My Failed Month of ‘No Sitting’

‘Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.’ ~Zen Proverb

In my second month of The Year of Living Without, I committed to not sitting for longer than 30 minutes at a time.

I have to admit failure here.

Well, not complete failure. I sat much less in August than I normally do, and was really pretty good in the mornings about remembering to get up (though I did forget a little in the beginning) and walking around, standing and reading, stretching, etc. I also was very active during the month, going for walks, runs, gym workouts, etc.

The problem came when I was tired, usually later in the afternoon and in the evenings. When I was tired, I just couldn’t seem to follow the plan. I would be tired from a long run (for example), and would lie down to take a short nap, and just wouldn’t want to get up. I forgave myself, and let myself rest. I told myself my body needed it.

Social situations were also awkward — when I would meet someone for dinner or tea, sitting is the norm. At first, I tried standing up, and explained myself, and felt weird standing up when they were sitting — I felt I was making them a little uncomfortable. So I caved there too, and decided not to make my friends or new acquaintances feel weird.

This Year of Living Without is not about making my life miserable, but about learning what it’s like to give up something I don’t want to give up. It’s about learning about resistance, and what it’s like to push back against that internal resistance.

I did learn about that in August.

Here are some lessons:

When you’re tired, it’s really hard to beat resistance.Rest before the resistance comes. Get lots of sleep to change habits.It’s hard to remember a day-long habit like not sitting for too long. Start with smaller sections, like just the morning, and then expand.In the beginning of a habit, have visual reminders where the habit takes place, so you don’t forget. Enlist the help of others to remind you too.Figure out what you’ll do in social situations before they happen. Talk to people before you meet with them, and tell them about your weird habit, and work out a plan together. Otherwise it becomes awkward and you cave in.Forgive yourself when you fail.Standing, stretching, doing exercises, cleaning, running, walking and generally being more active during the day makes you tired later in the day. I was surprised how tired I got.

Previously: My Month Without Coffee (update: I’ve been drinking coffee again recently)

This month, I’m going without video of any kind, which includes TV, movies, YouTube and other online video.

I resisted this idea mostly because it’s been my ritual to sit with Eva in the evenings and have a glass of red wine and watch one of our favorite shows for about an hour or so. This was our winding-down ritual, and it was something we shared. I didn’t want to give this up, and every time I considered it previously, I resisted. So I’m giving it up.

The biggest obstacle is losing that shared time with Eva (and the kids sometimes). I’ve suggested that we do something else together in the evening, but at the same time I don’t want to force her to give up TV if she doesn’t want to. So we’re still figuring this out.

My replacement habit is to write, read and do yoga in the evenings. So I’m actually looking forward to this. Actually, I’ve already started (3 days now) and am enjoying the extra time at night, but not enjoying missing the shared family time.

One small slip-up to report already: I watched this video about our smartphones disconnecting us from each other. I liked the video a lot, but then realized I wasn’t supposed to watch it. Oops!

View the original article here

Limit Screen Time, Limit Sitting

One of the hazards of our modern lifestyle is our tendency to become more and more addicted to staring at screens, and more and more sedentary.

We look at laptops and desktop computers, iPhones and Androids and iPads and iPods, TVs and movie screens, play video games, watch videos, surf the web, socialize online, work online. And we’re sitting the whole time.

I’m a victim of this as much as anyone else. My family and I are drifting toward this lifestyle, and while I’m no Luddite, I do believe that we should live less as victims and more consciously.

Too much screen time means less active time, less personal socializing, less focus on the present, less time for cooking healthy food, less time reading novels, painting, making music, making time for the ones you love. And too much sitting means fewer years on your life.

So what’s a better way?

Limits.

Limit how much screen time you have each day. Limit your sitting to short periods with breaks in between.

I realize that many people have jobs that require them to have a minimum amount of computer time, and probably mostly sitting. So I don’t recommend a certain number, only that you figure out a limit and work with that.

Though I’ve set limits for myself in the past, I’ll admit that they’ve eroded in recent months, so that my screen time has grown over time. And not just for me — for my wife and kids. So recently Eva and I set limits for ourselves, and we’ve been working with them.

We find them to be great. I find daily limits to be a better balance than going on week-long or month-long digital sabbaticals, which aren’t realistic for many people.

Here’s an example:

We set a limit of either 4 or 5 hours of total screen time a day. (We haven’t figured out what’s best yet, still experimenting.)That total is broken into 30-minute chunks. So if it’s 5 hours total, that’s 10 chunks of 30 minutes.At the start of a 30-minute chunk, I set a computer timer and put a tally mark on a text document, so I know how many chunks I’ve used today. When the bell rings, I close my laptop.After the 30-minute chunk, I take a break of at least 30 minutes. I try to get up and move, stretch, play with the kids, get outside. I also often read a novel. The moving is good for my body, and helps me to think.If I have things I want to look up online, or write online, I’ll just make a note of it and do it when I start my next 30-minute chunk.

This isn’t the only way to do it — you’ll have to find the limit that works for you, and the chunk size that works for you. But the idea is to set limits, and to break the total up into pieces so you’ll take breaks and do other things.

We’ve loved it: we’re reading more books, spending more personal time with each other and the kids, getting more chores done, exercising more, playing outside more.

It also means that because we have a limit, we have to figure out the best way to use that time. We have to make choices — what’s worthy of our limited time, and what isn’t? This means more conscious use of our time.

We haven’t instituted the limits with the kids yet, though we have been talking to them about it and getting them thinking about what would work best for them. And we do tell them to take breaks from devices throughout the day, so they’ll do other things.

For the kids, this has meant they have more unstructured, imaginative play, more reading, more art and music, more activity. Kids get addicted to screens just as much as adults do, and it’s not a healthy thing for them. We’re trying to teach them ways to live a healthy lifestyle, which is a lesson with lifelong benefits.

We’ve found this lifestyle to be healthier, better for relationships, better for our peace of mind. And to me, that means it’s something worth keeping.

More reading:

How to Limit Your Child’s Screen TimeReduce Screen TimeSetting Computer Limits

View the original article here

Sitting and Watching

‘No matter what gets in the way or which way the wind does blow… I’ll just sit here and watch the river flow.’ ~Bob Dylan

Have you ever felt that we are rushing through life, that we get so caught up in busy-ness that life is passing us almost without notice?

I get this feeling all the time.

The antidote is simple: sitting and watching.

Take a minute out of your busy day to sit with me, and talk. Take a moment to imagine being in the middle of traffic — you’re driving, stressed out by the high amount of traffic, trying to get somewhere before you’re late, angry at other drivers who are rude or idiotic, completely focused on making your way through this jungle of metal on a ribbon of asphalt. Now you’ve gotten to the end, phew, you made it, wonderful, and you’re only a few minutes late … but did you notice the scenery you passed along the way? Did you talk to any of the other people along your path? Did you enjoy the ride?

No, probably not. You were so caught up in getting there, in the details of navigating, in the stress of driving, that you didn’t have time to notice your surroundings, the people nearby, or the wonderful journey. This is how we are in life.

Now imagine that you pulled over, and got out of the car, and found a grassy spot to sit. And you watched the other cars zoom by. And you watched the grass blown gently by the wind, and the birds making a flocking pattern overhead, and the clouds lazily watching you back.

Sit and watch.

We don’t do this, because it’s useless to do something that isn’t productive, that doesn’t improve our lives. But as Alan Watts wrote in The Way of Zen:

“As muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone, it could be argued that those who sit quietly and do nothing are making one of the best possible contributions to a world in turmoil.”

It’s interesting, too, what we see when we sit and watch. We will notice others rushing, and worried, and angry, and in them see a mirror of ourselves. We will notice children laughing (or crying) with their parents, and remember what we’re missing when we rush to improve our lives.

More interesting is what you see when you sit and watch yourself. You learn to step outside yourself, and act as an observer. You see your thoughts, and learn more about yourself than you ever could if you were rushing to take action. You see your self-doubts, and self-criticism, and wonder where they came from (a bad incident in childhood, perhaps?) and wonder if you are smart enough to let them go. You see your rationalizations, and realize that they are bullshit, and learn to let those go too. You see your fears, and realize what hold they have over you, and realize that you can make them powerless, by just sitting and watching them, not taking action on them.

By sitting and watching, you come to know yourself.

You learn the most valuable lessons about life, by sitting and watching.

And as we know from the observer effect in physics, by watching, we change what we watch.

Take a few minutes today, to sit and watch. It might change your life.

View the original article here