The practice of meditation can make profound improvements in the quality of life. The deep rest experienced provides healing and empowerment. Another important quality to enhance is that of balance, an absolute necessity for healthy living. As all aspects of life seem to follow through somewhat cyclical rhythms, one’s ability to go with that flow through balanced living should be a goal for every day life. One’s lifestyle should support the natural cycle of rest and activity. Too much of either will have a deteriorating effect on the quality of life.

Many people think about sleep as a certain number of hours of restful unconsciousness but this definition of rest is far from accurate. Especially in today’s stress filled world, the more important aspects of rest (and recovery) need to be the quality of sleep and the consideration of an additional stress reduction practice like meditation. Sleep quality is not defined by the number of hours of sleep but by one’s ability to recover from physical, mental and emotional exertion. One important element of that sleep quality is regularity. Whether a person can control the exact times of sleep in any 24 hour period (due to work schedules, etc) may not be as important as the regularity of getting to sleep and waking at roughly the same times each day.

Research has shown that people who work swing shifts (work shifts that change often from day to afternoon to night, etc) suffer the most from inadequate sleep rest because their bodies are constantly having to adapt to a new schedule. Adaptation is a normal function of one’s physiology but this case is excessive. Meditation, with its proven ability to provide deep levels of rest, is a good adjunct to sleep with regards to rest and recovery.

The other side of the rest / activity cycle is important for other reasons. Since today’s civilization requires less physical activity than in generations past, it is imperative that one includes exercise as part of balanced living. One problem with physical work as activity is that it very often is poor quality exercise. Physical work often requires exertion at ergonomically incorrect positions and repetitions. Physical movement that is helpful to one’s body should be performed with proper posture, a sensible repetition rate and number. Properly performed exercise is as beneficial to one’s physiology as the deep rest of quality sleep and meditation.

Diet is another key factor that supports both the energy requirement of the activity side of the cycle and the repair and rebuilding process of the rest side of the cycle. In today’s world, a good diet means more than food intake in accordance with the latest food pyramid. It also means taking in plenty of clean water along with a few key supplements (from your research) that science has proven to be beneficial without harmful side effects. Only after one has established a healthy regimen of rest / activity supported by a healthy diet can one maintain one’s direction in pursuit of personal goals in life.

Finally, one’s mental attitude can enhance life’s experiences or make life a drudgery of suffering. A person’s self image is probably the most important attitude to examine, with a positive self image being the desired outcome. But some people confuse self esteem or positive self image with pride, being self centered or arrogant. True self esteem is acceptance of oneself, complete with faults and inadequacies running parallel to positive attributes. Humility is actually the outcome of a correct self image and the important ability to laugh at oneself on a regular basis. . Even if one acknowledges that he is the world’s greatest tiddlywinks player, one can still have an attitude of humility if one is quiet inside, totally self referral, confident but willing to learn and be open to deeper levels of tiddlywinks knowledge.