The How to Slow Down post explores why being consistently busy isn’t beneficial to your physical or emotional health, and why learning ways to relax is so important.
There were some quick tips on how to slow down, but we can always add to those tips. The modern world is one that prides itself on being busy. Slowing down moves the focus from being occupied to being both productive and relaxed. Moving your attention to moving slower will feel odd at first. To help with transitioning to slowing down, we can use two main ideas as guideposts.
The 2 Tools of Slowing Down
Slowing down doesn’t mean being relaxed all the time. Instead, it is a different way to approach goals more consciously and deliberately. The tools to slow down and learn ways to slow down are:
- Mindfulness: Mindfulness is the psychological process of purposely bringing one’s attention to experiences occurring in the present moment without judgment. This practice is usually developed through the practice of meditation. Being mindful means being conscious of what is happening in the here in now. When a metric meeting is droning on, or you are stuck in a repetitive conversation the mind tends to wander. By being mindful, that forces your conscious attention back to the moment to focus on the present. Focusing on the present doesn’t mean there isn’t room to think of the future. Instead, schedule time to look to the future every day. You don’t want to live your life constantly reflecting on the past, or dreaming of the future. Life will slip you by with that method.
- Savoring: Savoring is the use of thoughts and actions to increase the intensity, duration, and appreciation of positive experiences and emotions. Savoring means that instead of wolfing down the meal your partner packed for you during a lunch break, it means taking the time to sit and enjoy the meal. Noticing the texture of the food, how it tastes, and the aroma of the food. Eating lunch is just one example. Other examples are enjoying the sunshine, the weather, or the great conversations you have throughout the day. The positive experiences of each day become elongated. The positive effects of these daily joys can decrease negative emotions like stress and anxiety while increasing positive feelings like happiness and gratitude.
All the below tips rely on being in the present moment and expanding the positive emotions when applicable.
13.5 Ways to Relax and Slow Down
Doing Less
1. Know your goal
Think of what you want to accomplish overall in your life. Break down the major goals you want to accomplish in your life. Do this by asking yourself, where do you want to be in three years? Pick the most important goals for you. Then what needs to be finished this year? Break those goals into monthly and then even daily goals. By breaking objectives down this way, ambitious goals can seem doable. A study out of Wake Forest revealed that simply writing down and planning steps ahead of time reduce anxiety and increase the likelihood of task completion.
By knowing your goals, you learn where to spend your time, effort, and focus to achieve results that matter to you.
1.5 Cut Down the To-Do List
To-do list paralysis is a real thing. Seeing too many items on the list can lead to anxiety, feeling overwhelmed, and even guilt for not getting everything done. By knowing the priorities, everything that is ancillary and distracts from your main goals can be dropped.
Learn an effective way to keep a to-do list here!
2. Say No
Once items are cut out from the list, say yes to tasks that align to these goals, and no to everything else. Certain obligations must be said yes to, and you can’t always pick your work projects. However, if you are asked to do something that detracts from your life and goals, and is something that can be said no to, say no.
Leave Quiet Time
3. Disconnect daily
Take thirty minutes each day to put away the phone, laptop, and email. Go off-the-grid, at least for a little while. Taking time away from electronics can leave time to do other things, or even just time to sit without your email going off. By stepping away to savor non-tech experiences, life can seem much less hectic with the constant noise of people or advertisers trying to reach you. Mayo clinic even found that reduced screen time improved overall better moods, making disconnecting one of the best ways to relax every day.
4. Walk and Appreciate Nature
One way to use the disconnected time is to go for a walk, ideally in nature. Going for a walk doesn’t mean it has to be a walk in Yellowstone looking at Buffalo and geysers every day. Even a walk in a suburban neighborhood or city park can be beneficial. Being in nature reduces fatigue and promotes mental healing. A study by Yale found that savoring nature enhances these effects even more. Savor the smell of the flowers, the wind, the colors, and whatever animals happen to be around.
5. Daydream
Another way to relax and use the disconnect time is to daydream. Daydreaming has a negative connotation; we are told since the second grade to get our head out of the clouds and focus. Encouraging daydreaming also seems to counter being mindful. Daydreaming during a meeting isn’t helpful, but daydreaming during unstructured time can be. Daydreaming can be advantageous to figure out your biggest life dreams, how you’d like to spend the weekend, and can even improve memory a study out of the University of Wisconsin found.
6. Leave Unplanned Time in the Day
This can go with disconnected time or just be a relaxing time. Blocking out every hour of every day can make life dull. Leaving unstructured time allows for creativity and spur of the moment daily enjoyment. To help with this, leave ten minutes each day after work where there is nothing to get done. You can spend this time however you want. It could be time to plan a business, draw a picture, meditate, or even just to chill on the couch. Leaving time for yourself helps with realizing you are in control of your life, your enjoyment, and your schedule.
7. Wake Up Slow
Take a note of how pets wake up. Cats and dogs leisurely stroll out of bed. Animals get up by doing some deep stretches, maybe getting some pets, and then lying down and slowly starting their day. Humans tend to jump or crawl out of bed with the last-minute alarm, speed through the morning routine, and rush to work. Rushing first thing in the morning sets a hurried tone for the day. Instead, wake up a little earlier, even fifteen minutes to just hang-out. This time can be dedicated to mediation, reading, stretching, or nothing at all. Using the mornings as ways to relax sets a tone of control and slow movement for the rest of the day.
Better Ways to Slow Down During the Day
8. Relish in People
Enjoy the people in your life and connect with them. These people can be family members, roommates, or even the barista at the local coffee shop. By focusing on being present, and having a genuine conversation, you can boost levels of happiness throughout the day a study out the University of Chicago found. By slowing down and being present for these interactions, life will be happier and filled with more daily fun.
9. Eat Slower
Aside from saving the waistline, eating slower helps improve your enjoyment of the meal. Slowing down allows you to experience all of the taste smell, texture, and sight of the dish you are about to have.
10. Ground Through Your Senses
To slow down and use one of the ways to relax during the day, use the grounding senses technique. To practice this technique, acknowledge 5 things you see around you, acknowledge 4 things you can touch around you, acknowledge 3 things you hear, acknowledge 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste. By doing this exercise, you can quickly ground back into the present moment while also slowing down.
11. Take a Different Way to Work
Not only does this increase creativity and ability to innovate, but it also provides some spice to life. By taking a different direction to work, it forces creative thinking. The increased focus also encourages the noticing of little details and routine problem-solving that can be incorporated into other aspects throughout the day.
12. Practice Self-Care
Self-care looks different for every person. However, the benefits are all meaningful ways to relax and get more enjoyment out of life every day.
Super-Charge All the Rest
13. Meditate
Mediation can increase the ability to be mindful and practice savoring because it encourages disciplined thinking. Disciplined thinking allows the mind to focus on the positive and live in the moment, while also being able to acknowledge the negative without it throwing the day-off.
New to meditation? Check out 7 practices to try this week!
Main Take-Aways
- Two ways to relax and supercharge the rest are mindfulness and savoring. These help slow the day down by appreciating everything for what it is while being conscious of the day today.
- To slow the day down and not feel so rush, we need to
- Do less by focusing on high priority tasks
- Leave quiet, unstructured time each day
- Build-in better ways to slow down each day
Action item
Which of these ways to relax and slow down appeal to you? Figure out your priorities for the next week. Eliminate anything not related to those goals. Then for each day this week, leave some quiet time, and practice the strategies to savor time. See how the week feels without the stress
