“What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.”

It's important to keep up with the fast-moving world to survive and perform daily chores. But in this article, I will discuss intolerable busyness-the desire to be busy even in your leisure and its harmful effects.

Haven’t you noticed---how you reach out to your phone after coming back from work or whenever you got nothing to do?

How you switch on the TV while having food? Glued to your phones while conversating?

Not just phones, but many like to overwork even when they haven’t been asked by their bosses, it’s because they fear being alone with their thoughts.

What busyness is doing to you according to science

Kills Creativity

Science says that creative thinking arises out of idleness and it gets affected when you’re constantly busy. To tap into creativity, we must develop an ability to rest and calm down our anxious brain craving constant stimulation.

This is impossible when every free moment—at work, in line, at a red light—you’re reaching for your phone. You grow anxious and irritable when you don’t get that stimulation. You’re not giving yourself the time to use your latent creativity.

Reduces the quality of life

Despite all the wealth and comforts, you aren’t enjoying life to the fullest. This is because you work for a better tomorrow and when tomorrow comes, you again work for a better tomorrow. You are no longer working for earning a living but using it as a distraction from not liking your company or whatever reason.

Alan Watts in his book The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety wrote, “So many people of wealth understand much more about making and saving money than about using and enjoying it. They fail to live because they are always preparing to live. Instead of earning a living, they are mostly earning an earning, and thus when the time comes to relax, they are unable to do so.”

Quality of work suffers

While it is important to work hard in this competitive world but it’s more important to rest as always trying to push your limits will eventually lead to burnout. Will you be most innovative when you keep working without thinking or when you reflect on your work?

The world’s greatest minds like Nikola Tesla discovered rotating magnetic fields during a leisurely walk in Budapest. Albert Einstein listened to Mozart on breaks from intense thinking sessions. Research says it is only after you've "stressed" the mind and then allowed it to "rest" that insight occurs.

Researchers from the University of York and the University of California, Santa Barbara have found that although we spend the vast majority of our waking hours in effortful thought, over 40% of our creative ideas come when we give ourselves a break.

How to unbusy yourself?

Now, when you know how being busy all the time is deteriorating our mental health. Here are some healthy ways to fill your leisure.

Go for walks (try doing it without a phone), read novels, socialise, listen to music, sports, learn an instrument, etc. The list is endless, whatever you enjoy is worth adapting. Slow down, breathe, and smile.

Sometimes, doing nothing is the right choice as Oscar Wilde rightly said, "To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.”