Anxiety relief through doing less (or, why to not watch TV while you wash your hair)
I developed a bad habit during the pandemic. One of those bad habits you develop for a good reason because it feels like you need it to survive. It doesn’t sound that terrible when you think of it objectively, but in practice, it was pretty terrible for my brain.
My bad habit was constant multitasking.
Multitasking in and of itself doesn’t sound awful, since it is often what is required of us to exist and survive in modern society. Reading the news on the bus since that’s your only time to sit all day. Responding to an email while in a meeting. Calling the doctor while putting together lunch for your toddler. Western culture demands that we layer responsibilities one on top of the other throughout the entire day in order to get done everything that is demanded of us.
Unfortunately, multitasking isn’t real.
According to neuropsychologist Cynthia Kubu, PhD, “When we think we’re multitasking, most often we aren’t really doing two things at once. But instead, we’re doing individual actions in rapid succession, or task-switching.”
Because of task-switching, Harvard Business Review states that “...multitaskers do less and miss information. It takes time (an average of 15 minutes) to re-orient to a primary task after a distraction such as an email. Efficiency can drop by as much at 40%. Long-term memory suffers and creativity…is reduced.”
For the roughly 1.5 years that I was home with both children (a toddler and newborn) while my husband and I worked remotely full-time for Fortune 500 tech companies, multitasking was our way of life. I was rarely working without a child by my side, and in addition to cooking, cleaning, naps, etc. we had demanding jobs as well as personal needs to attend to. I am lucky that my clients and company made a significant shift toward being as casual as possible during meetings - expectations for my quality and quantity of work were still high, but making a toddler lunch during a team meeting or having my newborn on my lap as I discussed quarterly performance with a client were both understood and welcomed.
The constant need to do more than the hours in the day would allow, however, led to a variety of unhealthy multitasking behaviors, like watching a movie on my phone in the shower because that was the only alone time I had all day, or going to bed early just so that I could lie down as I responded to emails. After years of this, a few not-so-great things happened to my brain:
My anxiety was through the roof. I have had anxiety my whole life, but never to this extent. I worried about everything from my schedule for the next day to my own ultimate demise, from the moment I woke to the second I fell asleep.
I lost my ability to remember much of anything. If I didn’t write down a task or put it on my calendar, I wouldn’t even recall discussing it. Individual moments, even precious moments with my children, became a blur in my mind once they had been experienced.
I could no longer relax, even for one moment, to enjoy something I used to enjoy. I would close my Kindle so that I could fire off a quick email, or clean while watching a movie with my husband because that might be my only chance to clean that day.
There are more examples, but the bottom line is that life became a series of tasks instead of a series of experiences. I lost any joie de vivre I once had, and sank deeper and deeper into a cyclone of anxiety-ridden thoughts.
So, what can we do to fix this? Aside from retiring or outsourcing housework, childcare, etc., options many of us do not have access to, the main method for pulling ourselves out of the multitasking trap is to stop doing it altogether. In the book Buddhism 101 by Arnie Kozak (affiliate link) the topic of mindfulness is shared as one of the eight ways of living a Buddhist lifestyle on the noble eightfold path. Specifically:
“Right mindfulness has to do with living your life in the moment and being mindful of everything you do. When you eat, eat. When you wash the dishes, wash the dishes. When you read, read. When you are driving the car, pay attention to driving the car.”
Per Thich Nhat Hanh, “When you enter deeply into the present moment, you, too, become a living Buddha. You see the nature of reality, and the insight liberates you from suffering and confusion.”
The concept of mindfulness as the opposite of my own entertainment-centered multitasking was uncomfortable for me at first. As a working mom of two, if I don’t listen to an audiobook in the car, will I ever get to listen to an audiobook? If I don’t watch Brooklynn 99 while I’m washing my hair, will I get a moment to watch TV at all? The answer is, honestly, probably not. However, considering all of the information my poor brain is absorbing all day, that is likely ok. I still occasionally get to read or watch a show, I just do less of it, because now when I’m washing the dishes, I’m focusing on washing the dishes, instead of half listening to a movie and damaging my brain’s ability to focus, be creative, or calm down.
I have been intentionally attempting mindfulness in my day-to-day activities for a week now, and the benefits I’ve seen so far aren’t radical, but they are promising. I’ve noticed a decrease in anxiety, which was my main reason for attempting mindfulness and thus a happy result. I’ve also noticed an increase in gratitude and general awe regarding my own existence and the world we live in. I cherish my 5 year old waving to me from his classroom window, I hug my 2 year old tighter, because I am more able to be present in the moment, and even more thankful for the experience of being their mom.
So now I open this challenge up to you. If you are a serial multitasker like me, what would it take for you to attempt mindfulness in your daily life. If you already do so, what have you seen change? I would love to hear about your experiences. Wishing you luck and love on this beautiful, sunny (but chilly) Pacific Northwest Day.
