An oasis break is a quick way to increase your creativity, resilience, health and well being.
What comes to mind when you conjure up the idea of an oasis? For me, it’s a delightful surprise of lushness and paradise–like heaven on earth–that I have come upon in foreign desert lands!
An oasis break is when you briefly step away from normal activity (for 30 seconds to 3 minutes for example, during your day) and you bring to mind positive feelings. You create your own internal lush paradise.
How do you do this? A simple oasis activity is to recall a moment where you felt especially good in the recent or long term past (a “best experience”) and identify the feelings you had- such as delight, joy, a sense of accomplishment, connection, love, support, trust, full engagement, a sense of meaning, belonging, interest, amusement, fun, courage, etc.
As a result of recalling the memory, you are going to experience those wonderful feelings again. To increase the experience of good feelings, you might recall another time you also felt those same positive feelings.
Doing this activity, even for a short time, sends messages to your brain to secrete certain neuro-transmitters that I call “happy chemicals” (like dopamine) which flood your body with positive feelings. At the same time, according to researcher Barbara Fredrickson (Positivity) those positive feelings work to increase creativity.
Fredrickson also states that health, wellbeing and resilience (which I will talk more about in another blog) are a direct result of positive feelings over time. So try to do this regularly. It only takes a moment and no assembly required.
If you would like to discuss your goals of increasing resilience, wellbeing and/or creativity, please contact me about coaching! I specialize in approaches that increase positivity and productivity for you, your team and your company.