Recently I read an article about “The Slow Internet Movement.”
It reported that in Portland, Oregon, Internet cafés are sprouting that only offer dial-up access to the web.
These cafés give customers, “Slow pours and slow Internet. Here, you can order your coffee and spend four hours checking your email, all for $.99 an hour.”
“Wow,” I thought.” That’s just my speed!” (No pun intended.)
It got me thinking…Life would be much less stressful if I embraced the spirit of the Slow Internet Movement.
So, here are four tips for slowing down:
1. Double the time you think it will take to complete a task.
How often do you clock in at or under the time you’ve allotted for a task?
I rarely do.
Take my raised veggie patch.
Periodically, the herbs spill over onto the beds and vegetables need tending to, mulch needs replacing, weeding is beckoning, and so on.
I assessed the task, and estimated it would take an hour at most. But since it always takes at least twice that long I doubled it.
Inspired by The Slow Internet Movement, when I tackled the task a few weeks ago, I decided to split my time. One hour is more than I had to give at one time, so I did half on Saturday and the other half on Sunday. Sure, the box looked odd for twenty-four hours—like half a job—but no one seemed to notice.
Not only did I spare myself over extending, but I truly enjoyed the activity both times.
2. Consciously perform tasks in slow motion.
Whatever you’re doing at the moment, slow it down by 25 percent, whether it’s thinking, typing on a keyboard, surfing the Internet, completing an errand, or cleaning the house.
This idea was inspired by a discovery I made in the 2000s when driving with my then young children in the car.
I realised that driving would be relaxing if I moved into the slow lane on the freeway and drove the speed limit.
There was no more worrying about having to pass cars because they were going as slow as I was; no one riding my bumper because it was acceptable to go the speed limit in the far right lane.
I’ve now embodies that “slow lane” mentality and applied it to other tasks by consciously doing them more slowly. But if I’m not vigilant, out of habit, I still find myself moving quickly. And this scurrying around is often for no apparent reason!
When I realise this, I take a deep breath, and repeat the 700 year-old wise words of Lao Tzu:
“Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing.”
3. Stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system.
The autonomic nervous system—sometimes called the involuntary nervous system—regulates many bodily systems without our conscious direction (e.g. the circulatory and respiratory systems). Two of its three branches the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.
When the sympathetic nervous system is aroused, it puts us on high alert, sometimes called the fight-or-flight response. The sympathetic nervous system is necessary to our survival because it enables us to respond quickly when there’s a threat.
When the parasympathetic nervous system is aroused, it produces a feeling of relaxation and calm in the mind and the body.
The two systems work together: as one becomes more active the other becomes less active. But they can get out of balance.
Many people live in a constant state of high alert—or sympathetic nervous system arousal—even though there’s no immediate threat.
Three of the recognised causes for this are our fast-paced, never-enough-time-to-do-everything culture; sensory overload (exacerbated by multitasking); and the media’s distorted but relentless suggestion that danger lurks around every corner. In other words, the parasympathetic nervous system—the system that produces a calm and relaxed state—is underactive. By stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system, we can restore the balance. With that balance restored, we naturally slow down our pace of life.
The following techniques for stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system are adapted from Rick Hansen’s excellent book, Buddha’s Brain. You can try these just about anywhere, anytime.
Breathing from your diaphragm stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system by slowing down your breathing. If you put your hand on your stomach and it rises up and down slightly as you breathe, you know you’re diaphragm breathing. (This is why it’s sometimes called abdominal breathing.)
You can combine this with mindfulness—the practice of calmly resting your attention on whatever is happening in the present moment. If your sympathetic nervous system is in a constant state of arousal, mindfulness helps restore the proper balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems by increasing the activity of the latter. This creates a feeling of calm and relaxation.
Peaceful imagery stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, so imagine yourself in a peaceful place like a mountain stream, a forest, a secluded beach. You can engage all your senses in this imagery—sights, sounds, the feel of the breeze on your face.
A favorite of mine: Touch your lips with one or two fingers. Parasympathetic fibers are spread throughout your lips so touching them stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system. I was skeptical of this until I tried it. Now it’s my “go to” practice for immediately calming my mind and body. Once I’m calm, I slow down naturally.
4. No multitasking. (Okay, okay: less multitasking.)
Korean Zen master Seung Sahn liked to tell his students, “When reading, only read. When eating, only eat. When thinking, only think.”
To us, this means, no multitasking! I’ve discovered that it’s hard to break the multitasking habit; sometimes it feels like an addiction.
Mindfulness practice helps because unless I consciously pay attention to the present moment, I can find myself engaged in multiple tasks without even realising it.
Here are a few “multi-tasks” I’ve caught myself performing recently: surfing the web while talking on the phone, grocery shopping while trying to follow a movie, composing an email while listening to an audio book and eating lunch. Sound familiar?
You're not alone!
Too much sensory input exacerbates my anxiety, so I’m working hard on “no multitasking.” Call me a recovering multitasker. I’ve discovered that it takes a lot of discipline to break the habit, so much in fact, that sometimes I have to be content with “less multitasking.”
But it’s a start.
These four tips are in the spirit of the Slow-Internet-Movement-that-wasn’t. I just hope that, in reading through them, you allotted twice the time you estimated it would take…
♥️
Ｃａｔｈｅｒｉｎｅ
𝗕𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘇𝗮 𝗖𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 & 𝗪𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀
ABOUT THE AUTHOR & COACH
Catherine is a heart-centred wellness therapist, transformational coach, intuitive counsellor and mindfulness facilitator who specialises in helping you create calm confidence, nourish your self esteem and self-love, build healthy boundaries, ditch perfectionism and people-pleasing, and get out of your own way to achieve the life you deserve.
She offers her wise words, actions, and guidance to help people connect positively with their body, mind, and soul.
Her sessions provide you with real-life the support and the readily accessible mindset tools you need to achieve this.
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