Finding Calm - Mindfulness Through Colouring

Hi Honeys
How are you today?  Here we are at the end of another week, another week closer to the clocks changing over.  I've been having a countdown to the end of winter for what feels like forever.

I'm not a winter person honeys.  In all honestly I'd as soon hibernate and wake up around the end of March each year to a cup of tea and a lovely load of laundry waiting to be done and pegged outside😊

Winter drains the life from me.  In Scotland, during the deepest parts of winter we're lucky to see six hours of daylight here and the seemingly constant darkness wears me down.  I feel more unsettled, I can't sleep, sometimes waking three, four, five times during the night.

Insomnia or broken sleep has been linked to hypertension, or high blood pressure so trying to get through each day with only three or four hours of broken sleep certainly can't be helping my high blood pressure.

I've decided honeys that I need to do something to tackle my health concerns.  I may not be able to make the arthritis go away but with a little work maybe I can improve my blood pressure.

In today's 24 hour world, where many, myself included, work odd shifts and life just doesn't stop, not even a little it's increasingly difficult to find any sense of calm.  Even when we all go to bed our phones, tablets and other devices are never far away. There doesn't seem to be any escape from the hustle and bustle of life and the world outside.

I've been making a concentrated effort to find little pockets of time where I can switch off.  Literally switch off, in that I turn off the TV, my laptop, everything, so that our home is completely silent except for the reassuring, and calming, sound of my beloved Mother in law's clock in our living room.

I then sit on the sofa, usually with our furbaby Jade and I disappear into an intricate pattern or a beautiful landscape, aided by nothing more than a few colouring pencils...
 

Of course serenity doesn't live in the pencils or colouring books honeys, I find the same levels of calm, where I can literally feel the stresses leave my body, feel my shoulders and muscles relax, when I listen to music or to a favourite audio book.

There's no doubt though that colouring does help me relax.  Our senses are bombarded each day with countless things demanding our attention, so to just switch off that mind clutter, that noise, and be still.  To concentrate our minds on nothing more than the lines on a piece of paper and allow ourselves to breathe is priceless.

Summer is coming and that will help me feel better too.  Only two more weeks, it's already starting to become lighter earlier in the mornings and staying lighter that little bit later at night.  Maybe I need to find a way to bring a little hygge into our home.

Hygge, a wonderful method of bringing happiness, cosiness and joy into your home and life during the long, dark winter months, originated with our Danish cousins.  You can read a little more about it and watch a wonderful short report on it here at the Visit Denmark site.

How do you relax and get away from the bustle of life honeys?  Do you colour?  Do you paint? Draw? Listen to music?  Please share in the comments section, I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Till next time dear ones, stay warm and safe, it's still chilly outside.  Have a fabulous weekend, smile lots and hug even more.  Huggles always xx