Being Idle

In a world where we are constantly being encouraged to work harder, faster and longer, along comes a book that suggest we put on the brakes. Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing by Andrew Smart draws from philosophy, history, literature, management theory and economics Smart makes a case for spending more time doing nothing.

Smart bases his arguments on experiments in neuroscience, which indicate that there’s a lot of stuff going on in our brains when we are doing absolutely nothing. He says Idleness is not laziness. In fact, idleness may be an important and necessary condition for processing and synthesizing information to create new ideas and connections.

Those parts of our brain that are extremely active when we are “idle”, may play an important role in helping with “creativity”. So if we fill up every minute of every day with getting stuff done, we could be blocking our own creativity.

Sometimes Smart rants: he hates the time management industry and isn’t afraid to say so. He’s also not to enamoured with productivity consultants who he believes is robbing corporations of their ability to innovate.

So what would you do in all this idle time? Doodle perhaps. Or just think. Smart points out that some of the most brilliant ideas have come when the people who had them were just idling. Rene Descarte, the inventor of the Cartesian coordinate system – better known to us plebes as the x/y axis – is said to have had his great aha! while watching a spider spinning a web. And Gravity Dude – Isaac Newton – was musing under an apple true when he had his eureka moment on how gravity worked.

I’ve had some profound experiences with downtime myself. When Alex and I were in Africa a couple of years ago, that downtime was tremendously healing. And when I spend my summers in the garden, pulling weeds, deadheading flowers, just being really, I find my creativity grows.

Smart isn’t the only person who is suggesting there is an upside to downtime. That mile-long to-do list may be just what’s standing between you and your better self.

Rubin Naiman, who is a PHD sleep specialist and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrated Medicine, says that people often confuse rest with recreation: While hiking, watching movies, gardening, reading are seen by many of us as “taking a break,” he contends they can’t be termed restful because they are breaks from work. Rest, he contends, requires that you be doing nothing.

Dr. Herbert Benson, of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, has conducted numerous studies on the benefits of rest. His research shows that relaxation affects each of the body’s 40,000 genes, producing anti-oxidation and anti-inflammatory changes that reduce stress in the body. It lowers heart rates, blood pressure, and oxygen consumption, and alleviates hypertension, arthritis, insomnia, depression, infertility, cancer, and anxiety.

Anne LeClaire, author of Listening Below the Noise: A Meditation on the Practice of Silence says “When you slow down and get quiet, you can actually begin to hear your own wisdom, your inner knowledge.”

So maybe we’ve got it all wrong. Maybe just taking time to be, to sit and doodle while we think, to breathe in and out while we watch what is going on around us, is what we need more of. Meditation is a big word these days, and it’s not surprising since many people need to learn how to rest. Yoga can help. So can implementing relaxation techniques.

Oprah meditates. If that woman can make quiet time for herself, I don’t thing the “I’m too busy” excuse holds water.

With more and more studies on meditation being done, it’s becoming clear that if we integrate periods of rest and silence into our daily lives, what we’re actually doing is practicing preventive medicine.

Today, try to add five minutes of idleness to your day. If you keep feeling the urge to jump up and do something, just say to yourself, “Five minutes for me,” and breath deeply. You’ve got to be worth five minutes, right?