Try the Original Biofeedback: Keep a Sabbath
Susan Delphine Delaney MD MS, author of the upcoming I Didn't Fall, I Was Pushed
Take a page from the Owner’s Manual. Keep a Sabbath every week and keep the Sabbath holy. Taking a day to rest and relax will do wonders for your stress level. Did you know that if you looked at the Ten Commandments in Exodus, the Sabbath Commandment takes up 40% of the lines? Keeping the Sabbath will get your body, mind and spirit back to the baseline that the manufacturer intended. This will feel so right and good that you will begin to look for ‘Sabbath moments’ every day of the week.
Hate red lights? You will start welcoming the chance to chill for a moment, to return to that Sabbath baseline. Soon, the renewal of the Sabbath will begin to infuse and color each of your days. Bringing Sabbath consciousness to each day will lower your stress level. In my view, Sabbath is the ‘original biofeedback’.
I have kept a Sunday Holy Sabbath for twenty years. I do no work on Sunday. I have a leisurely breakfast, attend church and then relax all day. I might read the paper, catch up on Facebook, write poetry, read my current book or go to a movie with a friend. I might do something I learned in the intensely chaotic time of medical school: Lie on the bed and look at the ceiling for 30 minutes. Experiencing myself as a human being for a time, not a human doing, brings renewal. I place all of my yesterdays behind me on the Sabbath. I also release my worry about all of my tomorrows.
Taking care of myself on the Sabbath makes me more aware of and able to take care of others. I do not know how I could do my work as a Psychiatrist without Sabbath renewal. I am sure that Sabbath renewal led me to take a part-time job serving homeless mentally ill persons in downtown Dallas. I did this work for six years. It was, at once, the hardest thing I ever did and the most rewarding. I could not have done it without Sabbath.
Sabbath allows me to appreciate my friends. On the Sabbath day, I can spend quality time with friends. Hospitality is an aspect of Sabbath. I might share a simple, pre-prepared meal with a friend on the Sabbath.
Sabbath allows me to appreciate my home and my possessions and to release the acquisitiveness that can plague me for one day.
Sometimes on Monday, I find that I no longer desire a ‘thing’ that had obsessed me during the week.
Sometimes on the Sabbath day, in the peace and renewal, the solution to a problem that I have been struggling with will float into my conscious mind, solved.
Sabbath carries me through tough times, prepares me for the week to come and helps me to see my path so that I can make life-shaping decisions.
Sabbath is a time for undistracted family time. Sabbath time creates tenderness, intimacy, joy, good will and peace in the family. Jewish couples make love on Sabbath afternoons.
On the Sabbath, I have a chance to spend time in creation, appreciating nature. I have time to step outside and watch the sun rise, to smell the air, to feel the wind on my cheek, to check by sight and touch the progress of my plantings through the seasons: buds growing, leaves sprouting, leaves aging and falling and their quiet potential of winter ‘being’.
On Sabbath, I laugh at my efforts to be remembered, to be important. On Sabbath what I am right now is all that is.
On the Holy Sabbath, I step back from the rushing world and get back in touch with my own values and beliefs. I set new priorities based on who I am. Although I have three degrees in science (medicine, physiology and chemistry), on Sabbath I am free of the wrong-headedness that science and technology can bring.
On the Sabbath day, when I cease all work, I stop defining myself by what I produce and consume. On this day, I do not compete or achieve. Instead I accept the gift of peace, dignity and rest.
On the Sabbath, the rest and renewal puts me back in touch with my moral compass. I am free of the values of the culture and of financial and other worries .
I look forward to the Holy Sabbath. I prepare for it by having food at the ready and by having my heart at the ready. In the week after my Sabbath, I cling to Sabbath freedom, rest and direction.
In tough times, Sabbath breaks into the pain and sorrow and brings joy, intimacy with myself and others and renewal.
So, take a page from the Owner’s Manual: ‘Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all of your work but the seventh day is a Sabbath unto the Lord. On that day you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath Day and made it holy. Exodus 20: 8-11.
Dr. Susan Delaney is an adult psychiatrist and psychotherapist in Plano, Texas. Visit Susan's website or find out about her upcoming book at
Whether you're in Plano, Texas and need a psychiatrist or wish to read Susan's upcoming book, visit her website above. Remember also to keep visiting The Ultimate Stress Blog, eat your vegetables and keep the Sabbath holy.
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