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Sadly relaxation is one of the things that is being challenged by the modern lifestyle. It is increasingly harder to relax as society progressed.
And not because we live in very unstable or risky environment, it is actually the opposite, it is the increase comfort and the fact that life is very easy for the majority of people that is compromising their capacity to relax.
We live in the best time humanity ever enjoyed, I can't tell you how many times someone approached me to ask for money on the street and have an obsess body. Even the beggars, the people that should be starving are way better than in the past, not only they are no longer starving but have an excess of food to become overweight.
So then the obvious question is: If we are doing so well, why it is so hard for people to be relaxed?
It is the inconvenience and risk that modern life is allowing most people to avoid. We never develop the capacity to overcome any adversity or risk.
Because risks can't be fully avoided, not even modern innovations like insurance or safety features in cars will create a completely safe environment, they only reduce risks. This means that we are trapped in a risky and dangerous environment, and if risk it is impossible to avoid the safest you are going to be in this world is after you overcome a threat. After the storm passed there is a period of tranquility and it is very unlikely that another storm will come immediately.
Risk is a precursor to relaxation, danger is what causes you to be calm not only overcoming danger will signal to your body that the threat has passed and you are safe now, but also the act of overcoming danger in itself it is a relaxing activity, this is why people enjoy extreme sports.
If you are skydiving, you might feel a lot of anxiety before you have to jump from the plain, after you jump there is no reason to be stressed because it is impossible to prevent anything bad happening to you. If things are going to go bad while you are in the air there is not much you can do about it so the only option is to surrender to that experience.
It is possible to be relaxed in almost any environment, particularly in challenging environments, where you need relaxation the most and it is going to make the biggest difference in your life. If the only place you could be relaxed would be a tropical beach with palm trees swaying in the breeze than relaxation would be useless would provide no benefit to you. So the law of self preservation dictates that relaxation should be possible almost anywhere particularly in dangerous places.
In the past almost nobody had a choice to avoid effort and inconvenience, in the presence we made it possible to be able to survive without to much of it, yet that seems to have negative effects like compromising your capacity to relax. I think embracing danger and taking some calculated risks has to become something conscious that people have to pursue if they wish to be healthy and happy, the same way we do with our diets.
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