Long days at the office require rest and relaxation. Waking up at the early hours of the morning, commuting to job sites, and devoting energy and time to your trade requires significant psychological, emotional, and physical bandwidth. As we make the journey home following a productive day, we look forward to seeing the inside of our homes. Putting your feet up while relaxing in the recliner, getting filled in on how your spouse or child’s day was, or zoning out to watch a few shows on the television sounds appealing. As we devote hours to other tasks throughout the day, we expend a tremendous number of calories, which leaves us hungry at the end of the day. As a staple in our human rituals over the course of our existence, dinner has been the most potent end of day tool to help us relax and prepare to hit the hay. Dinner is a time to wind down and prepare for six to eight hours of slumber before we wake up to seize the day again as the sun rise awaits us tomorrow.
Dinner, or supper time, occurs when the sun descends in the horizon. The lights turn on around the inside of the house, the sounds of cars driving down our streets dissipates, and birds stop chirping. The decreased stimuli create a quiet, soothing, and relaxing climate. Additionally, as we sit down to enjoy a plate of food at dinner, we might be accompanied by our spouse, kids, or other family members. Our pets can even join us for dinner, making this a great conclusion to an eventful day. Fortunately, this is an opportunity to share experiences and interact with the people we are closest to. Cacophony and stimuli of a standard workday are momentarily put on hold during dinner. People at the dinner table, and the plate of food in front of you, offer a moment of peace.
Few parts of our day allow us to catch up with our loved ones. It’s common for partners in a romantic relationship to work separate jobs away from each other for eight to ten hours per day and be void of any communication between each other. Kids attend school, play sports, and hang out with their friends until they arrive home. They might spend more time getting homework completed and study for tests. If dinner is the only time to be in the same room before life presents the next day full of tasks, perhaps limiting distractions can aid us in resting up and resetting for tomorrow.
Turning off the television for fifteen to thirty minutes won’t hurt anything. Setting cell phones to “do not disturb” and laying them to rest in a different room isn’t the end of the world. They aren’t going anywhere. We have already been exposed to a day’s worth of fast paced meetings, deadlines, talking on our phones, answering email, and conducting multiple conversations with others. Our nerves and stress hormones are running rampant after a successful day of productivity. Listening to the news, scrolling through social media, and answering texts impose more stimulus to a body already put through a marathon of being a productive human for our jobs and tasks throughout the day.
Dinner is a time to rest and digest, not a time for fight or flight. We got off that flight the moment we clocked out of work and drove home. Perhaps it would benefit our life to stay off of the flight of the never-ending fire hose stream of voicemails, text messages, social media feeds, and way too many news updates when we sit down for dinner. Give the body a chance to decompress, sit still, and enjoy a moment to ourselves and with the people we love. Perhaps we can turn the electronics off for just a moment to refresh yourself at dinner. The text messages, social media, and news will be there when you finish that little bit of time at dinner. I promise.
Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.
