7 applicable tips for slowing down in everyday life
Time is short - most of us grow up with this feeling. Our lives are packed with activities.
Commitments at work, at university, at school and in our free time, in which we often also make commitments: to our friends, our hobbies, our family. The decision as to how we spend our free time is usually made voluntarily and yet the aftertaste of 'having to' often remains, even in our free time.
But there is a word that promises a remedy: deceleration.
Slowing down everyday life does not mean completely giving up your usual life and retreating to the couch. On the contrary: slowing down leads to more energy in the long term. Slowing down your everyday life means concentrating on the really important things and freeing yourself from unnecessary appointments, obligations and stress.
Today I would like to show you seven approaches that you can use to make your everyday life easier, more conscious and less stressful; 7 deceleration tips and exercises that you can use to easily integrate the new slowness into your life.
But what is actually the cause of the desire to slow down in everyday life? There is often a short, clear answer: stress.
The negative consequences of stress
Science shows: Stress is not only unpleasant, it also makes us ill in the long term. The consequences of stress include
- States of exhaustion
- Constant tiredness and/or problems falling asleep
- Diseases of the cardiovascular system
- Problems with the gastrointestinal tract
- Concentration problems
- Mental illnesses such as anxiety disorder, depression, burn-out
- Tension, irritability
Slowing down everyday life and lowering stress levels are therefore not just a luxury we can afford, but essential for our mental and physical health. So what can we do?
Choose three things per day that need to be done - no more, no less
It feels like we have a hundred things to do every day. Work piles up at work, the laundry is waiting at home and the lawn could do with mowing again. When we are under pressure, we think of more and more things we have to do and the burden of tasks overwhelms us. We become stressed and are under constant tension.
To slow life down and free ourselves from the daily pressure, it is advisable to do no more than three things a day. At first glance, this may seem impossible, but anyone who tries it out will soon realize: If you do three things a day and take time to relax alongside them, you will get more done than a person under constant stress and complete the tasks with better results.
Slowing down exercise: If you make a list of just three things that need to be done in the evening before you go to sleep and stick to it, you will drastically slow down your everyday life.
Quality of life and productivity increase as we begin to consistently eliminate stress and excessive demands from our lives.
Slowing down in everyday life? Learn to say no.
Nothing can make life as peaceful and easy assetting personal boundaries . If you learn to say a friendly but firm no to tasks, projects and requests from others that are not absolutely necessary, you will cope much better with everyday life and find inner peace.
We often feel obliged to meet all the demands placed on us and lose ourselves in the process. We don't want to offend others. A clear "no" can have the exact opposite effect. Those who clearly state their personal boundaries often receive respect in return. And even if we encounter resistance, we have still done ourselves some good.
Deceleration tip: Saying no by consciously recognizing our personal boundaries can be wonderfully combined with empathy and helpfulness; the two are not contradictory. On the contrary: we free ourselves from obligations that made us feel uncomfortable in the first place and thus gain the capacity to be there for ourselves and our loved ones.
Let your hair down - and reward yourself with relaxation after performance
Focusing on goals and the work required to achieve them puts us on the path to success. However, if you focus too doggedly on your goals and forget to relax, sooner or later you will reach the point of burnout.
Even when we reach our goal, we often can't really enjoy it - the road there was too rocky and the only reward after a brief moment of euphoria is exhaustion.
It's better to let your hair down every now and then. Say goodbye to the demand for perfection that makes your life difficult.
Relaxation is the antithesis of hard work. Many people believe that they can only allow themselves to relax once they have achieved their goal, but this is a mistake.
If you regularly take time to relax and devote yourself to what you really enjoy, you have a better chance of actually enjoying your success afterwards.
You can also consciously create relaxing moments in your everyday life. With everyday things such as a relaxing shower, a facial care product whose wonderful fragrance lets you experience the here and now, or with a relaxing room fragrance.
Quality before quantity
Success in everyday life is often measured by how much we get done. However, how much says nothing about the quality of the work we do. On the contrary, there is a high probability that the end product of rushing and stress will not meet the quality standards we set for ourselves.
Those who instead work throughone task after the other and take enough time for each task will achieve better results than a person who focuses primarily on quantity and wants to get everything done as quickly as possible. Take your time.
Take time for yourself
Time for ourselves is something that we usually put at the back of the list. The wishes and needs of others come first. However, it is important for our health that we have enough time for ourselves. Even the most extroverted among us need to take a deep breath on their own from time to time and should allow themselves these moments on a regular basis.
A walk alone, listening to music undisturbed, a bath with fragrant oil, a visit to the sauna- everything recharges our batteries, slows down everyday life and allows us to find inner peace.
Slow down digitally - switch off your smartphone more often
Constant accessibility has advantages, but also fatal consequences. Our media consumption makes it almost impossible to relax and switch off. An occasional digital detox can help.
If you want to slow down your life, you should temporarily do without modern technology altogether and devote yourself once again to things of substance that stimulate the mind but at the same time calm us down.
Instead of picking up our smartphone every 10 minutes or checking our emails many times a day, we should takea break from every now and then.
How aboutsimply turning off your smartphone this Sunday and leaving it in the drawer?
Remove unimportant and harmful things from life
As humans, we often tend to cling to things that are difficult to let go of, even if they are not good for us. These can be material things that we accumulate, but also tasks and relationships that are no longer good for us - and perhaps were never good for us in the first place.
Toslow down everyday life and enjoy life more, it helps to part with things. Even if this is difficult at first, we later realize that we have carried a burden without which life feels much easier.
A minimalist approach to everyday life means slowing down, separating ourselves from the unimportant and listening to our inner compass, without any fast-moving influences.
Give yourself the gift of slowing down - you deserve it.
What helps you slow down? Share it with us in the comments.
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About Feuerstein Essentials Switzerland:
We want to help people increase their well-being, promote their inner peace, gain new strength, connect with themselves and walk their path with satisfaction and self-confidence - wherever it takes them.
Balanced people find their way, they find meaning. Our products support them with their subtle design and soothing fragrances - they are small suggestions to listen to yourself again.