Do you save time, to waste time?

Are you saving time, to waste it? How much do you optimize your day? Having meetings back to back, to get the most out of the day? Taking the fast track, having an app for virtually everything to optimize every second of your life. And where does this running around from A to B get you? Exhausted on the sofa scrolling mindlessly through the internet.

Time is relative

Taking the foot off the accelerator has great potential to prevent energy leaks. Time is relative. Focus on conserving your energy not on saving clock time.
Scheduling real breaks, like joining a yoga class, going for a walk or meeting a friend without bringing your phone and see how this will open up a new world of well-being and space to reconnect with yourself.

Creativity needs room to breathe

What if you were just enjoying the train ride, and not writing that one extra email you didn’t manage to write in the office? What could you see to inspire you? (Like I got inspired to write these words on my train trip to town, seeing everyone sinking their heads into their devices instead of taking in the trees passing by and the sun rising). Creativity needs room to breathe.

What if we don’t mind that someone sneaked in the line in front of us? A great way to practice compassion! Being annoyed about it, will only hurt you more.

What if we take one meeting less and are fully present with the tasks presented to us? Don’t the people around us deserve our full attention instead of mentally still being in the past or already being in the future.
A regular meditation practice can help you to gain back control over your focus.

What I am trying to say:
Slow down, for *** sake!

What the yogis say

The ancient yogis already advised us to slow down the breath. They noticed that the animals with a slow breathing rate got much older than their fast breathing friends.

Are you too busy, noticing that when you run from A to B, that your breath is fast, shallow (in the chest) and you often breath through the mouth (not good!).

Yogic philosophy says our lifespan doesn’t depend on the number of days we live but on the number of breaths we take.

And it makes sense. Fast breathing activates our sympathetic (fight/flight) nervous system. It brings our heart rate up and our system is constantly aroused. With constant stress, our autonomic nervous system gets out of balance, and doesn’t know how to switch back to rest and digest (in very simple terms).
It’s probably no news on how much premature death is caused by heart disease. How many people are on sick leave because of stress and how many other ailments can get worth with stress and wrong breathing.

SLOW DOWN.

Once you slow down your breath will too. And vice versa.

Take the time of your mindless scrolling [insert your go to social media app here] to take a few slow abdominal breaths.

Slowing down means to be more present with what you do. Even though it might give you less clock time to do that, but more quality time and more breaths; adding physical and mental health to your life.

What is wasting time actually mean?

And a final word on time wasted. I encourage breaks of doing nothing. Be quiet, be still. What I mean with wasted is mindless consumption of media (yes, even just skimming a message leaves an imprint in the subconscious), food, drugs (the glass of wine to unwind) etc.

Start with one hour. Be mindful about your activities for just one hour. See how your breath changes when you get a challenging email. Observe which part of the body feels stimulated when you feel an emotion. Look someone in the eyes and listen, without already planning your response. Just one hour…

Spend your time wisely. Life is short, live it fully. Be present.

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