Leisure Time

There are centres, books, and of course practitioners of the art of ripping people off: all in the need of relaxation. We are told that we need to relax, otherwise we might become too stressed and die. There is a whole industry out there, helping us to relieve our stresses. But everyone is different. Everyone relaxes in their own way. Some even chillax. Some like whale music while they massage, which makes me wonder. Are whales permanently in a state of deep relaxation, just from having chat? Of course without hands its quite tricky to massage each other, but even still. Thinking about it, those whales who go the other way and try to imitate us, and our holiday time on the beach, end up – probably very relaxed – beached, and unable to swim off.

On the other hand, some people like to relax in completely different ways. Some would jump off bridges on the end of a cord, listening to bagpipe music.

Is there some middle ground here? Possibly abseiling whilst admiring landscape pictures and having a gin and tonic?

Sleep is the ultimate in relaxation. Some say it is the soul that needs relaxation. After a good sleep you feel refreshed. Imagine then what a bear feels when it wakes from hibernation. Hunger probably. But also a great sense of relaxation. Apparently hibernation can be induced into people by making them breathe a type of hydrogen sulfide gas. I wouldn’t recommend it though, even if you are an insomniac. Humans are not supposed to hibernate. And in an artificially created state you might die. The upside is in space travel. If it could be made safe, we could sleep our way to the next planet and then have a slap-up meal to celebrate when the astronauts got there.

Yoga teaches us that we need to learn how to relax: from, cats and dogs and infants. This results in an exercise of breathing and lying down. Would this help us in our bid for space colonisation? Probably not. But it might be relaxing to find out.