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Let’s start with the good news: Relaxing doesn’t just feel good, it could even contribute to making you smarter. The bad news: Most of us might not be doing it entirely right (Bear with us).

Relaxation means different things to different people. Some might see it as spending time with friends, others may prefer a night-in reading a good book. Others enjoy watching a movie (or two) or playing video games. 

But while we all have our unique preferences — dependent on our life circumstances as much as our personal traits (eg do you identify as an introvert or extrovert) —  science tells us that some activities that we’ve traditionally seen as “relaxing” might actually not have the effect we intended. In fact, not all types of relaxation were created equal.

The reason has to do with mental processing. Our brain uses energy to process different types of input, whether it is a work assignment, a phone call with a friend, or simply walking down the street and making sure we don’t get run over. 

With most information that comes our way, we don’t need much deliberation to assess whether it is of significance to us or not, we know what to do with it, intrinsically (fight-or-flight) or as a learnt behaviour (i.e. tying your shoelaces).

But with the number of stimuli having increased to an unprecedented level in a constantly connected world, we are no longer healthy consumers and decoders of information. Faced with a never-ending stream of notifications, emails, and hundreds of simultaneous conversations on our social media channels, we become what writer Nicholas Carr has called “mindless consumers of data”. The ever-increasing cognitive load from our urban environments leads to our brain no longer being able to properly do its job of assessing, filtering, processing, and filing.

Get low: Low-data that is 

Optimising your relaxation time sounds, understandably, anything but relaxing. The point is not to find one particular, very efficient way to relax, but to transform the way we approach our downtime. 

In an ever-changing, ever more stimuli-heavy environment, allowing our brain to regenerate from the influx of information is not a matter of lifestyle, but of health. 

Few of us would start the day feeling like, “It’s time to relax now”. No, there are things to accomplish, there is work to be done. Relaxing is something you do after the last item on your to-do list is checked off.

Yet, when we are exposed to so much information for the majority of our day, we need to use our free time to make more space. There is a certain level of urgency here. In order to remain a functioning human being in a hyper-connected world, we need to make choices in our downtime that relieve us from constant consumption, rather than adding to it.

Luckily, there is no need to go on a month-long yoga retreat or give up Netflix to transform your downtime. A few little tweaks can already go a long way. A start, very simply, is to plan for active relaxation more deliberately. Most of us have schedules that are busier than we would like them to be. Because the list of things you could fill your schedules with is endless, time to recharge can no longer just be something you stumble across, but something you design and plan for.

But we need to go further than carving out two or three hours in our diary once in a while. We need to choose activities that help our brain replenish from a world of information, to morph the traffic jams in our heads into zen gardens. 

At Quiet Social Club, we call these “low-data activities”. As opposed to activities such as video gaming, watching a movie, or browsing our phone, where all our senses and our attention are busy interpreting what is in front of us, low-data activities can be done at our own pace and in our own format, without any devices. 

Going “low-data” can take many forms: Going for a walk (while your phone stays at home), gardening, drawing, swimming, redecorating, yoga, meditation, playing an instrument, running, baking, and cooking (for those who don’t feel challenged by it), the list is endless.

Low-data activities support mental regeneration and replenishment, simply by giving our brain a break from its role as hunter, gatherer, and decoder of information. We find it harder to differentiate between essential and non-essential stimuli from our environment, negatively impacting our ability to focus.

Relax to recharge

What athletes have known for quite some time — that active rest is crucial in sustainably leveling up your performance — we need to start applying to our everyday lives in the form of active relaxation. In viewing our downtime in the context of health, and not just as an asterisk to our lifestyle, we begin to understand the importance of cultivating a more active relaxation ritual. 

To quote James Clear, bestselling author of Atomic Habits “Sleep fully, then work intensely. Focus deeply, then relax completely. Give each phase your full attention.” The moments that we don’t need to read the news, respond to friend’s messages online, or return the call from our insurance provider, when we don’t have to function at 100%, those are the ones that we should cherish as times to take things at our own pace.