Switch Off and Find Calm

Slow Down and Regain Control of Your Life

A. Lockwood

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780730382164
• eBook ISBN: 9780730382188
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

Slowing down is not a luxury, it is a necessity

Have you ever felt as though everyone wants too much from you? Does your life feel so full there is no room to do the things you enjoy? Do you feel as though life at full throttle is consuming you?

Occupational therapist Angela Lockwood shows you how to recognise overwhelm and overstimulation, build habits that help you flick the switch, and re-energise both your mind and body.

With Switch Off and Find Calm, you will learn to recognise when it's time to switch off and discover practical ways to make that happen.

Part IThe burden of connection

The background hum of the television was mostly drowned out by the whirr of the oven and the ruckus of the kids getting ready for dinner, until a prime-time television news report broke through the noise and caught my attention. A revolutionary new ‘boot camp’ had been started in South Korea to help kids as young as eight learn how to play with their peers and take time away from technology. In a first of its kind (other such initiatives have since followed), this residential program brought city kids into a natural setting where they got to run outside, build forts and generally mix with other kids — with no iPad, smartphone or television in sight. The idea was to teach children how to be children again, without technology.

I stood in the kitchen, a tea towel draped over my shoulder, riveted to the story. The screen showed boys aged around 9 to 13 standing in loose formation, bringing to mind a scene from M*A*S*H, the military comedy series from the 1970s. Except these were not recruits in army greens but young boys of every shape and size, most of them not looking at all pleased to be there. Their parents waved goodbye anxiously and drove off, leaving their sons in the hands, not of a stern-looking drill sergeant, but of a middle-aged couple who looked more like office workers than boot camp instructors.

But this was no typical boot camp. It was a camp for troubled youth whose main challenge was an addiction to technology that had impacted their behaviour, their learning and their friendships. At home they were forever sprawled in front of the television or glued to their computer, rudely refusing to do their homework and chores, isolating themselves from their peers. As the story progressed we saw the same young boys climbing trees, jumping into a creek, reading books. To me they looked like … kids, and they were. Except they had lost connection with the childhood joys associated with being outdoors, being creative and playing with real-life friends. Their problem was not simply playing too many computer games; it went deeper. The interviewer asked one young boy how he was finding the program. With eyes downcast and in a soft voice he replied, ‘It’s good, but I miss my computer … I didn’t think I could live without it’.

As the curry bubbled on the stove behind me, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the screen. During my career as an occupational therapist I have worked a lot with children with learning, behavioural and developmental challenges. I imagined (or hoped) what I was seeing here was a problem that applied to only a very small demographic of the global community. I knew South Korea was one of the world’s most wired nations. But surely this was not a serious issue, big enough and prevalent enough that kids needed to be taken from their parents, forcibly disengaged from their technological devices in order for them to learn to be kids again. Well, it seems I had no idea. The problem for all of us is indeed bigger than I, or any of us, could have imagined, and it is not going away.

CHAPTER 1 Work–life integration

The challenge of being overconnected and unable to switch off from technology transcends age, race, education and geography, and it doesn’t stop with technology. Many of us feel the effects of living life in the fast lane. Our frenetic pace, racing from one meeting to the next and one activity to the next, is affecting our ability to take time out, slow down, switch off and refuel. With our bodies and minds constantly ‘switched on’, our health and wellbeing are increasingly paying the price. We are in a state of chronic overconnection, overwhelm and overstimulation. This is a growing global problem.

Searching for slow

In 2004 Canadian journalist and best-selling author Carl Honoré published In Praise of Slow, in which he outlines the sociological and psychological implications of a speed-obsessed culture and warns of the potential negative consequences of our obsession with speed. Honoré traces the history of our relationship with time and asks, ‘Why are we always in such a rush?’ and ‘When are we going to slow down?’ Arguing that ‘Evolution works on survival of the fittest, not the fastest,’ he proposes an alternative way of thinking and living, which he calls ‘the slow revolution’.

To achieve more we do not have to keep pushing ourselves to do more; in fact we are capable of achieving more through doing less. Most people reading this will want to jump immediately to the ‘how to’ section. It is a modern-day conundrum: how can we do more by doing less?

To achieve more we do not have to keep pushing ourselves to do more; in fact we are capable of achieving more through doing less.

In Praise of Slow was written more than fifteen years ago. This way of thinking seemed then to be espoused only by hippies living in the mountains who were rarely in touch with the ‘real world’. How times have changed! Roll forward ten years and it seems the slow revolution has started to find its way into the consciousness of people you would least expect to have time for it. Executives in boardrooms are searching for ways to integrate slow living into their fast-paced, demand-driven lives, and as suggested in the Korean news report, parents are embracing the slow revolution for their children.

We want to have it all — a fat pay packet, a successful business, prestige during the week, and the weekend spent stand-up paddle boarding, sipping lattes and coaching the soccer team. To have it all, though, we need to make some changes to how we are living. Back in 1948, in his best-seller How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie spoke of the importance of living a life free of worry about the constraints of time and other pressures. His message evidently remains compelling, as the book continues to be one of the most recommended business self-help books almost seventy years later.

If we have known for a long time, having been warned by such authoritative voices as these, that living life constantly ‘switched on’ is negatively affecting our physical and psychological wellbeing, then why haven’t we taken notice?

Part of the answer lies in the context of the rapid pace of change in our world. The changes that have resulted from the growth in population, communications and technology over the past hundred years are quite astonishing. Here are some examples taken from the years my grandmother has been alive:

• » As many people live in Sydney today as lived in the whole of Australia in 1915.
• » Traditionally school children relied on paper and ink. Today’s students learn using personal tablets, computers, interactive boards and live video linkups, starting as early as preschool.
• » A handwritten letter to a friend could take weeks to get to London from Australia; now it takes milliseconds to send a message via instant messaging to the other side of the world.
• » The most influential people were once politicians; now we look to business leaders, bloggers and celebrities for guidance.
• » People would send a letter or walk to a friend’s house for a cup of tea and a catch-up; now there are social media platforms with millions (sorry, billions) of users, allowing you to connect instantly with your friends (and with people you don’t even know!) all over the world.
• » According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 1915 just 498 divorces were recorded in Australia; today’s annual figure exceeds 47 000.
• » Television, computers, phones, cars, air travel, the pop-up toaster, disposable nappies, ballpoint pens, batteries, aerosol cans, stereos and the internet, all now taken for granted in our society, were invented during the lifetime of my grandmother. It is mind-blowing to think that none of these things we so take for granted even existed when she was young. Now we cannot imagine life without them. (Think about the changes you might yet see in your own lifetime or 100 years from now.)

We cannot deny these changes have benefited us in so many ways. It is our ability to keep up with the speed of change that is taking its toll on our health and wellbeing. So why haven’t we learned how to switch off when we need to? It comes down to two factors: expectations and priorities.

Life role evolution

Life roles evolve. If we roll back a few thousand years, the chief expectations of our early ancestors were to eat and to stay alive. Life was based on survival, so daily actions focused on finding adequate shelter, gathering enough food and making sure you were not eaten — with social roles distinguishing, for example, hunters from gatherers. Not complicated perhaps, but life had its risks and stressors, like being taken by a lion or dying of starvation.

Roll forward a few thousand years to the 19th century and expectations had changed significantly. By common practice men worked for pay to provide for their family while women were expected to run the household, raise children, and keep the family fed, clothes washed and needs satisfied. Days were spent working to provide a roof over the family’s heads and put food on the table — not so very different from our early ancestors, albeit a little more complicated, and with the danger from lions much reduced. It was still a lot simpler than the complexity of life roles we know today.

Move into the 20th century and life roles started to shift much faster. Women were speaking up, demanding equal rights, insisting there was more to life than putting a hot meal on the table, and looking for options beyond running the household. Men, in turn, started to resent how their long hours at work meant less time with their families. They were looking for ways they could both be the provider and take a more active part in family life.

Part-time work was typically taken on by men nearing retirement age as a way to gradually step out of full-time work into retirement. How times have changed! According to a report released in 2018 by the Australian Industry Group titled ‘Casual work and part-time work in Australia 2018', an estimated 18.5 per cent of Australian men are now working part-time employment compared to 5.2 per cent in 1980. As national interest in gender diversity has grown, life roles and community expectations have significantly shifted for both women and men.

People are looking for and creating opportunities that will allow them to work and have a life. Both men and women are making different choices about family, work and relationships. Purpose and passion have become greater motivators than pay, and success is measured as much by a person’s ability to balance work and family as by financial reward.

The challenge is to pursue a financially successful career while also carvin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title page
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the author
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: A message from the author
• Part I: The burden of connection
• Part II: When to switch off
• Part III: Regaining control
• Part IV: Designing your habitat for health
• Final message
• Eula