What can be done in 5 minutes that can improve your health, your happiness or your relationships? Here’s a list of 5 little things that can be done in 5 minutes each: Take five minutes to sit, breathe and not give too much attention to your thoughts. Notice I didn’t say meditation. For busy, distracted people, meditation can be a scary word. It conjures up visions of sitting in the lotus position for 45 minutes every day, it conjures up thoughts of focus, discipline and ultimately, failure. Who has time for that? Surely not you. How about five minutes? How about you don’t worry about doing it perfectly? Sit comfortably, breathe in, breathe out. Your brain will most likely rebel, just don’t give it too much attention. Set your timer for five minutes. That’s all you have to do, for now. How is your resolution to get in shape going? Not so well? No time to work out? If you have five minutes, you can exercise. Take five minutes and do 10 or 15 push-ups and 20 squats. Need a little cardio? Jump rope for two minutes, then do the push-ups, the squats and jump rope again if you have time. If you can set aside five minutes a few times a day, you have time for exercise. It may not get you ready for a marathon, but it is legitimate exercise, done in bite-size chunks. Take a damn break. Right now, take five minutes. If you have been running around being busy and productive, stop what you are doing and rest for five minutes. If you have been sitting, engrossed (obsessed) with what you are doing for hours, stop, get up and stretch, take a lap around the house (office, whatever). Get a drink of water and a snack. Just take a break. Take five minutes to connect with a loved one. Face to face, uninterrupted contact. If you are feeling like you have no time for your relationships, it’s because you are thinking that you need to set aside several hours or a whole day in order to connect. This would be great, but if you are waiting for a big chunk of time in order to try and connect, then your relationships are being unnecessarily neglected. Close your laptop, put your phone in the other room, and take five minutes. Are you feeling irritable, discouraged and generally crappy about life? Take five minutes and write a gratitude list. Come up with as many things you are grateful for in that amount of time. Think of the little things, the big things, and everything in between. Don’t be too generic, try to be specific. Start each item with “I am so grateful for…” Then read the list out loud to yours