On Wednesday, I spent the day writing a piece about how slow living is the antidote to stress. Then at 2:15pm, my phone bleeped at me, and I raced out the door to do the school run, and didn’t stop for breath until 8:30pm, when my husband and I finally collapsed, spent, on the couch.
There’s a specific irony in building a brand about slowing down while being in a hectic season of life. I can tell you exactly why you should rest, the science of getting enough sleep, and why reading retreats are suddenly trending. And yet I still find myself answering an email at 9 pm on a Wednesday night because it feels ‘urgent’, even though I know it’s not.
Recently, a friend told me about something she does. You know when you’re doing a task around the house (the dishes, the laundry) and you suddenly realise that you’re racing through it hell-for-leather, as though a tiger’s chasing you? As though it genuinely matters whether the dishwasher gets emptied in three minutes or four?
When you catch yourself in that mode, the idea is to stop what you’re doing, take a breath, and remind yourself that it’s safe to slow down. (Apparently it’s best if you say it out loud. Yes, you’ll cop some strange looks.) Hopefully, that frenetic feeling will dissipate, and you can get back to doing the dishes without it feeling like an extreme sport.
If I was a Wellness Influencer, this is the part where I’d tell you that this ‘hack’ will eliminate your stress and can even change your life. Lucky for both of us, that sounds like far too much effort.
What I can tell you is that when I remember to do it, I get a sense of relief. It genuinely feels good to realise I don’t have to hurry. It’s also opened my eyes to just how much of my rushing is self-inflicted. In other words, there is no tiger. It’s just taken me a while to notice.
