It’s 9:29 PM on a Tuesday and I’m squinting as I focus at my computer screen.
It’s been a twelve hour work day, and I can feel my brain juices pooling in both temples and at the top of my head. A headache is coming, so I call it a day — later than I should have — and I make my way home to start dinner. I put on Netflix and watch while I eat, my eyes heavy, by brain full. I’m exhausted, so sleep comes easily.
I think back to my life before working behind a screen. I remember feeling heavy headed then, too. I would sink into my kitchen chair after a relentless 9 hour shift serving tables and enjoy nothing more than staring at the wall while rubbing my cat’s belly fluff at my feet.
I was thankful for those moments because my brain needed it.
It’s something we all need. A moment of pause — no matter what we’re pausing. But the sheer ease at which it now is to spend an entire waking day trying to engage the brain is why people are crashing. It’s why burnout exists. We work all day or night, and when we’re home we’re bingeing or scrolling or looking stuff up. We crave entertainment and content, and we’re easily enticed by notifications. We never pause, because we can’t.
The world has made us this way. Restaurants with TV’s have us staring zombie-like while we chew our meals slowly, long commutes after long days have us reading on tablets and beating yesterday’s level of some game. Wait times for whatever appointment have us double tapping through Instagram, and boredom at work has us refreshing for hearts. A lull in a conversation draws our heavy heads downward toward a brightly lit screen, unable to simply sit and stare. Our brains are constantly asked to consume and consume, and I can only imagine what this consumption is doing to us. If only an over-stuffed brain was easy to notice.
I was recently introduced to the idea of down time: moments that existed in greater abundance long before the mobile Internet. Down time was when you had little to do but sit and stare and think, and let your brain process the moment. Sure, there were newspapers and books then, but you only had one. If you got bored of one or happened to finish the other, you would again have little to do but sit and stare and think. You couldn’t just switch to something else and continue consuming.
I remember back when this was something I did. It was called people watching, and I would go to the mall with a friend and watch people walk by. We would laugh about some person’s hair cut or shoes, take a break to grab a coffee. But my mind would be mostly still, inwardly reflecting. I would wonder what the people walking by must have been thinking, too; they weren’t looking down at phones either.
Down time exists in fewer places now. Not in the bedroom, not in the bathroom, not in the car, not at the gym, not after class. Down time doesn’t exist at the stop light or down the sidewalk, or from the train ride to wherever we’re going. We consider a “break” from what we’re focused on to be a moment to check for notifications and attempt to respond, to flood our brains with more information than we already had a minute before.
I don’t need to refer to this science or this New York Times piece from six years ago that discuss why this is detrimental to our mental health. I know because after a long day I can just feel my brain in there. Pulsing. I can’t feel my brain in the morning while I’m walking to work. I can’t feel my brain when I’m out for a jog. It’s that moment at 9:29 PM when my brain is telling me to stop. That’s why I know this is a problem. That’s the red flag.
We need to get down time back. You would think that something as simple as sitting and doing nothing would actually be simple. It’s not. None of us are able to do it. But we can make an effort to — the opportunities exist. Go a day without your phone. Go 2 hours without WiFi. Don’t fill your newly emptied schedule with something else; remove anything that fills your time and do not replace it. Let those moments just happen.
Let someone think you’re ignoring them. Let yourself be quiet. Let your mind wander.
How do you embrace down time? Leave a comment, and if you enjoyed this piece, please hit the ♡
Also read: Why You Should Become a Master of Single Tasking if You Want to Get Ahead.
