How to Reduce Your Stress Footprint

Tomorrow is the first day of Lent. This year, I’m giving up drinking and driving.

Relax: I’ve never drunk alcohol behind the wheel, or anywhere else for that matter. What I do drink is coffee and lattes, which are readily available by drive-through. And a hot coffee picked up that way is a drink consumed by the time you reach your destination: after all, who wants their coffee to go lukewarm? Besides, it smells too good to ignore.

One problem (aside from distracted-driving risks): coffee really tastes better when it gets your full attention. When was the last time you sat down and finished a drink/snack/meal slowly, savoring every bit? And how often do you take the “go slow and savor” approach in other areas of life: walking outdoors, playing with your kids, listening to music, even doing your daily work?

Most of us tend to live with one-and-a-half eyes on our smartphones and 80 percent of our minds off our surroundings. We’ve all heard that multitasking leads to carelessness, fatigue, irritability, even reduced IQs. Yet we tend to feel we have no choice but to multitask. And we rarely consider the poor logic behind that assumption—because fear of missing out has us missing out on opportunities to really think.

Not to mention opportunities to rest, enjoy ourselves, or do anything but spend our lives running in place.

Want to get off that treadmill for a while? You may or may not observe Lent, but it’s not that hard to make time for “living in the moment”:

• Pick an hour a week for turning off all screens and spending time on a specific favorite activity. (“Just relaxing” counts.)
• Mark that time on your calendar. File it under “inviolable appointments.”
• When the time comes to turn off all devices—just do it! Trust that nothing will happen that you can’t wait an hour to know about.
• Expect some initial discomfort and stick it out. It happens to everyone when unlearning old habits; things will get easier soon enough.
• Note the benefits you reap as “time spent in the moment” becomes a habit. Expand this time as you feel led.
• Congratulate yourself on reducing your “stress and distraction footprint”—and the overall tension in the world!