It sounds like a paradox, but if you want to get the most out of life, sometimes you have to slow down, not speed up. We often think that busyness is the ways to go; the more we do, the more experiences we pack in and the more fun we have, right? No, that is often not the case. When we’re busy all the time, we don’t ever really get to truly live in the moment, to truly savour the experiences we are having, which is why slow living can help you love your life even more. With that in mind, here are some slow living tips you may want to adopt in your life.
By Team Savant
Image: Shashi Ch
Unplug
Perhaps, the best thing you can do to slow down in life is to unplug your devices for an hour or two and get rid of those constantly pinging distractions. When you’re unplugged, you can sit down, relax and truly experience life as it happens around you, whether you’re reading a good book, supporting the Scotland Rugby team, playing with your kids or having drinks with friends. Be present and you’ll be far happier.
Meditate
Meditation is a life skill that everyone should learn. When you take the time to sit down, close your eyes and focus on your breath, and only your breath, you may think that you are wasting time that you could be using for something else, but actually you are gaining time. Meditation will help you to live life more effectively. It will help you to clear your head of distractions and negative ruminations and teach you how to live slowly, mindfully, and most importantly of all, fully.
Ritualise Your Life
Having rituals in your life makes you pay more attention, and turns the mundane into the magical. So, whether you have a morning routine of drinking a cup of coffee in the sunshine or an evening routine of applying skincare and meditating before bed, the more little rituals you can fit into your life, the happier you will be.
Cook
Cooking your own meals from scratch forces you to slow down. You can’t just sling a ready meal into the microwave and wait for the ping; you have to wash, peel, chop, saute and...well you get the idea. Why is this important? Because it connects you to your food. It makes your meals more important and gives you a whole new appreciation for your food. It causes you to slow down and really appreciate what you have, even if it is a simple tomato sauce with pasta.
Get A Hobby
Instead of setting down in front of the TV each night, get yourself a hobby instead. From knitting and crocheting to learning the guitar or working in the next great novel, there are so many great hobbies to explore, and they will help you to really slow down, concentrate and feel a sense of achievement in your life.
Stop wasting your life and start loving it by slowing down.