Sneaking in Stillness (Practical Tips for the Modern Woman)

by Dr Peta Wright

I wrote recently about the need to balance the busyness of our modern lives with finding space and switching off. I think it resonated with many women but you also may have been wondering, how??

With all the responsibilities of work, caring for others, running a house, and the other million other things on the to-do list, how am I supposed to fit in any time to disconnect and be. How am I supposed to pay some attention to being without doing?

I get it. I’ve written ‘meditate’ on my list and then felt disappointed with myself when I didn’t get around to it. Switching off, meditation, yoga, all seem like a luxury or a self indulgence but as you know self care is the least selfish thing you can do. It allows you to give so much more when you give from the overflow, rather than the bone dry vessel you have become in the midst of the never ending grind.

We have become so uncomfortable with the idea of stillness and connection to ourselves that the idea terrifies us. What will our bodies, our heart, our soul tell us if we take a minute to listen? It’s easier to swim in a sea of distraction than to tap into the deeper part of ourselves. The part that might tell us we need to change something, or that feels sad and doesn’t want to have that feeling. The thing is, when we are able to connect to that deeper part of ourselves, we connect to the greater whole of the world and we can recharge, rest and make decisions that will improve our life and really feed us rather than drain our energy.

So how do we actually find stillness in 2019 when there is always one more thing to check and we are literally distracted every second of the day?

1. Put down your phone and breathe.

I’m as guilty of this as anyone. But I know I feel sick when I’m looking at the screen constantly or forever responding to something wanting my attention. It also steals our time and our ability to connect to ourselves and others. At the end of the week if you added up the time spent on social media you would probably be horrified. Imagine what else you could do with that time. There’s your self care time, or your hobby, or your exercise time right there.

I see teenage girls who spend 8 hours on their screens a day comparing themselves to airbrushed filtered photos of other women and experiencing serious FOMO and wonder why they are struggling with anxiety and low self esteem. And what huge amounts of screen time do to our ability to sleep is a whole other post…

Again this isn’t about beating up on our reliance to technology and making you feel bad for finding it hard to put down. They design it that way. Every time we get a notification the reward centre in our brain is activated releasing dopamine. These are the same pathways activated with addiction. It’s really challenging especially now that it’s almost unacceptable to be uncontactable and so much of our work is on our phone. But we can put some boundaries in place to help technology work for us instead of becoming enslaved to it.

Firstly turn off social media and email notifications. This means you are not constantly alerted when you get an email or something happens on social media. Instead set dedicated time to dealing with emails or social media, for example twenty minutes twice a day. Outside of that have a footnote on sent emails stating that you will only be checking and responding to emails at certain times of the day so people do not expect an immediate response. If it is urgent they can call you.

Also setting up an automatic reply after hours and on weekends which states you don’t check emails after hours and to resend on Monday if it’s important. This means that when your work day ends you have put in place the expectation that you are not contacted except in the event of an emergency.

This one given to me by fabulous naturopath Andrea Strand at Vibe Natural Health, can seem a bit radical but is incredibly freeing. If your job allows it take email and socials off your phone and have it only on your computer so you have to consciously log in and your attention isn’t stolen when doing other things.

If you feel the pull/familiar twitch to look at your phone and check social media, instead stop, take a deep breath or three, look around you, Be Present! Just those few minutes can make a difference. Science backs this up. Connecting to breath several times a day activates our parasympathetic nervous system (our rest and digest system), helps to counter the affects of chronic fight or flight and anchors us to the present moment. Instead of scrolling on Instagram focus on what you can see, hear, smell, taste and feel. You will be amazed at how time seems to expand when you allow your consciousness to expand into the moment. It’s like recharging your spirit instead of the suck and drain of the mindless scroll.

2. Practice creating space between work and home.

After you leave work and before you get into the busyness of homework, dinner preparation and child wrangling if you are a parent, carve out some time to signal the end of the work day. For me, it’s getting outside, doing something active or something creative.

This could mean a walk outside, a play in the park, some yoga, a run, dancing, or another form of exercise. DownDog is an awesome yoga app that is fantastic to guide you through yoga at home.

It might be something creative like drawing, colouring, or writing.

You can do these things with your kids as well. It helps to connect you so that you flow into your evenings with a sense of relaxation leaving the work day behind you.

3. Mindful eating.

There are so many components to bringing presence into meal times. I don’t like to be prescriptive but there are are a few don’ts and a few dos that I find helpful:

Don’t:

• Wolf down your food in five seconds.

• Eat in the car, on the go, or standing up.

• Eat in front of a screen or at your desk.

All of these things distract you from what you are actually eating, so you often eat more or enjoy food less. Eating so quickly you don’t have time to chew cuts short the first part of digestion in the mouth which can make digestive problems more likely.

Do:

• Use meal times to connect with family. Sit down together with no technology!

• Eat slowly and enjoy your food.

• When it comes to shopping and meal prep get organised.

I never thought I would be one of those people – but seriously a little bit of a meal plan on the weekends makes a huge difference to stress levels during the week. Cooking on a Sunday afternoon can be therapeutic and having everything ready to just put in the oven or ingredients to throw a salad together when you get home from work leaves more time to connect or relax or move or whatever is important to you.

• Get your groceries delivered.

This one is a game changer and takes the stress out of supermarket shopping with a toddler. There are lots of organic produce delivery services too that make sourcing healthy organic ingredients much easier.

4. Prioritise sleep.

Again this is a HUGE topic and a massive blog piece by itself. 7-9 hours sleep is crucial for most humans to function optimally. It is where we rest and repair. Our cortisol and insulin levels fall and memory is consolidated. It’s literally mind blowing just how important sleep is and the problem is that technology and our inability to disconnect have severely disrupted our bodies’ natural circadian rhythms.

When we don’t get enough sleep, we have less resilience, are more irritable, less able to make good decisions, our immune system suffers, we have higher levels of inflammation, higher cortisol and insulin levels and it even results in increased weight gain. And in today’s world it’s not just a few nights of inadequate sleep. People are running around chronically sleep deprived. This is big people!! If they could bottle the benefits of sleep the drug companies would make a fortune.

Set up a bedtime wind down routine/ritual.

Try to turn off all screens at least an hour before bedtime. The blue light can inhibit melatonin release which can make it harder to fall asleep. So make the Netflix binge a once in a while thing rather than every night!

Do something that relaxes you like a bath or shower, dim lights and throw in some calming oils like lavender which all aid in setting the scene for a good nights sleep. Read, reflect on what you are grateful for or meditate before sleep. A fantastic app is CALM for meditation.

None of these strategies take any more time than you already have. It’s all about finding the awareness to connect more to the present moment. Some things may work for you and some might not. It’s about going through life consciously rather than just treading water or going through the motions. Some things might work for a time and then need reassessing. It’s a constant ebb and flow. But the trick is to tap into the moment. And sleep!!! Anyone who’s ever had a baby or worked night shift knows the world is a much better place with good sleep.

As a medical practitioner I know that much of chronic disease at the worse end of the spectrum and the collective feeling of overwhelm we suffer at the other, have their roots in our modern exposures and lifestyle. A pill will never fix it. We have to fix it. And waking up in the moment, nourishing our bodies rather than punishing or neglecting it and thinking of it last is a good start.

Remembering that no matter whether we mess up or make a mistake or didn’t do as well as we wanted to, we are doing the best we can and that we are all worthy of care and love. And taking those moments to tap into the moment without distraction means we are recharging and plugging our little batteries into the source of energy that exists around us and inside us. That’s where the magic happens. That and when your groceries get delivered without having to set foot inside a supermarket…