There’s too much Noise. Most of us feel it, most of us are trying ways to minimise it. In our hyper-connected world, overstimulation has become the norm.
The remedy is simple. Minimise.
My approach to minimalism isn't about extreme lifestyle changes - it's about aligning my inner world, outer environment, and now my digital presence. As if we didn't have enough to worry about.
If my inner world is cluttered, instead of joining a yoga or meditation class or booking a vacation or a massage (which helps too), I look to my environment, my choices, my routine and my digital presence. Do they point to overstimulation or clutter or simplicity?
In the recent months, I started looking at my screen time and more specifically my Social Media Platforms time (All combined). Now this is not a post on hating any particular platform or dissing anything so we’re going to skip my opinions on that.
The information from checking my social media time is the amount of hours I have consumed thousands of content pieces, felt emotions, felt sad about a war on one end, felt warm by a rescue story, memes on the reality of today, shared it with 3 to four of my usual friends which we all do, received memes from them. Checked them out, again felt emotions, then switched over to more information that’s now teaching me how to live a life, when to have kid, how my marriage should be, morning routines, which protein to have, how to workout and cherry on top of the cake is all the things I should prevent from happening and fear. All of this in some 15-20 mins that was supposed to be a break.
The result is that now my brain has gone through so much information in such a short time that I’m done.
Where is the space for making pots that make my heart sing, where’s the motivation that has leaked out through the dopamine hits that the information gave me, where’s the focus I needed to glaze my pots which is a very mundane boring laborious job for long hours. On top of everything, I feel mildly irritable. Not so irritable that you pin point this issue on any platform but strong enough that it behaves like a roadblock. The irritability is because I still need to push myself without any motivation or desire to do the said above things. I also have to do things I do not like, like accounts and creating documents.
What's the solution at that moment? For me its too have a cup of coffee which borrows my energy from the future, gives me a boost at the moment and gives me a crash later leading to just feeling exhausted at some points of the day and not sleeping well.
So we live life doing our minimum best and feeling a bit on the edge with our heart rate slightly high at most times. Overstimulation and rocky nervous system has become a thing.
If you like me would like to come out of this, and really see for yourself what is your potential here’s 5 things that helped me and still do. I have done these basic practices for years now and they really do help.
1. Foundation - Slow Boring Sticky Routine
If this is something you struggle with, start with the basics.
Consistent sleep and wake time, eating all meals at the same time everyday, Workout/move 3-5 times a day. Clean your room and keep it clean. Stock up on real foods, supplement on top of homemade meals, read a few pages of a book not on a screen, talk a walk outside. All this with a full time job. If you don’t have a job, spend some hours learning a skill.
Do all this without your phone or a screen except for music or if an online programme is required.
2. Movement - Shake it off
When we cause stress on our body through running, strength training, aerobic activity, stretching, the body’s way to adapt to the stress strengthens you physically, emotionally and mentally. Along with adaptation, movement gives you a feel good high for a few hours, removes stagnancy, makes everything in the body work better. When one does hard things, makes an effort, the brain wanting to maintain balance gives you a feel good boost. On the other hand, when you constantly give into quick fun activities, to maintain balance it gives you a downer to come back to neutral.
3. Clean Your Space
Remove things from your life that are taking your space. Everything around us has an energetic charge. Clothes, books, linen, boxes, paper bags, random miscellaneous things, get them out or organise and give them a spot intentionally. I remember I learnt the art of tidying up by Marie Kondo back in 2018 when a student of mine recommended me her book. Since then I’ve never struggled with clutter piling up. To exaggerate, when Karthik & I were building our home, I got a cave like studio apartment made for me which has a kitchen bedroom, dining, storage, bath all in one rectangle. The reason for this size even though making huge houses in a farm is very easy and economical as compared to cities, was the fact that I never wanted to be in a position of hoarding too much by keeping my storage solutions super limited.
4. Increase Focus
Focus & Attention is a very valuable asset in this day and age. If you can focus on anything long enough, you have a competitive edge. More than that, it gives one peace, satisfaction of doing anything and let’s you get to the other side of a topic instead of constantly letting half baked thoughts and activities float around in your mind. When I felt I had lost my focus, I started reading books. Books I liked and not the ones my ideal self reads. Fiction, non fiction does not matter. Dive into some one else’s perspective. Be interested in another persons world. It also releases some pressure of thinking just about yourself. And yes, working out also helps focus.
5. Uninstall the app
This is a controversial one so I kept this for number 5. I would ideally put this as the first one. The rewards are astounding! For a few days your fingers will feel the itch to scroll. Boredom and FOMO sets in. But if you replace it with activities you always wanted to do, you will find yourself much more clearer, focused, calm, happy. In just a week you will find that calmness back.
Too many times I wanted to stop writing this post judging myself, feeling too preachy but I kept writing cause maybe one of you will benefit a tiny bit from this. Its the boring stuff, the slow stuff that makes up happy, productive and in turn find joy! Anything that gives you a spike in emotions, and too much of the same will cause overstimulation.
Attaching links of some long talks that helped me. If you'd like to dive deeper, here are some of my recommendations.
- Cal Newport whose known for practicing & preaching Deep Work
- Jaron Lanier who invented Virtual Reality and talks about deleting our social media accounts and has written books on Dawn of New Everything, Ways to Recreate the Internet, Data Diginity & more.
- Andrew Huberman talks about the science of Dopamine, Focus, Effort.
- Martha Beck & Robert Greene Talks also help in finding your purpose, joy which I think fits this list indirectly.
Lots of Love,
Nikita
