Time for a Naycation: 8 Tips to Rejuvenate at Home

The heightened alert level resulting from the swine flu, continued economic woes, and uncertainty might cause you to put off your vacation plans. How about taking a vacation without traveling? How to rejuvenate without spending money? That’s the challenge.

Wellness expert and author Asha Praver explains “Take a holiday at home — nothing special there. But make this also a vacation from both speed and noise.”

During this vacation, Praver advises to spend all your time — physically, psychically, and telecommunication-wise — right where you are. Talk only to those people who are physically with you. Pay attention only to events that happen right where you are.

Living in a vacation spot, I am victim to often not taking advantage of taking time to rejuvenate at home. Not to mention the pile of “snowy” day projects (I don’t think I’ll have a snow day in southern Florida). In this economy, it is not a bad idea to make your home your tropical escape. How often when we go on vacation do we look forward to coming home? There is something in the saying, “home is where the heart is.”

Following are eight of Praver’s top tips to taking a Naycation this year. 

1. Operate at the speed of foot-power. Don’t move faster than your body can propel itself. In addition to the obvious walking or running, this includes foot-powered devices like skates, bikes, or scooters.
2. Get in synch with your children and your pets. Set no appointments, schedule, or deadlines. Give your children and animals as much of your complete attention as they will accept from you. This will naturally slow you down and bring you to a focus right where you are.
3. Play games. Not electronic games or anything that makes noise on its own. Play board games, conversation games, Pictionary, Charades, things that people of all ages can enjoy together.
4. Read. Not just thrillers or popular romances, but great, interesting, classic literature, for children or adults. Read out loud to each other. Try Shakespeare. Or, if your vacation is long enough, start, and finish something really ambitious like Lord of the Rings, or a popular version of The Mahabharata.
5. Cook your own food. Don’t go out, or order in. Food prepared by others brings with it their vibrations, which you ingest. This is a time to get in tune with yourself and with those you love. Involve friends and family, including children, in food preparation. Then sit down together and enjoy what you’ve created. Cook from scratch as much as possible.
6. Sleep outside.  If your neighborhood is safe, quiet, free from biting insects and inclement weather, move your bed outside, or set up the equivalent with a comfortable mattress, sheets, pillows, and blankets. Don’t try to sleep on the hard ground or use a tent. Fall asleep looking at the moon and stars, wake up in the early light in the fresh dawn air. It will do amazing things for your health and your perspective.
7. Talk to the people around you. Invite friends over to spend time in conversation, or in doing together all those things listed above. Be with one another without having your attention drawn off to times, places, and events brought in via electronic media.
8. Be creative. Knit, sew, paint, garden, carve, write poetry, anything that engages your creative artistic self.

Praver advises if you stick with these tips, you’ll find yourself resting and renewing on a level you didn’t know was possible. “It could turn out to be the cheapest, and the best vacation you’ve ever had,” she says.

Use this recession to reconnect with your family, tackle your “someday” list, and explore passions. Which of these tips are most appealing to creating a rejuvenating naycation?