“I am a marketing executive working for a company. We are authorized channel partners of a large company. I have big goals to meet every month, but due to current market conditions I am unable to achieve them. The work is high pressure and the stress level is too high for me, how can I accept it?

This person is one of the millions trying to live in the fast lane and keep their nerves intact. He is young, educated, dynamic and… blaster! The pace of modern life seems very fast, just a whirlwind of minutes, hours and days.

Living in the fast lane is intoxicating. The mind is fully charged and the body keeps pumping more adrenaline into the bloodstream. People are momentarily high, but the high is overshadowed by the low that comes their way.

In metropolitan cities, it is normal to commute for one hour each way. Has anyone thought about what effect it has on the nervous and physical systems?

Joyce Walsleben, director of the New York University Sleep Disorders Center, says of her research: “We found that people who commute a lot, regardless of their weight, obesity, age, or any other factor, tend to have pressure higher blood pressure and many of them had hypertension.

Walsleben conducted a study of 21,000 Long Island Railroad commuters who commuted more than one hour and fifteen minutes between work and home. “Half of them couldn’t stay awake when they had to or couldn’t fall asleep when they wanted to,” she says.

Today’s teens have adapted to busy schedules like they would with a second skin. They engage – in sleep, in homework, in social life. They learn to get ahead. Whatever it takes to balance school, sports activities, part-time jobs and family obligations, to fill a place in college, to have money to spend…

Fast food, fast relationships, fast success… people need everything fast. Eating on the go is the most popular way to eat. Seventy percent of people in the United States prefer to eat at a self-service restaurant. “The fast-paced and time-constrained lifestyles we’ve developed as a society over the past decade are driving demand for self-service,” says Stephen Spence, who served as a vice president at Southwest Securities in Dallas. “It’s an integral part of the way we eat today.”

However, it is not only in the United States that the fast food trend has taken off. Quick restaurants and lounges have mushroomed all over the world and there is never a shortage of customers.

Life is more exciting but also more exhausting. The signs of fast lane fatigue are in evidence. It’s clear that the fascination with speed and efficiency has taken a more serious turn. Many people live in the fast lane, with or without the knowledge that the road ends on a cliff.

But does that mean we should reverse gear and go back to the good old days? Certainly not. There is no rewinding in the timeline. What is smarter and more creative is to turn the situation into a blessing. Create new devices to relax in the fast lane. Let life race by as you sit back and relax in the whirlwind of activity.

It is said that contemporary man has everything except time. Totally true. But what about the one-minute meditations? Why not make the most of every minute?

This is what this post is about. There are many fast lane relaxation techniques for you. It’s fun, it’s not a serious matter. Life is so short, who has time for long and serious meditations? Let the agitation be on the surface. Think of the ocean where in the depth there are no waves, no turbulence. It’s just a matter of getting in.

If you have a long commute every day, use that time to speak gibberish to ease the tension. But sit and watch the mind. Let the vehicle rotate at maximum speed, you can slow down inside. Be aware of the gaps in your thoughts, in your feelings, in your breaths, between two gears or two cars… Look for the gaps and your energy will fall into a relaxed space.

Life is full of competition. You can compete with yourself.

Who doesn’t have the blues? But you can dance them away.

Especially in these times of panic and fear, it is imperative to hold on to our sanity. If the future seems increasingly bleak, start living in the present. Go deeper and deeper with each moment and life in the fast lane will be transformed. Then you will start to enjoy it without having to suffer from its side effects.

We are truly at the crossroads of world history. It is absolutely up to us which fork to take, be it into fear, anxiety, and eventually global suicide; or towards responsibility, conscience and love – the golden future.