The art of doing nothing

When your brain needs to re-boot

Since I was very small, doing nothing has always been connected to anxiety. I knew I wasn’t productive, that I would miss something and that I didn’t use time wisely. This continued up until just a few years ago and today I am fully aware that doing nothing is extremely important to have my life work properly. Still, there is this small feeling inside of me that I am a bit lazy or not being a responsible grown up.

Being a super fast and productive person at times, I need hours or even days every now and then where I just walk around at home like a zombie. I really do nothing. I think that I unconsciously re-boot my brain and solve a lot of questions, but it never really feels like it. I just am. Some people do meditation in the mornings or during the day at some point but that has never worked for me in a good way. I need a longer period of time to un-wind and reboot.

“It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.”

Gertrude Stein

What I also often end up doing after my “do-nothing-moments” is to organise and clean. I make my home impeccable. Go through piles of paper work. Buy myself flowers. Make sure I have great books and notebooks by my bed. And then it feels like I throw myself back into life again with a clear view and new energy. I think that researchers would say I am working with neuroplasticity which is something you should really give a quick moment to read about. In short your brain is not a constant fixed organ, you can change both the way and the quality of how it functions. You can read more about it here:

https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/neuroplasticity/

Doing nothing calms the soul. It creates inner peace. But it also creates a better opening to the start of doing something.