ABOUTOn a rainy day last weekend, plans were canceled and I found myself stranded. Considering that I like to have backup plans for my backup plans, my first reaction was panic. So what now? I wandered aimlessly from room to room, grumpily putting away random objects.
For the first time in weeks I noticed that most of my indoor plants were in critical condition, I decided to give them a spa day. I moved the worst cases to a south-facing windowsill and carefully removed (a lot of) dead leaves. Just in case, I organized a sorting box with plant food, mister and watering can. I might get carried away and order the “beautiful leaf sheen” as well.
It's funny, isn't it, how often we rush through life, fueled by busyness and adrenaline, while secretly craving rest. But when such an opportunity finally arises, it becomes uncomfortable. Somehow, however, my botanical ER session instilled a calming sense of investment. It was getting dark and, feeling oddly smug, I went around replacing missing bulbs in various fixtures and dimming the lights. Dozing on the couch under the electric blanket and half-listening to a podcast, I spent the rest of the day in this drowsy state. After dinner I decided to go to bed early. I slept better than ever.
Despite the tangible benefits, my initial reluctance to slow down is not unusual. Research showed that people often underestimate the degree of pleasure from inactivity. There is a tendency for people to choose to do something, even something unpleasant, over an alternative option. This has been proven to an extraordinary degree by psychologists at Harvard University. whose research found that, given the choice between sitting alone with their thoughts for just six to 15 minutes or receiving an electric shock, participants preferred to be given the electric shock.
So why do so many of us have an aversion to idleness? “It’s not even disgust, I think many people don’t even think about it,” says Gabriel Treanorauthor Experiment “1% health”.
“Today we always have something to do. We are constantly connected to everything,” she says. “So the opportunity to do nothing rarely arises.” Social media, for example, constantly bombards us with ideas for new activities. “We get inspired by ways to organize our home, places to visit, or new things to try. It's easy to feel like life offers endless possibilities. We try to squeeze everything into our days.”
There is another factor: guilt, especially because you seem lazy. Employment increasingly provides a sense of status and moral superiority. “Many of us grew up with the phrase, ‘The devil has work for idle hands,’” Treanor says. “And many of us are all too aware of the extra things we think we should be doing. We're trying to live up to the idea of being a great parent, a great son or daughter, a great co-worker or employer, a great friend. All of this adds up to quite a lot of weight and makes it impossible to accept doing nothing at all, even for a while.”
Of course, one person's idea of inactivity is another person's idea of a busy day. I have an office colleague who regularly retreats to a quiet corner for an afternoon siesta. Meanwhile, my neighbor often talks about spending the weekend doing “nothing much” before completing a long list of fitness classes, brunches, and meeting a work deadline.
Many of us are simply afraid of boredom. Sandy Mann is a psychologist at Lancashire University and author of The Science of Boredom. Her research found that boredom isn't a bad thing, but it can make us more creative. A group of participants were given the tedious task of copying numbers from a telephone directory. At the end, they were asked to come up with as many uses for the plastic cup as possible. They performed better than the control group. But then the second group was given a much more boring task of simply reading the numbers out loud, and they did even better at creative brainstorming.
“When we're bored, our brains frantically seek out neural stimulation, and everyone has a different level that's optimal for it,” says Mann. “So when we're bored and have nothing to do and can't get the level of neural stimulation we need from the outside, our brain starts looking for it internally, in our own mind, and that's why we start wandering and daydreaming. These two states are associated with creativity.”
The reason is that when the brain switches off, it accesses the network in its default mode. “It's not like sleeping at night, but we're still in a semi-conscious state, which allows the brain to make connections and generate ideas that it wouldn't make when awake,” Mann says.
When we are alert and fully rational, our critical, judgmental mind rules everything. Or, as Mann puts it: “If you're dreaming, you don't have that restraint, that voice in your head that says, 'Don't be stupid, this is a ridiculous idea!' Instead, our minds are free to roam outside the box, looking for things we wouldn't necessarily think of when we were more conscious.”
Mann goes so far as to suggest that we schedule activities that allow us to be productively unproductive in our daily lives, especially if we have a puzzle we want to solve. “You need to do something that requires as little cognitive load as possible. It's good to go for an aimless walk (if you know where you're going). Or find somewhere to lie down and just look at the clouds, or somewhere to sit and watch what's going on in the world.”
However, she cautions against confusing mindless activities with mindful ones. “Watching TV or scrolling online doesn't promote creativity. On the contrary. They engage the brain and suppress daydreaming. Likewise with writing, drawing or painting: these activities still require some cognitive load. However, for the latter, let's say you're in a very boring work meeting, it would be really useful to try.”
Oh yes, work. This is one area where doing nothing is clearly a bad idea. Caroline Schubert of Friedrich Schiller University Jena studied the impact of corporate slack. She cites an American study that shows the average worker stands idle for more than a fifth of their workday waiting for tasks to be completed. This can range from a call center agent waiting for the phone to ring to anyone logging in and waiting for a computer update to download. Her article What to do when there is nothing to do looks at how we could best use this dead time.
“What we do know is that downtime at work tends to have negative consequences. It can reduce people's well-being and their productivity. It's associated with boredom, not surprisingly, but also with fatigue. It's not just frustrating or tiring, it actually drains people's mental resources,” she says.
Schubert's research found that there is a big difference between expected downtime and unexpected periods of inactivity. “In some jobs, downtime is common. We interviewed one woman who typically had about six hours in an eight-hour workday. So she went to work expecting it. She made the most of it, offering to help co-workers, watering the office plants, and even learning a new language.”
If you want to get better at being productively unproductive, there are strategies. “Treat it as an experiment and bring a little lightness and play into it,” suggests Treanor. “Especially if you're feeling panicked when your phone battery dies and wondering how you're going to spend your time. I think a lot of us on a long train ride will feel like we're wondering how we're going to pass the time. It's the fear of the unknown.”
Instead of setting yourself up for failure by promising to stare into space for 20 minutes every morning, Treanor suggests starting small. “If you walk your dog every day with headphones on or talk to a friend, peel off a layer. Try going without it. You'll be more likely to notice your thoughts even if you're still doing something. Or play a game to notice something new on every walk, even if it's just a new store or a small child running down the road.”
If you're feeling really brave, she suggests dropping everything and sitting doing nothing for two minutes. “Be proud of yourself for trying. Recognize that it's really hard and uncomfortable. You don't have to judge yourself for not enjoying it. You can try longer next time.”
This is a great idea that I will definitely try someday. But right now I need to revive several plants.
