The Art of Doing Nothing
AKA: Are you taking the time to install your updates?
We live in a society that prides itself on being busy. On not having downtime, on not “wasting” time, and this is something I’ve really pushed back against these past few years. You are all probably tired to death of hearing me talk about when I had overtraining syndrome, but it really was a turning point in my life as a fitness professional. I had to very quickly learn that just because another class fit in my schedule on paper, didn’t mean I could physically handle it.
I had to learn the art of doing nothing.
The Art of Doing Nothing
Listen below:
I’m still not great at doing nothing but sometimes “nothing” includes something, and for me that something is reading. I can spend hours reading which is something – but also nothing. Ok, ok, I’m done talking in riddles, haha.
Doing nothing is not only important for our bodies, but it is also critical for our brain as well. When I think back to when I was in school and taking exams, I had friends who would study right up to the moment we started to write the exam. I had one friend who actually tracked how many hours she studied during exams and would be disappointed if she didn’t clock in at least 30. THIRTY! Good grief.
I realize I’m lucky. I learn concepts quickly, and I retain them quickly, so I would study, but not for weeks in advance. And there came a point the day before that I would put my books away and say, “If I don’t know it now, I’m not going to learn it.” Because I knew I needed to give my brain time to relax so it could file all the info I knew away so I could find it later.
I literally think of my brain as an office storage room full of filing cabinets. I need those files organized! It does me no good to have al the info in there but in no particular order!
Let your body and brain have time to absorb
At the end of a yoga class when we go into final relaxation, one of the things instructors will say is, “take this time to allow your body to absorb the movement when done during our lass tonight.” We need to be still for those little micro-adjustments that occur during yoga to settle in.
We need to be quiet and not move in order for our bodies and brain to install updates.
Much like our phones and computers, if we take a few minutes to install updates as they are released, we require a lot less downtime than if we wait until we get to a critical amount of updates and have to shut down our device for hours to get to up and running again.
Install those updates on a daily basis instead of trying to squeeze them all into a 3 hour period on the 3rd Friday of the month. Smaller, more frequent updates = less required downtime. Not just for your devices, but also for YOU.