You need to calm down
[Why doing nothing does a lot]
“It’s a jungle out there.” Understatement of the century. The world is a swirling mix of delight and terror and motion and madness. It’s no wonder we’re experiencing burnout at breakneck pace. Last year it even became an official medical condition recognized by the World Health Organization.
Never have we needed a nudge like the one we got from Taylor Swift. We need to calm down. But it’s easier said than done, and we can all join the collective choir of groans and nods of affirmation. Sure, we need to calm down, but how? There are retreats centered on getting you to slow down, meditation apps to help you center yourself, and more books than I could ever list on how to find homeostasis again. Heck, I’m writing one right now!
For all the resources at our literal fingertips, we still find it hard to actually gain a sense of calm. I think it’s because we are trying to insert moments of mindfulness into an entire arch of chaos, and that will never work. That’s like putting a bandaid on a severed artery. Good luck.
To truly find a calm that resonates beyond a five minute breathing session, we must orient ourselves around the idea that calm is a better story than the one we are living currently. If we don’t actually believe this, we’ll never cultivate more of it. If we do believe it, then we eventually find the holy grail… doing nothing.
Doing nothing actually does a lot, especially to help us cultivate calm and bring us back to center. It isn’t about inserting moments of nothingness into an overflowing and high octane life; it is about orienting life around the idea that regularly doing nothing is restorative and nurturing, so that all of our “doing” flows from that place. Don’t get me wrong, even occasional small practices of meditation, mindfulness, movement, or breathing can bring positive results. Just practicing mindfulness for 10 minutes can stimulate oxytocin and combat the more anxiety-inducing stress hormones, not to mention reduce blood pressure. But a thoughtfully designed life that centers these practices as important sources for everything else? Imagine the long-term benefits!
According to a Harvard Health article on helpguide.org, a lifestyle oriented around mindfulness can relieve stress, treat heart disease, lower blood pressure, reduce chronic pain, improve sleep, and alleviate gastrointestinal difficulties. And that’s not even an exhaustive list! Here’s a particularly satisfying excerpt from this article:
Mindfulness improves well-being. Increasing your capacity for mindfulness supports many attitudes that contribute to a satisfied life. Being mindful makes it easier to savor the pleasures in life as they occur, helps you become fully engaged in activities, and creates a greater capacity to deal with adverse events. By focusing on the here and now, many people who practice mindfulness find that they are less likely to get caught up in worries about the future or regrets over the past, are less preoccupied with concerns about success and self-esteem, and are better able to form deep connections with others.
In almost every article or book you read, every interview or podcast you listen to, and every video you watch, one of the recurring themes in the practice of doing nothing is attention. The goal of orienting life around a slower pace and a practice of mindfulness is to help us pay attention, not with judgment or angst, but with presence and appreciation for the moment in which we find ourselves. It’s this kind of centering that gives everything else a sense of fulfillment. We can actually calm down even if everything else around us is still operating as if it’s a jungle, even if we have to routinely enter the jungle! That’s how powerful this kind of living can be.
