Check out this map to Slow TV around the world when you need to downshift for a minute.
It really helps to catch yourself when you’re needlessly rushing and take the chance to look up and slow down. Your nervous system, digestion, and tight muscles will thank you.
We’re nature, not machines. Nature has uphills and downhills, dormant periods alternating with growth periods, activity followed by rest. We know this, but we forget and then we move through our days as if everything has to be done at full speed.
If you find yourself hurrying while making dinner, try cutting the carrots just a little slower or letting the water run over your hands for a moment longer. Take a minute at the end of your work day to imagine pouring the day’s work thoughts out of your head and onto your workspace before leaving the work day behind. Take a few minutes to walk around your home, yard, or neighborhood to shift gears between activities, touching and smelling things and generally coming to your senses. While you do that, lay down any thoughts about other things you should or could be doing. Just be where you are for a few minutes, that’s all.
It doesn’t have to be 30 minutes of meditation. You can just slow down or take a few minutes several times a day to wake up from whatever dream of cruciality you may have been lost in. Waking up again and again to the present moment is the path to enlightenment. Way before that though we get all kinds of benefits from it.