Finding time to stop, breathe and collect our thoughts can seem like a challenging task in our busy, everyday lives. However, finding ways to add calmness during a day of chaos is a vital tool for our long-term health and happiness.

It is only natural that we quickly find ourselves exhausted from trying to do so much for the people around us that we forget the most important thing: spending real, quality time with the people we love.

Expressing gratitude no doubt has a positive impact on those around us, but there are countless reasons that being grateful increases our own happiness as well.

In order to maximize your time with loved ones and create more uninterrupted time for yourself, below are number of strategies to help you decrease your technology usage and free up time in your day.

As the use of technology increases, so does the time we spend engaged in our screens, and disengaged from the present company of our friends and loved ones.

When you’re trying to do it all — get to the gym, work a full time job, keep your nutrition on track and feel good about yourself every day — having a set of rules and boundaries to abide by helps.

As adults, we don't have someone to keep us at the dinner table until we finish our greens. And it turns out, the host of benefits that come with incorporating more vegetables into our diet is nothing to scoff at.

Two, four, six eight, who do you appreciate!? It’s easy for us to know how much we appreciate others, but how often are we really sitting down and taking the time to pause, reflect and feel the significance of what our loved ones are doing for us.

One of the best ways of knowing how mentally tough you are is assessing how you react to difficult situations. It takes some serious mental toughness to be able to handle pain, suffering and discomfort in a logical and rational way.

With work and school days getting longer, and the everyday pace of society getting faster, stress and anxiety levels are on a rapid incline. This consequently has a dramatic impact on our overall health, mood, energy and happiness.

In recent years the benefits of exercise and nutrition have become common knowledge and are widely accepted as truth. It’s only a matter of time before the positive impacts of meditation sit alongside them as a staple for a balanced lifestyle.