receive a positive one. It’s the primary way to reduce stress in this cynical age, where much of your behaviour depends on how people act towards you.

In a way, you can think of this one as a cynical secret of relieving stress. Oh Daniel! You really knew how messed we’ll all be in your future.

4. Go crazy when no one is looking: Its fun being able to talk to your own self. Asking yourself questions. Closing your eyes and taking yourself on an imaginary journey into an imaginary world cooked up by your own imagination. In this world, you have complete control over your behaviour. You can be away from the judgemental and prying eyes and be yourself. And then, you can literally “visualize” the stress away from your mind.

The more you take this imaginary journey, the more you introspect. Introspection then leads to finding out the root of your stress. And when you realize where your stress is coming from, you can “uproot” the reason.

5. Detach yourself from your emotions: When you are stressful, your emotions are like tsunami – sweeping you away, thrashing you around, killing your focus. But, it only happens if you are swimming in that emotional-ocean. That’s why, it’s important to detach yourself from your emotions. 

When you can detach from your emotions, you can detach from your stress. Then you realize that it’s you who jumped into the tsunami on your own accord. Regaining control of your actions means being a spectator of your emotional self. Take a hard look at this self. Why is he/she feeling like that? What’s the cause? How he/she is reacting to the source of stress?

The more you are able to answer these questions, the deeper you’ll be able look into your emotions and the better you’ll get at handling stress.  How to look at your emotional self? Well, the 6^th point is based on that.

6. Remove trash from your mind: Meditation is an ancient art bestowed upon us by our ancestors. But, we have forgotten all about it. Why? Because unlike them, we don’t have time to sit around and think about whatever the hell we are inside – the greatest argument from a procrastinator.

What I’ve realized from my day as a fulltime professional is this: we always have time, but not for things that are good for us. We have time to get into political arguments. We have time to critique a movie. Hell, we even have time to make a joke about Sharma Ji ka beta but when it comes to stilling our minds, we don’t.

Just know this, all your arguments and your input about vain topics are worth nothing, to anyone. And they shouldn’t be worth anything to you either. Remove these vain things (trash) from your mind. Allow it to focus on actual purpose. It will help you look at your emotional self.

7. Do one thing at a time: Everyone aspires to be a multitasking ninja. And yes, it’s amazing. What you don’t realize however, is that being stress-free is the requirement to be one. Therefore, it’s better to slow down and breath when you are feeling overloaded.

Focus on one thing at a time will give you purpose, and you’ll forget what you were stressing about.

What’s the common denominator in all the points above? They all depend upon your actions. Take the right ones and see your stress float away. Take the wrong one, and the stress will become physical.

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How to Handle a Depressed State of Mind

When, an overwhelming sadness surrounds you, you enter a state where you don’t know about your own feelings. You don’t find anything interesting, enjoyment baffles you and you can’t muster a single positive thought. It’s like a dark and bottomless abyss. You keep falling in it, but don’t have the motivation to look up and find a way out. This is depression. An ultimate destroyer, it perishes dreams, hobbies and lives of many.

There are many topics, many medications and many ways to get out of the depressive state of mind. However, many still find it hard to come out of that. And, they are right. It is hard.

Dealing with depression on your own is not just a mountainous task, it’s also nigh impossible. However, there is a way to stabilize your mind when you are in a depressive state. Only then, the healing can finally begin.

Dealing with depression on your own

To this day, there is a social stigma surrounding depression. People aren’t willing to openly talk about it because they are afraid of being judged. And they are right. The world is full of too many judgements and not many solutions. Therefore, if you seek to handle depression without medication, you should go ahead. Here are some general tips to help you:

1. Get in a routine: Depression is a state of peaceful chaos. An oxymoron that does nothing and stops you from doing anything. Your days start and end in lazy disarray. To control this chaos, you need to get in a routine. By adding structure to your life, you start your attempt of building yourself up.
2. Set daily small goals: Negative emotions put you in a cage of the “no-win” belief. It makes you unable believe or comprehend success. The practical way to come out of this cage is to set small goals daily; ones that you can achieve. Achieving these small goals invigorate your desire to win and is a way how you motivate yourself in life.
3. Exercise to gain focus: Depression shrouds your mind under dark clouds of uncertainties – causing no goal in sight to focus on. If your mind can’t find a goal, let your body find a goal for it. Exercising focuses your mind. By physically exerting yourself, you give your mind something that it cannot shy its focus from.
4. Eat healthy to feel good: “A man’s heart is through his stomach”, a saying, while unrelated to the topic of this article, speaks truth. Depression makes your heart sink, making you lose the sense of happiness. Your body than acts to ineffectively emulate happiness by becoming gluttonous. Doing so does the exact opposite and your heart sinks further. Control what you eat and your body will energize – making you feel better.
5. Sleep more: To control the peaceful chaos of depression, you must find a way to relax your mind. And there is nothing more relaxing that losing yourself in dreams. Sleeping is how your body performs your internal functions. Its how your body recharges and comes up with new ideas, new aspirations and new look at life. If your depression is mild, a good night’s sleep can make you forget all about it.
6.  Use logic: One thing that you must always know about depression is this “Your mind doesn’t control you, you control it”. It’s a spiritual way of looking at your own self. Challenge the negative thoughts that come by implementing logical thinking. Logic gives you answers and when you have answers, your mind relaxes. Using logic to curb stomp negative thoughts is the principle way of dealing with depression in college students.
7. Take charge: Depression makes you act lazily. If something doesn’t interest you, you don’t pursue it, and when nothing interest’s you, you don’t do anything. However, when you know you are depressed, you have to actively act against how you feel. Take charge and pick up responsibilities. While it won’t treat depression at home (because nothing does), it will remind you what life is about: meaning. Find meaning and you mind calms, stabilising your mental state.

Dealing with depression doesn’t mean suppressing or eradicating it. There is no way you can handle depression alone. The above steps are merely to put your life on track. They will make you aware of your own predicament and then, you can act upon it.

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