Doing Nothing is Doing One thing

What Are You Doing?

By: Alex DeWoskin, LCSW

I can’t depend the variety of occasions I’ve informed a consumer, “Doing nothing is doing one thing” when they’re feeling overwhelmed or confused.  Normally, this sparks a debate.  However, when our physique, thoughts or spirit is craving a slower tempo, and we honor that, then doing nothing is extremely productive.  If we all know we have to take the time to cost our cellphone’s battery, why would we disregard recharging our personal?

We dwell in a productivity-obsessed society. That is actually true for folks in Chicago. We really feel obligated to be productive each final second of our each day lives.  We’ve been taught to measure our price and worthwhileness as by how profitable we’re. Because of this, workaholic behaviors like checking your e mail throughout off-hours or going into the workplace on the weekend have turn into normalized.

Even once we’re not working, many people really feel obliged to do one thing productive, be it going to the gymnasium, operating errands, going to a yoga class, or caring for payments and different duties.  However shopping for into these myths can eat away at our sense of self and our general high quality of life. And it actually can destroy our well being, each psychological and bodily. It’s not shocking that charges of melancholy, anxiousness, and stress are growing because the doingness of life appears to have little counterbalance.

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It’s been normalized in our tradition that productiveness means work, social, operating round doing errands.  We’re informed that success means cash or stature. We’re a work-consumed society and that has generated guilt and perceptions of laziness if we aren’t working on a regular basis.

However productiveness outlined is, “doing or attaining loads: working laborious and getting good outcomes.” That’s fairly subjective.  It doesn’t inform us what to realize or what loads equates to.  From a philosophical standpoint, it may imply “doing, at each second, what we consciously select to do and never what we really feel we’re doing compelled by circumstances.”  Success is extra encompassing than title or wage.

It is usually measured by happiness, success, work-life steadiness, ardour, simply to call a number of.  For individuals who really feel doing nothing is egocentric, if we don’t deal with ourselves, we received’t have the capability to deal with different folks. And if we don’t give again to ourselves, we burn out. On the finish of our lives, most don’t remorse not working extra.  Fairly we remorse that we labored a lot and missed out on having fun with our lives.

Since our tradition equates busyness with each excessive standing and ethical advantage, we expect lazing about and stress-free with out speaking on the cellphone, checking emails, or consuming books, podcasts, or articles, indicators to the world that we aren’t as helpful as those that have a cellphone that’s blowing up, as intellectually engaged as those that are consistently consuming info, or as worthy as those that at all times have their nostril to the grindstone.

Boredom lets you realize when one thing is improper. If you’re consistently buzzing round, checking off your to-do listing, it’s straightforward to disregard feelings and miss out on what that internal voice is attempting to inform you.  Downtime is the place we return to ourselves.

How usually do you do nothing? Like simply sitting on the sofa and staring off into area and being alone together with your ideas, utterly free from distractions. Should you’re something like the common individual, you’re most likely considering hardly ever and even by no means.  We perceive that our our bodies must relaxation every so often. However we one way or the other count on our brains to work with out pauses and that’s not sustainable. As a result of after some time, our brains cease cooperating and time spent working then will likely be wasted.

Some persons are uncomfortable being with themselves as a result of the noise between in our heads will get too scary and idle time can convey on a chattering thoughts. That is one motive we so readily attain for the cellphone or a e book or the pc once we do have an opportunity to decelerate.  That is really a distraction to our rest.

We don’t wish to hear ourselves suppose. But, it’s so necessary to take a seat and be.  You possibly can re-energize and provide you with all kinds of latest concepts about your self and the world. A few of the most necessary philosophers had two issues in abundance: idle time and solitude. This allowed them the area to suppose, to deeply ponder existential questions from all kinds of angles.

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Science is beginning to present the worth of spending time in silence, in nature, and in not participating in fixed exterior stimulation. We’d like time doing nothing to be our greatest selves: well-rounded and artistic human beings.

All of us is likely to be a bit happier and fulfilled if we stopped obsessively attempting to make one thing of our abilities and consciously embraced idleness as an alternative. Doing completely nothing, on their lonesome, on a regular basis received’t possible result in a way of wellness any greater than fixed busyness. However, forgetting to relax out and do nothing can convey us simply as a lot pleasure as goal-accomplishment.

If you let go, do one thing artistic, or just relaxation, you’re nurturing your soul and opening your self as much as new power and concepts ready to stream your manner. There are precise advantages of doing completely nothing. If you flip off all distractions, it permits area on your unconscious to increase, in the end boosting your creativity. If you begin to quiet your thoughts and your environment, you can begin to really feel these intestine emotions coming to the floor, in the end motivating you to make adjustments that higher your life.

Being alone with our ideas makes us lengthy for a bigger sense of objective, prompting us to attempt difficult and significant actions that stretch past our personal lives. As a substitute of seeing this as not being productive, consider it as investing in your individual wellbeing. In all probability most shocking, doing nothing may even assist you to to be kinder.

Not all of us have the privilege and luxurious of ample free time, however we will attempt our greatest to carve out simply ten or so minutes every day to get quiet. A few of us want some instruments to assist us sit quietly by ourselves. Simply ease into the method and do it when it pops in your thoughts at first as an alternative of scheduling it in each single day.

Begin easy, perhaps laying on the ground and listening to your favourite music with out doing the rest. Area out or daydream and switch off your to-do listing, freed from guilt that try to be doing one thing else. Possibly you could have stress-free actions that you just get pleasure from like drawing, cooking, sculpting, writing, or music.

Mindfulness, with out judgement, may play a job in our downtime.  Simply being current with our ideas and aware of our breath and senses.   Mindfulness meditation very efficient at relieving stress, constructing, construct self-awareness, and boosting creativity and problem-solving. Noticing what’s taking place in your thoughts when you’re not doing something is beneficial for understanding oneself and your relationship to others and the universe at massive.  Should you want some steerage to discover mindfulness instruments, you may as well attempt a medicine app equivalent to Perception Timer, Headspace, or Ten % Happier.

A lot, rather more in life is achieved by means of steadiness and happiness. Doing nothing is rarely really doing nothing. Doing nothing is doing one thing, one thing essential for each your wellbeing and your ongoing journey. It energizes you and returns some steadiness into your life. Thus, doing nothing may be very productive.

It’s medically and psychologically necessary.  One upside is that it’s the most affordable wellness pattern possible. The necessary factor is to not combat it or suppose I shouldn’t really feel responsible about this, which might result in feeling responsible about feeling responsible. There will likely be moments when you can be overscheduled to the brim, however there additionally ought to be moments the place you could have time to chill out, sit down, learn a e book or do nothing.

It’s about figuring out when to go quick and laborious and when to go sluggish. Possibly the answer to the guilt is to study to worth doing nothing and rest. Should you wait till your to-do listing or work obligations are achieved, you’ll by no means discover a second to do nothing.

Take motion when it’s time to take motion. Relaxation when it’s time to relaxation.