De-stressing with Bente (#8)

Learning to relax again: how do you manage to do that? Bente (23) is a freelance journalist and works as an online editor at Flow. Having experienced a near-burn-out, she’s finding her way to a life with less stress. And every Friday, she takes us with her on her journey to get there.

Why are there so few hours in a day? I ask myself the same thing every night. It is not that I stuff my day with plans and therefore do not manage to get everything done. Since my near-burn-out, I only dare to make modest plans. On the days that I do not work, I aim to take a walk in the morning, read a book in the afternoon, and watch a series in the evening.

At the end of such a day, however, I’ve done the shopping and cooked, for example, but that walk never happened, and I may have managed to read just two pages in my book. Great. Actually, it’s not even the number of hours in such a day that’s the problem. It’s the fact that I didn’t spend those hours well. And that frustrates me.

On Saturday morning I read my mail and see a message from my uncle. He writes that he is enjoying reading my pieces about de-stressing and that my stories also have common ground with his world, even though he is a lot older. He’s retiring soon, and with that in mind, he is trying to create more and more calm in his life.

He writes, ‘For the past few weeks, I have become more and more aware that I spent too much time on my private mail. Half an hour a day was the norm, only to conclude that I hadn’t really benefited from it.’