Memorial Day is a U.S. federal holiday set aside to acknowledge our military’s servicemen and women who have fallen in the line of duty. It is a day of commemoration, remembrance, and giving thanks for those who’ve given the ultimate sacrifice for our great nation.

Although most of us also recognize the weekend as the un-official kickoff of summer, we should all take a moment sometime today to silently thank those who’ve given their lives to defend and protect these United States of America.

They deserve at least that much.

Sometimes when we’re exhausted, we gravitate toward activities that drain us even more. Or we think we don’t deserve to take a break, so we ignore our body’s whispers for rest. But only in helping ourselves can we help others and do good work.

Just in time for the long Memorial Day weekend, here are 20 ways that can truly help you relax, refresh and recharge.

And, if you don’t think you have the time to unwind, don’t worry! Many of these activities take just a few minutes.

According to author Laura Vanderkam in her newest e-book What the Most Successful People Do At Work: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Career, the secret to “astonishing productivity” lies in daily disciplines.

In the book Vanderkam outlines seven of these disciplines: mind your hours; plan; make success possible; know what is work; practice; pay in; and pursue pleasure. For each one she shares stories and interviews with successful people who use these disciplines in their own daily lives.

Here are several lessons from Vanderkam’s book on boosting your productivity and being successful at work.

I am frequently asked “What is mindfulness?”

I start by saying something poignant like “It’s being aware and in the present moment” or “It’s about allowing each experience to wash over us like a cool spring rain, without attachment or judgments.” I love these answers and they generally tend to spawn a lively conversation about experiences, judgment and simply allowing ourselves to be present.

Mindfulness, though, is also about perception and reaction. Here’s what I mean…

The day I returned from inpatient therapy, my Lab-Chow mix cuddled up to me on the bed as I cried. She looked into my defeated gaze and licked my tears.

I was astounded that this creature was capable of the empathy that I so craved in my closest friends and relatives. It was like she could read the pathetic and sad thoughts that disabled me and wanted me to know I was lovable in the midst of my suffering.

She continues to be a supportive presence in my life, especially on the days that I grow weary of trying on — and throwing out — every mindful exercise and cognitive behavioral strategy… the hours where staying positive seems impossible. She gets it. I know she does.

Every week I hear tales of four-legged creatures becoming angels in times of terrifying darkness. Indeed, a substantial body of research indicates that pets improve our mental health.

How? Here are a few ways.

Every month in our interview series we take a peek into a different person’s creative process. We learn what inspires and fuels their beautiful work and how they navigate the obstacles that can potentially hinder their creative practice. Plus, we get tips that can be applied to our own creativity.

This month we’re honored to share our interview with Vivienne McMaster, a Vancouver-based photographer with a big heart and a spirit of playfulness. McMaster leads workshops and online classes that invite individuals to tell their stories using photography.

Her prime tool is self-portraiture. After experiencing a rough patch in her own life, it was photography, and self-portraiture in particular, that helped her heal and find her way back to herself.

We’re joining the APA in honoring Mental Health Month, which seeks to bring awareness to the importance of taking care of your physical, mental and emotional health and well-being.

Nowadays there seems to be a focus when talking about mental illness or challenging life issues to talk about what’s wrong. There’s this emphasis on symptoms — an emphasis that seems unrelenting and single-minded.

Eventually, when you get into psychotherapy, you do start talking more about your strengths, about the good things in your life, and how you extend such strengths and wins into other aspects of your life. But people don’t seem to go into psychotherapy as much nowadays. They expect life changes to just happen, with little effort on their part.

Since this is Mental Health Month, it seems like a good time to just say what sometimes seems impossible — you can make the change you want in your life.

Today, we’re joining the APA in honoring Mental Health Month. One of the aims of Mental Health Month is to bring awareness to the importance of taking care of your physical, mental and emotional health and well-being.

Stress touches everyone. It’s a tangible part of our days. But it doesn’t have to dismantle our lives. The key is to cope with stress effectively. And, thankfully, this is something each of us can learn. Once you find practices that resonate with you, you can tuck them into your personal wellness toolbox for use at any time.

Below, Kathryn Tristan, author of the book Why Worry? Stop Coping and Start Living, shared her tips for alleviating stress and enhancing your well-being. You’ll also find a simple test at the bottom to help you quickly assess your stress level.

Yoga used to be way too slow for me. Actually, it was more like I was way too fast for yoga.

Back in the early ’90s, yoga hadn’t really hit my city yet. Oh, sure, some choice women friends were in the know and tried to get me to partake. But I was moving too fast at the time. (No, I don’t mean drugs.) But I was on a high, newly having found a self I could connect to after a childhood being the “dutiful daughter:” that of a loving but anxious mother.

I was flitting around playing in bands, finding my voice, finally — here as a violinist who had been raised on classical only. Of punk rock spirit and artistic mindset, I could barely slow enough to even learn of other ways of feeling fulfilled and satisfied and at peace at the time. It was a great time for me. I needed to go at the speed I was going, for I finally had found my peace and joy.

“[B]eing regularly creative correlates with being a better you, a happier mother, a lighter self with an easier laugh,” writes creativity coach Miranda Hersey in her excellent e-book The Creative Mother’s Guide: Six Practices for the Early Years. (You can read a sample page here.)

But, not surprisingly, expressing your creativity, whether through penning poetry, painting or opening up an Etsy shop, can be incredibly challenging during the early years of motherhood. Your days fly by, a blur of feedings, fatigue, mood fluctuations, swelling to-do lists and profound love for your little one.

In The Creative Mother’s Guide, Hersey, who has five kids herself, shares a variety of valuable tips and other mothers’ stories on living a creative life when your kids are young.

According to interfaith minister and author Rev. Maggie Oman Shannon, when we immerse ourselves in creative acts, we can quiet the noises around us from our “wild and wired world,” and truly calm ourselves. With these creative acts, we also can cultivate a spiritual practice.

In her book Crafting Calm: Projects and Practices for Creativity and Contemplation, Oman Shannon quotes the 20th-century Catholic priest Henri Nouwen, who said, “Through the spiritual life we gradually move from the house of fear to the house of love.”

Oman Shannon believes the same can be said about the creative life. Through creating, she writes, “we can enter the stillness that characterizes prayer and the ‘house of love.’ We can open ourselves and experience spaciousness.”

Sex, drugs & rock n’ roll. Ever wondered why those three things go together in this famous expression?

Neuroaesthetics is the relatively recent study of questions such as “Why do we like the things we like?” and “Why do some people find one thing pleasing while others find it appalling?” It has focused on issues such as creativity, visual and motor processing in visual artists and the varying factors involved in creative domains.

Many of these studies have examined music and the neural activity that occurs when we listen to and evaluate what we hear.

Salimpoor and Zatorre (2013) reviewed a number of research studies examining the effects of music on brain activity; in particular activity that relates to the feeling of pleasure. The evidence was clear: not only does music boost our sense of pleasure but there is also a dopamine activity in anticipation to the music that “touches us.”