by Penny Horner

“Activity and rest are two vital aspects of life. To find a balance in them is a skill in itself. Wisdom is knowing when to have rest, when to have activity, and how much of each to have.” Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge 1995-2000. 

Finding that balance between activity and rest is difficult in today’s world where we feel a need to be ‘doing something’ at all times. I looked around the carriage on a train recently as we sped alongside the beautiful Northumberland coastline. And it seemed everyone, including me, was using a phone or laptop, letting the scenery pass away unnoticed in our need to be occupied. It has become normal to speak of ourselves as being stressed. This is reflected by mental health statistics consistently showing increases in stress levels. (A 2018 UK survey by the Mental Health Foundation found that in the past year, 74% of people felt so stressed they have...