Want to energize your mind, body and soul? These 24 innovative ideas are guaranteed to fill your life with challenges and fun.
What better season than fall to energize your mind, body and soul? Even if you're not a student anymore, there are dozens of ways to get that rush of back-to-school energy. We've got some ideas — now you take some action!
1. Take an evening class
Have you always wanted to write an award-winning screenplay, whip up Celtic bracelets or speak French like a native of Provence? The time is now! Call your local community center and sign up for a noncredit course.
2. Get a makeover
Fancy yourself a redhead? Ask your hairdresser for a dye, or try a semipermanent rinse at home. And what about your makeup? Book an appointment with a department store cosmetics specialist, and leave looking like a new person.
3. Spend quality time with your parents
Banish pizza and videos and go out with Mom and Dad for dinner and a movie.
4. Find a blast from the past
Stop wondering what happened to your best friend from primary school — track him or her down and find out. It could rekindle a great friendship!
5. Clean out your wardrobe
Be brutal! If that dress clings in all the wrong places or that jacket looks like a tent since you lost weight, bag them for charity.
6. Put your hand up
Give something back to the community by volunteering to help a charity. Deliver meals to the elderly with Meals on Wheels. Sign up as a Red Cross volunteer. Help your local Humane Society by cleaning, feeding and walking stray dogs.
7. Spice up your social life
Spend a night at a karaoke bar or theme park or line-dancing with a group of friends, and tighten your stomach muscles with all the laughing you'll do.
8. Formalize your weight goal
Set on reaching a certain weight by your niece's wedding or your partner's 40th? Then try strategies to motivate yourself. List 10 things you'll enjoy when you're slimmer. Take two more walks a week. Drink one more glass of water per day.
9. Trace your family history
Who knows, you may discover some interesting skeletons in the closet or a famous long-lost ancestor. Local genealogical societies are a great resource, and a lot of information can be found online.
10. Create a fragrant garden indoors
Go on a shopping spree for scented candles, soaps, essential oils and potpourri. Want to be more hands-on? Hit the crafts shop and snap up some "how to" books on candle-making and soap kits.
11. Overdose on fresh air
Head to the park, but don't languish on a picnic blanket — get moving! Ride a bike, feed the ducks, throw a Frisbee, walk your dog, play a game of tag or rent some inline skates.
12. Absorb more culture
Art and history can be good soul food — spend an afternoon at a gallery or museum catching the latest exhibition. Can't be bothered fighting the crowds? Then check your local paper for smaller exhibitions at libraries or community centers.
13. Decode your dreams
Was that snake you dreamt of an omen of danger? Keep a dream diary by your bed to record your dreams right when you wake up. Then discover what your subconscious is telling you with a dream analysis book or by looking it up online.
14. Feel young again
Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, Thumper in Bambi — recapture the wonder you felt watching them by spending an afternoon at the movies and seeing the world through a child's eyes. If you don't have kids, offer to take your sister's or friend's kids — they'll love you for it.
15. Sit around a campfire
Tell ghost stories, roast marshmallows and bellow old campfire favorites. The warmth of friends and flame will relax and mesmerize you.
16. Go bazaar
Bright scarves, the smell of fresh flowers — at open-air markets your senses will get a complete workout. Better still, you can save time with diverse one-stop shopping by picking up ingredients for tonight's dinner, buying a new outfit, choosing a rug for the kitchen and purchasing some new house plants.
17. Plan the ultimate party
Make it an evening of wine-tasting, a literary occasion, a "fortune-telling" night (organize a psychic to come and give readings) or a beauty session where you and your friends give each other manicures and pedicures while sipping Champagne.
18. Redecorate your bedroom
Large, black, square candles atop a bed of cloves on square saucers provide a touch of the Orient. Or try mosquito netting hung from a ring above your bed. The only limit is your imagination — so decide what ambience you want to create, then go for it.
19. Get the team spirit
Want to have fun, make friends and burn calories all at the same time? Then sign up for a team sport such as basketball, soccer or ice hockey.
20. Make your own greeting cards
Enjoy the artistic challenge of design using colored cardboard decorated with anything from rose petals or leaves to watercolors combined with ink.
21. Save at the sales
Tired of the frantic, last-minute dash to find birthday presents? Banish the panic factor by buying gifts for friends and relatives well in advance at mid-season sales.
22. Breakfast in style
Pack a scrumptious breakfast, then take it to a scenic spot such as the beach or a local park.
23. Be a dancer
But don't play it safe. Instead of ballroom dancing, try Latino, Irish, belly or tap dancing. It will do wonders for your waistline and your coordination.
24. Consult on color
Should you buy that fabulous jacket in taupe or cream to best suit your complexion? Ask a color consultant (go to the department store to find one).
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