Every human being is born with certain intrinsic needs. That is, we each have a long list of things we need in order to feel healthy, happy and fulfilled. Some obvious examples are food, water and shelter but the list is long, and it’s shared by all people. Maslow’s famous “hierarchy of needs” is an attempt to group and structure these needs.

A couple of needs that we all have are peace and rest. Both are essential to our wellbeing.

Of course, our busy modern lives are often hostile towards these things.

People who are well-rested, calm and emotionally centred will tend to enjoy resting and being at-peace. Sitting and doing nothing is something we look forward to, especially when we do it somewhere beautiful. Indeed, we’ll prioritise moments of peace, rest, reflection and contemplation. These are things we enjoy!

However, the more stressed or anxious we are, the busier and more distracted we are, or the more emotional turbulence we’re carrying, the harder we’ll find it to sit and do nothing.

What gets in the way?

For many people, it’s really rare to sit and do nothing, even though it’s very good for us (more on that later).

Here are some of the common reasons that people might find it uncomfortable or unimportant to simply stop and be:

Habit

You may be so used to being active and busy that it simply doesn’t occur to you to stop, or it feels weird when you stop.

Technology

Our devices manipulate our neurochemistry and basic social impulses, and compel us to stay connected and active all the time. It can feel wrong on a physical level to stop scrolling, checking and responding.

Emotional turbulence

Many people find silence uncomfortable or disturbing. If there’s stuff waiting for you in the silence, you will feel compelled to stay busy.

Stress

A stressed or stimulated nervous system will tend to want to stay stressed and stimulated. Your body is designed to be stressed in response to danger, like a predator leaping out of the bushes. But in the modern world the stressors just keep going and going, never really being resolved, so our nervous system gets stuck in an active, stimulated state. It will be telling you that you’re in danger, that there’s a threat to your safety, even when there isn’t. This makes it very difficult to stop and rest.

Values

If you’ve internalised certain core values, you might feel like it’s wrong or even immoral to stop and rest. If your values tell you that good people work hard, or never stop, or achieve things all the time, then stopping feels like you’re doing the wrong thing.

Dependency

If you find resting uncomfortable, unfamiliar or difficult, then you might depend on others to make you do it, or to give you permission and structure.

ADHD or a highly active mind

People with ADHD, or some ADHD-like symptoms, will tend to find it deeply uncomfortable to stop and do nothing.

What do we tell ourselves?

If you’ve reasons to avoid stopping and doing nothing, then you might tell yourself:

I don’t have time
There’s no point
Rest is boring
Resting is hard work
Rest is scary or uncomfortable
It’s important to keep moving all the time
It’s wrong to stop
Lazy people rest, and I’m not a lazy person
I don’t like who I am when I stop
I’ll make time for it one day, but now isn’t a good time

There might be some truth in some of these statements, but they’re often ways to avoid the bigger truth: you don’t feel comfortable stopping and resting.

Why is it important to stop and do nothing?

It’s important to appreciate the moments of our lives before, suddenly, they’re all gone.

It’s important to be present for the people that matter to us.

Interesting, important, beautiful things are waiting to be noticed in every moment of our lives, and it’s important to be present for them.

People who struggle with resting might fail to see the point in stopping and doing nothing. Here are some of the main benefits:

The ability to rest and replenish

Once you have confidence in your ability to stop and do nothing, you can do it anywhere, for even the shortest amount of time, and find more energy and focus. It’s a great way to avoid burnout, or to make your energy go further.

Creative thinking

Plenty of research shows that we come up with more creative solutions to our problems when we remove all distractions for sections of our day. Different parts of our brains take over when we aren’t being intentional, and this leads to enhanced effectiveness when we return to being focused.

Retraining our bodies

If we can teach our bodies that stopping and doing nothing is good and safe, we lower our overall stress levels, which has a wide range of health benefits. Consistent high stress levels are associated with high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, obesity, diabetes and shorter life expectancy. It also significantly lowers quality of life by impacting the way you handle almost everything.

Personal development

For many people, uncomfortable things wait for them in silence. We cannot spend our whole lives running from these things: they tend to cause us all sorts of other problems and we all need, sooner or later, to meet them and understand what’s going on. The solution to these problems aren’t usually immediately obvioius. We first need to feel what’s going on for long enough to figure out what we solutions might be. So, sitting with your feelings is an essential, unavoidable part of personal development.

What’s the goal?

Imagine that you’re sitting in a beautiful spot in nature, perhaps under a tree by a river. The sunlight is glinting off the water, there are fish gently swimming under the surface, the wind is gently caressing your face, the scents are beautiful and all you can hear are the sounds of water and the rustling of the leaves. Your phone is miles away.

You feel no need to leave this moment, you could stay here for hours, watching, breathing, resting.

Imagine how your body might feel after a while sat in this beautiful place. Muscles relaxed. Body feeling gentle and present. Imagine how peaceful your mind and your emotions might be. Calm, resting, content, happy.

This is the state we’re trying to reach. Perhaps you can’t recreate this idyllic setting, but even just sat on your sofa at home with no distractions, no stimulation, no phone, it’s possible to reach this state of calm, presence and rest.

Resources to help you improve

Ultimately, developing the skill of sitting and doing nothing (and learning to enjoy it!) will only come through practice.

However, if you find sitting and doing nothing very difficult, or if you notice that you keep avoiding doing it, then here are some resources that might help:

Finding a local Mindfulness Meditation class
Visit the drop-in classes at your local Buddhist Centre
Contacting somebody to talk about Transcendental Meditation
(some research shows that this is more effective for those with ADHD or highly active minds)
Book into a specialist course like Vipassana or Zen meditation training
Using an app like Headspace, Calm, Insight Timer or Ten Percent Happier
(This is a less effective approach than classes, but it’s cheaper and easy to access)
Find a book about doing nothing, like this one or these

The core exercise - 15 minutes of nothing

If you’re someone who struggles to stop and do nothing then it can be difficult to get started. Here are some simple, clear steps you can follow to begin experimenting with this highly effective component in personal development…

Put your phone on silent and then put it in another room. It’s important that you can’t see, feel or hear it.
Find somewhere comfortable to sit for 15 minutes, ideally with your back unsupported (if this is comfortable for you).
Sit with an upright, dignified posture that symbolises your intention to be mindful for a short time. Sitting in this position will help you to avoid falling asleep.
You can close your eyes or keep them open.
Sit, and do nothing, and observe what happens.
If you find the noise in your head gets too loud, try bringing your focus to something calming, such as…
- Breathing gently through your nose and focus on the point at which the air enters and leaves your body
- Taking slow breaths in and then ‘sighing’ or ‘huffing’ your breath out, trying to let your shoulders drop with each exhale
- Notice something in the local area that you can stare at for a while, to take your attention away from the noise in your head
However, we are not really talking about meditation here. Meditation is an intentional exercise, which also has a huge amount of value. This exercise is simpler, but can be harder. Here, we are simply trying to sit and do nothing, allowing the systems of your body to calm and shift gear as they realise it’s ok to do nothing.
When the 15 minutes are up, write down what happened to you.

Ideally, do this every day. Even better, twice per day. When you’re writing down your observations, note how things are changing over time, as you do this regularly.

The Essential Art of Nothing