“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”
Anne Lamot
A glass of wine, a warm bath, scented candles. These are some of life’s great pleasures – but they're the doorway to calm, not the destination.
Modern life keeps pulling us back into threat mode. Not because there's a giant hyena chasing us, but because there are pings, deadlines, decisions, that feeling we should always be doing more. Our brain can't tell the difference between a work email at 10pm and a sabre-toothed tiger, so we stay alert and on.
We've also lost the empty moments – the kettle boiling, waiting for a train – which gave the brain space to catch its breath. Now we scroll.
Real calm is a biological state, when your nervous system steps down and lets go. The body knows how to get there. We just have to stop getting in the way.
When did you last switch off, properly ?
G O I N G D E E P E R
Psychology
When your brain is juggling too much at once, cognitive overload keeps your stress response switched on, even during rest. That’s why you can feel tired but wired – your mind can’t power down.
Inside the body
Most people don’t realise that calm isn’t a mood – it’s a biological state. When your body activates the relaxation response, your heart rate drops, stress hormones fall and your body steadies itself again.
Did you know?
We make around 35,000 decisions a day – no wonder our minds get overloaded.
At work
At work, your attention gets pulled into micro-streams by pings, messages, multitasking. Over time, that scatter creates attentional collapse where you can’t settle or concentrate. A moment of calm cuts through the noise and resets you.