The importance of doing nothing

I think spending time doing nothing is incredibly important.

Well.

Maybe not doing "nothing" per-say.

But at least, doing something that is repetitive, monotonous, and requires no brainpower.

Whatever keeps your body occupied while allowing your mind to wander.

This might be crocheting, or driving, or sitting at a desk and fidgeting.

For us, it's walking while listening to music that we've listened to a million times.

I think spending time doing those activities is very very important to one's mental health.

why?

Because it gives you time to think.

An anecdote

Readers of this blog will know, I pumped out posts at a breakneck pace earlier this year.

Writing a post a day, sometimes multiple.

Where did all that come from? And more importantly, why did it stopp?

I have very clear answers to both of those questions.

Why did it stop is the more interesting question though.

It wasn't due to a lack of time.

It wasn't due to not being in intensive therapy anymore (though that definitely helped).

It was due to me no longer being isolated and bored.

I was quite bored in San Diego, being alone with just my laptop and in the middle of the suburbs.

It was quite boring.

It turns out that being bored helps a lot with having ideas to write.

Note, not just having the time to write, but the ideas to write.

Being bored let me have ideas to write

Back to the point

I think spending time doing a "nothing" activity is very important to one's ability to reflect on their situation, process their emotions, and be able to make more thoughtful choices.

(This is just mindfullness in a differnet packaging by the way, in case you haven't noticed.)

But whether you call it mindfullness, or just doing a "nothing" activity, it's very important to your mental health.

For me, going for walks, doing these nothing activities, makes me naturally just start to think about my life.

I think about my choices, my emotions, my life, and how I feel.

I reflect, I process, I imagine how things could be.

I make decisions with more thought.

I am mindful of my emotions and my feelings.

Doing nothing is not the same as being bored

They are in fact, very very different.

I think being bored is quite counterproductive and wasteful.

I think doing a "nothing" activity is important and worth spending our limited time on.

What's the difference?

Being bored, for us, is sitting on our phone and scrolling. Scrolling youtube looking for a fun video to waste our time on. Scrolling bsky or whatever.

Scrolling, looking for something to cure our boredom.

Scrolling, filling my brain with garbage and expecting dopamine for it.

Scrolling and wasting time.

Scrolling and distracting myself from thinking the thoughts that I need to think.

Scrolling and disassociating.

Wheras when I walk, I think.

Our brain opens up and we think. We ponder. We rotate ideas in our head until they take shape.

Things get better when I take us for a walk.

Things rot when I lie in bed and scroll.

Spiralling and scrolling

I think the reason why I've struggled so much in the past with burnout is that burnout snowballs into a death spiral of boredom and exhaustion.

I wake up tired.

I go to work and get more tired.

I come home tired and unwilling to do anything, including a "nothing" activity.

I lie in bed and fill my brain with garbage.

I eat something and go to bed, where I fill my brain with more garbage until I pass out.

Scroll scroll scroll.

This death spiral has happened many times, and it's the most clear indicator I have for when I'm going to have a bad time with my mental health.

It's when I lose the ability to think.

I disassociate by scrolling.

I lose the ability to process any feelings that I have.

I lose touch wtith my emotions.

I fill my brain with empty thoughts to prevent myself from thinking.

And I stop doing "nothing"

Doing nothing is what pulls me out of those spirals.

Spending time going for a walk, spending that energy, and forcing myself to think the thoughts I don't want to think, is so so so valuable.

I can lie in bed and rot forever until I die, but that isn't going to help.

Spending time doing a "nothing" activity and actually allowing myself to think is what pulls me out of those spirals.

Back to writing

So to my point, I've been writing again.

Why? Because I'm stranded in my hometown for a few weeks and again, I'm in the suburbs alone and just have my laptop.

It's prime time for me to be bored.

To lie in bed and scroll.

But instead I've been walking.

And when I walk, I think about things.

And when I think about things, I think of things I want to share.

And so I write.

It's quite good and healthy.

I recommend you give it a try.

Try doing nothing for a bit and see what comes up.

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