The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

by Nancy Colier

Like a child, the mind needs recess periods in its day, when it can just run and play, jump from thing to thing and not have to narrow its attention onto any particular object or event. The mind needs to be able to flow freely from thought to thought or simply to rest in no thought with an open and diffuse focus. Downtime between tasks allows our minds to rest, and this lowers our stress levels.3 Gaps in the day give us time to just float about, space out, or take much-needed breaks from mental activity. They allow us to reboot our systems and come back to our tasks refreshed and attentive. When our attention is narrowly focused on something all the time, we become mentally exhausted, and though more time is spent focusing on tasks, we in fact become qualitatively less productive.4 What’s more, when we’re not playing a game or engaged in a Google search, we can hear our own thoughts and feelings, contemplate our experience, check in, and discover how we are doing in the middle of all this modern life. Having our attention constantly focused on technology disables our ability to focus on ourselves.