Slowdown 1/4: Are you overloading your brain?
Introduction
The fact is that modern 21st century life is designed to bombard you at ALL times with multiple sources of information and input. How we manage this challenge and filter the things which we engage our brains with is really important in sustaining emotional wellbeing, as when our thoughts are overloaded, our emotions quickly follow. In this challenge, we will try and cut back on some of those different inputs, and see whether it has any impact on our wellbeing.
Goals: Creating space to be mindful. Lessening the noise. Finding peace.
The problem
I don’t know about you, but it is so easy for me to fill my head with information from the moment I wake up, to the moment I go to sleep. The follow describe some of my bad habits.
- Checking the news as soon as I wake up.
- Listening to a podcast or show whilst cooking or washing up, or in the car, whilst getting ready for bed, or whilst walking somewhere.
- Instead of exercising or some kind of sport, falling back on watching TV or playing a very mind active computer game.
- Falling into the trap of trying to madly multi-task at work.
- Trying to carry the burden’s of others and getting overly invested in helping them with their decision process.
Let me be clear that none of these things are necessarily bad, but the combination of many of them together can be very overwhelming. I get used to the idea that I need to be consuming some kind of content in every free moment.
I first noticed this as a problem when I picked up that I was struggling to be present with our two children. I’d be on my phone, or looking forward to when they were in bed, so I could consume more content. I got to thinking how bizzare this was, that I’d made this persuit of a couple of hours of entertainment the goal of my week, rather than actually being present and enjoying time with the children, or my wife, or my friends, or even in excelling at my work. I was trying to escape life rather than live it.
I’m sure in some small part this escapism has its realistic part to play. In a time when children are hugely stressful, where the world seems to be self destructing, and where work might be hugely stressful, those times of escapism can be quite rightly something to appreciate. On the other hand, I’m finding my escapism in listening or watching the experiences of others, not finding my own methods of escapism.
All of this got me thinking…. what would it look like to be more present? What would it look like to find a better balance of ways to escape and/or deal with stress?
What impact does this have on me?
The impact of being constantly overloaded is probably fairly obvious, but let me break it down into two main things that I wanted to consider.
Firstly, without time to adequately process and reflect on my day, my brain has to squeeze that job into unhelpful times, such as in the middle of the night or when I’m supposed to be doing something else. This leads to being tired, more distracted, more easily prone to shoving a headphone in and getting in survival mode, and entering a slow downward spiral. It means I am not very present with people, not as on the ball as I could be, and lack the mental and emotional energy to take on new things.
Secondly, my job can be stressful, small children ARE stressful, the state of the world IS stressful. Filling my head with content might be a distratction, but it isn’t helping me deal with or manage that stress. This means that the level of stress stays constant, that I’m not mitigating for it. At best, the numbness I’m developing towards the stress is stopping it peaking, but at worst, I’m living in a constant state of moderate stress. This means my health will be impacted. My emotions. My ability at work.
What are the solutions?
Having gotten my head around the problem and the impact that it has upon me, the next step is to decide what to do about it. It is clear that the easy solution to busyness and stress is to get into the bad rut that I’m already in, but how do I break out of it when I’ve been living quite unhealthily in this pattern for years?
The answer, I think, as with the impact above, comes in two parts.
Firstly, building in times for reflection and quiet seems crucial. This might be journalling and proactively paying attention to things, whether about work or about life, and giving spaces, times and ways of processing the bigger picture. I or alternatively it might be practicing a more mindful way of life. I have been re-reading a series of books by C.S. Forester recently which I was read as a child by my dad, and in these books the main character, Horatio Hornblower, a calculating and intelligent leader, spends the first hour of his day walking up and down on his quarterdeck. “Up and down, up and down, walked Captain Hornblower.” It is the time of day in which plans are made, challenges are considered, and from which the rest of his day stems. It makes me realise how little of this proactive time I spend planning and considering things before I start a day, or when I finish. I find that the biggest time of eepiphany for me is when I am in the shower, my brain processes, and it is rare that I don’t come out of the shower with something to do or to write down. Why? Perhaps it is simply that this is when I give my brain the chance, probably more likely than the devine nature of the plastic and glass box I’m stood in. How do I recreate this in a more proactive manner?
Secondly, I need to find anti-stress activities and hobbies to do in my spare time. I share two videos with you which were helpful for me in the last few years in terms of thinking about stress.
- A few years ago I came across a Ted Talk by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called ‘Flow, the secret to Happiness’. If you click that link you can hear about how being in a state of flow, where you are being challenged to do something you love, at the perfect stretch of your capability, leads to a sense of joy and freedom within it which takes you away from everything, including the stresses and problems facing you. What I took from this video was that I needed to refind those hobbies which take me to, or near to, these places. I don’t have any incredible musical or artistic skills, however, there are sports and art forms which I can practice where I find freedom and peace, where I am enjoying them so much I forget about other things. Generally these bring peace and wellbeing.
- I accidently discovered ‘Limitless’ with Chris Hemsworth on Disney+ recently. I won’t say that I went into it with a profound expectation, but the series, exploring how to live better for longer, sound like it had the potential to be interesting. At this point I’ve only watched one episode, although I will be watching the rest, but what I learned about was the impact of stress on our bodies, and how we have to get on top of it, whether it is ongoing or momentary, and learn to manage it. This really got me thinking about how I manage the stress that I feel and about what I build into my day to help to step away from it, and to train my body and brain to not default to places of tension.
These two things seem like a really good place to start. They encourage us to reflect and be proactive in our listening, to be mindful, and they also try to make us find healthy escapisms and ways to destress.
So, what am I going to do personally?
Here is my action plan, as always, I’m going to try it for two weeks, and then tweak it, and try it for two more. I am going to….
- I am going to try and go to bed earlier, and to try and find healthier ways to wind down before bed. I’m going to vere away from screens and listening to things and towards journalling and reflecting on my day, perhaps listening to quiet music.
- I am going to try and find time first thing each morning to consider the day ahead, perhaps whilst walking in to work, or getting up earlier (thanks to my earlier night) and taking time after my shower to jot down thoughts about the day.
- I am going to try and find a sport or other hobby which I can ‘get lost in’, something relaxing but good for me which allows me to be fully distracted by something which isn’t filling my head with data or information.
- I am going to try and practice mindfulness during the day, even if only momentarily, inbetween tasks, or at lunchtime, to focus on my breathing, to be present, and to take stock. This should replace looking at my phone and scrolling the news or watching videos in moments where I need a break.
I am writing this on the 18th of February 2023, in the hope that by writing it down, I will show comitment in coming back to report on it in two weeks time!
More soon 🙂
