And I've said this before, but I'll say it again. The challenge is, we eat where we're meant to sleep. We sleep where we're meant to work, and we work where we're meant to eat. Right, We'll work on the dinner table, we'll sleep on the couch, we will be entertained watching a show in bed. And it's so confusing energetically, it's so confusing for the mind. It's so confusing for the space, and it's confusing for our brain because we're constantly glued to three devices in all different places.
The Number one Health and Wellness podcast said Jay.
Said, Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. Thank you so much for being here. I'm so deeply grateful that you decided to tune in today. I want to thank you all for listening every day, every week, every month. It makes such a difference to know that our community is growing. I know so many of you are sharing episodes with friends, with family, with people that you're just meeting and coming across, and I want to thank you
from the bottom of my heart for that. And I want to thank the people that bumped into this week, whether you met me at an airport, a street, a restaurant wherever it was. Thank you for coming up and saying hello. Thank you for sharing your on purpose story with me. I'm deeply touched and I appreciate it so much. Today's episode is all about speed pace time. How many of you feel like time is just getting faster and faster and faster as we get older, it feels like
time's flying like it never has before. The week goes by, and you wonder where did it go? The month goes by, and you wonder where did he go? And right now you're thinking, how we already in May of twenty twenty four, How we already getting to juwe of twenty twenty four? How did this happen? Where did the time go? I find myself asking myself this question. I find myself talking to my friends about this. I find myself feeling like something happened four years ago, five years ago, and then
I realized, actually it was just last year. Time truly flies now. There are so many theories for this, there's so many reasons for this.
Some reass suggests that when we're a child.
A week or a month feels like a huge part of our life, whereas now as we get older, a week or a month doesn't feel like any time at all. Right, there's so many more things we have to process. Another theory suggests that when we were younger, we had more unique, novel experiences that we could get immersed in, whereas as adults, we have routines, we have checklists, we have things that we need to get done, and those experiences don't feel like they last as long. And so time flies now,
whatever it may be, I think we've all had this experience. Well, we wake up and we go I don't know where the time's going. I don't know what's going on. Everything feels so fast. And Gandhi has a famous quote that says there's more to life than increasing its speed. And I think we've all had that experience where our life has got faster. We're moving more, we're maybe even doing more, but we're being less We're more active, but less present.
We're more accelerated, and so our view is blurred. So what I want to share with you today is how to slow down and zoom out when things get too busy and too fast. If you've been feeling overwhelmed, stressed, feeling a lot of pressure lately, this episode is for you. If you feel like you're doing more than ever, you're moving faster than ever. This episode is for you. And if you're someone right now who's just feeling like everything is feeling really heavy and you're feeling like there just
isn't any space, this episode is for you. Now, I'm gonna be real with you, because I think we can stay in this phase for years. Sometimes, right, this isn't just something that crept up on us. Sometimes we find that years have gone by feeling this way. So my first insight that I want to share with you is, wake up twenty minutes before you actually have to. The experience of time begins from the moment.
You wake up.
So if your first thought when you wake up is I'm late, I'm already late, I'm already behind, I'm already you know, gonna miss that meeting, now, you're already living in a feeling that you need to catch up with time. You're already feeling behind the clock. And so our relationship with time is really really interesting because our language and our thoughts set how we feel. So if we say things like, oh, I'm already behind, I'm already late, I'm running late, right, I'm running out of time, and we
wake up with that feeling. That thought tends to repeat itself for the rest of the day. And that's why waking up twenty minutes before you have to, just twenty minutes before you have to, and that time for you is to do three things. I call this the three c's. The first is to connect with yourself. Just take a moment to check in with how you feel and what you need today. What's the one thing you need to do for yourself today to make it a great day. The second see is your calendar. Take a look at
your schedule for the day. What's the one thing you need to do today to make it a great day. And then the final thing connect connect with someone else, maybe a family member, a loved one. Check in with someone. So connect with yourself, look at your calendar, and check in with someone else. Those three things in that first twenty minutes can give you the boost. And that check in at the end could be sharing gratitude with someone, could just be a message that you send to someone.
Wake up twenty minutes before you have to because what you find is if you start your day slower mentally and physically, you can maintain that momentum as.
It speeds up.
Often we think, oh, I need to slow down my whole day, I need to cancel things. That's not sustainable. We got a lot to do. I get it, I've got a lot to do. But I find that waking up earlier, just by twenty minutes, can start that process. So for me, I'm really focused and always working on how much I can wake up three hours before my day starts. And that's something I've built up towards. I didn't always have that. That wasn't always something that I've practiced.
And I completely understand with different people's travel schedules and if you have kids, this is much more, much harder, and I completely empathize with that. But I'm sharing this as an idea of if you could wake up twenty minutes before you have to before you need to, so that you actually have twenty minutes of slow time. See, most of us find that all of our time is fast time because we have to be somewhere. We had
to be there yesterday. We had to solve that now, and so we almost need to create more time where it doesn't matter where we are now. I find that you can extend this into the weekend. I think if you could have one Saturday a month that didn't have a schedule.
Right.
I remember my mom having to take me to swimming lessons and then having to take me off to play sport or whatever it may have been, and I find that we're often always on a schedule. And if you think about what it was when we were kids, the reason why time felt the way it did is because we had so much playtime. Right, there's this beautiful quote from George Bernard Shaw where he said that we don't stop playing because we get old. We get old because
we stop playing. And to me, playtime means time without time. It means having no time limit. It means having no schedule. It means not feeling like you have to be somewhere at a certain time. Now, that may not be possible on the weekdays, but imagine if you had one Saturday a month, one Sunday a month, one day a month where that day.
Time didn't matter.
So waking up twenty minutes before you have to and finding a day a month where time doesn't matter will help you slow time right down. The second principle I want to talk about is one device at a time. One of the reasons why time feels like it's so fast. Is more often than not, we're engaged with three screens, three devices.
So check this out.
You have the TV on, then you and your partner both have your laptops out doing some work, and then you both have your phones next to you. So there's five screens in total, and you're looking at three screens each. You've got your phone, you've got your laptop, and you've got the screen on the wall. So now you've got three devices. Imagine how much information that is to process.
Imagine how fast that is. So you've got the movement of the characters on screen, You've got the movement of the spreadsheet or the presentation in front of you on your laptop, and you've got the movement of TikTok or whatever you're scrolling through on your phone. You've got three different things moving at the same time, and you're trying to make sense of all of those, or even if you're not, your brain is. This is one of the things I realize that you may be saying, Oh, well,
it's just in the background. Your brain is processing background noise, background sound, And I'll get onto that in a second. But it's really important that if you want to slow time down one device at a time, one device set a time, either your laptop, your phone, or the screen. Don't do all three at the same time. You're asking for too much from your brain. You're asking for too much to be processed, too much to be thought about, too much to be reflected on, too much to be
made sense of. So make a commitment with your partner that if you're both watching something, you're going to watch something. And the best way to do this is just to create spaces. I call it no technology zones and no technology times in your home. So I believe that the dining room and the bedroom should be free of technology forever. We should eat and sleep in those spaces. And I've
said this before, but I'll say it again. The challenge is, we eat where we're meant to sleep, We sleep where we're meant to work, and we work where we're meant to eat. Right, we'll work on the dinner table, we'll sleep on the couch, we will be entertained watching a show in bed. And it's so confusing energetically, it's so confusing for the mind. It's so confused us for the space, and it's confusing for our brain because we're constantly glued
to three devices in all different places. So making rules with your partner and saying, look, the dining table, no technology allowed. Right, the couch, only the TV screen. Okay, in bed, we're gonna have no technology there right setting these rules. Now, you are going to break these rules. You are gonna make mistakes. I do all the time, but I find that having the rule is healthier than not having the boundary.
Right.
Having the boundary, even if you break it, even if you make mistakes, is a healthier place to be.
Hey everyone, it's Jay here.
My wife and I have had so much fun creating our own sparkling tea Juny, and I've got big news for you. It's at Target, and we'd love your support. If you can go out grab a Juny. You'll be adding adaptogens and new tropics into your life with mood boosting properties aimed at promoting a balanced and happy mind. Through our commitment to our work, honest journey, and striving
to fuel our bodies with the healthiest ingredients. It's been our purpose to make healthy choices accessible for all, which is why Juni is now on shelves at Target. So head to our store locator at Drinkjuni dot com and find Juni at a target near you. This segment is sponsored by State Farm Life moves at such a fast pace that we often don't take the proper time to celebrate it. We get so caught up in everyday tasks, work, and personal issues that we forget to pause and take
a second to breathe and celebrate life. I recommend taking at least five minutes each day and reminding yourself of your accomplishments. Here are a few ways you can celebrate life every day.
Be kind to others.
It can be as small as a compliment, opening the door for someone or even covering someone's bill at the grocery store. If you're really feeling generous, express gratitude toward others will always go a long way. Be more meaningful than you ever imagine. Highlight other people achievements. It can be your boss, your team, colleagues, significant other, or a family member. And do something you love every day, whether it's playing video games, going on a walkout side.
Taking time for yourself.
This year, I've made a commitment to myself to slow down and celebrate all that is happening in my life. Both personally and professionally. In my professional life, it's easy for me to quickly move from one thing to the next, so I've been mindful of taking a second to pause and celebrate accomplishments with my team. Every week, we do a weekly win session where we go around the team and everyone shares what they've done that week while they've achieved and it could.
Be something everyone knows about or something no one.
Knows about, but I've found that it makes a real difference to everyone's morale and energy. In my personal life, my focus has been on celebrating others, whether that be around someone's birthday, life achievement, or simply connecting and celebrating their presence in my life. I've found myself even more fulfilled when I focus on celebrating others than when I celebrate things that are happening. I have found myself even
more fulfilled when I focus on celebrating others. There is a saying that talks about how when you give love to others, you feel love. And celebrate others has proven to me that this could be more true. State Farm is also here to help you celebrate life's wins. The State Farm Personal Price Plan helps you create an affordable price just for you. Talk to a state farm agent today to learn how you can bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, state farm
is there. Prices are based on ratings plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. Step number three is to take a moment, take thirty seconds when you enter a new room, when you enter a new space, when you enter a new part of your day. To engage all five senses. So most of us are purely relying on our eyes to see. We're quite visual, lead oriented, and we don't really engage all
of our senses. But how many times have you been walking past something and you smell something incredible and all of a sudden you're present. How many times have you walking about something and you hear something and you go, oh, that's interesting, I want to know more about that. Imagine if you engaged all five senses in a room you
want to be in. So if you're feeling distracted, you're running from meeting to meeting, even if you're running from zoom meeting to zoom meeting and you're feeling quite disconnected. If you're feeling kind of flustered, take a moment to practice this technique. It's known as the five four three two one technique. Five things you can see. Look around the room and look at five colors, shades, shapes. Just
look around right now. What are five things? Look at the colors, the shades, the shapes, the design, and look at them more consciously than you normally would now. Four things you can touch, maybe the clothes you're wearing, the desk you're at, the texture, feel it, notice it closer than you usually would now. Three things you can hear, Two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. Notice how quickly you become physically present mentally present when
your senses are all engaged. And notice how usually when we walk into a room, we might be listening to the person in front of us and we might be looking at them, but our sense of smell is not engaged. We don't feel that we're engaged through a sense of touch and not through a sense of taste. Engage all five senses. Now, this next one's really really important, and I'll tell you why, and it's about safety.
But on a.
Mindfulness level, on a slowing down level, it's about being present and conscious obey the speed limit if you have to drive. One of the ways we feel the most rush. One of the ways we feel the most out of time is when we're driving. So most of us who are driving fast, we're not only causing, of course, potential risk for others and ourselves. But what we don't realize is that's what we feel it. We're like, I'm gonna
shave off two minutes. Is it worth taking the risk that two people may lose their lives if we shaved off two minutes? And I know we feel it by the way, I feel really proud right when you feel like, oh it's going to take me thirty minutes to get there, I did it in twenty six. Are those four minutes worth the risk of what you may have to experience because of those four minutes.
Will those four minutes change your life? They won't.
But will those four minutes potentially cost someone else.
To their life?
Yes? And you There was this amazing video that I saw years ago on social media, and it was a video where they interviewed teens about how many of them are able to text and drive, and all these texters and drivers were like, yep, I can text and drive sometimes have one phone in one hand, and the interviewer was encouraging them to be like, wow, that's pretty impressive and tell us more stories. They then brought in an
individual who shared their story. Their story was they lost a family member because of someone who was texting and driving, and all of a sudden, all these texts and drivers, most of them teens early twenties, started to Yeah. I mean a lot of them were crying, a lot of them were feeling terrible. A lot of them were, you know, a little bit shocked. And I think it's so important for us to realize that shaving four minutes off isn't going to change our life, but it could change someone else's.
And I think on a deeper level, from a mindfulness point of view, when we're driving at the speed limit, we're actually really present. We have to be focused, we have to be there, and that slows things down because we're no longer trying to rush, we're no longer trying
to achieve that shaving off of time. And cars are a place where I know a lot of you listen to the podcast, and I think that's amazing that you're using that time to feel like you're growing and learning and hopefully not feeling like, oh, I need to rush out of this situation scenario right now. The next step I want to share with you is being present with your breath. And one of my favorite practices I do this throughout the day is breathing in for four and
out for four. What I find is that most of our stress and tension is experienced when our mind is ahead of our body, or our bodies ahead of our mind.
How many of you have ever.
Woken up in the morning and you're your mind is racing so many thoughts on your body is like, oh, I just want to be in bed, or you experience the opposite. Your body's running around, but your mind is saying, I can't do this right now. And so when we breathe in for four and out for four, we count one, two three four as we inhale, and we count one two three four as we exhale.
Try it with me right now.
In two three four out two three four in two three four out two three four.
The simple act of inhaling and exhaling for the same count. The mind is counting and our breath is moving with it, so we're aligning the body and the mind through this simple practice. Anytime you feel tension, it's because your body or mind is a head or behind one or the other, and this simple activity just brings them back into alignment. I do this when I walk into a meeting. I do this before a phone call. I do this before I read or send a stressful email. I do this
before the workday and after the workday. This is a simple practice that we can do throughout the day to be reconnected with our breath and our body, to be present once again in our breath and our body. Step number four. This one is one that I learned many years ago. Now, it was when I moved to New York. So I moved to New York in twenty sixteen, and I used to find that by.
The end of the day I was exhausted.
Now, I've worked in London, I grew up in London, and so I've been in a busy city during my month years. I spent time in Mumbai, and Mumbai is a very busy city.
But there was.
Something about New York where I would feel exhausted at the end of the day, and I didn't have the energy.
Really to go out.
And there were a lot of things related to that. For sure, maybe I wasn't on the right vitamins and supplements, which I think make a huge difference. There were many reasons, but one of the things that I looked into, which I saw made a big difference to me, was that I didn't spend any time in silence. Now, I did my meditation, but I didn't really prioritize silence throughout the day.
Now research has shown that when you're in longer periods, extended periods of silence, it increases your brain cells and therefore helps you be more focused and productive, and it helps you relax and slow down. And what happens is that our brains experienced something known as cognitive load. So cognitive load is the amount your brain as to process.
And when I was in New York, I realized that my brain was constantly processing the road works, the cars, the siren, the horns, the noise, the people are everything. So what happened was that my brain was always active. Because even if you don't think you're consciously trying to make sense of it, your brain is.
And so especially if.
You live in a noisy city, especially if you live in a noisy area, it's so important to practice audio hygiene, which means spending time in silence, turning on those noise canceling headphones and not when you're outdoors, of course, not
don't want any danger, but spending time indoors. And there's such a need to prioritize silence, right, because what's happening is that we're getting so mentally fatigued, not just because of the work you're doing on what you're trying to process, but because of all the background noise your mind is trying to process. Your brain is trying to process. This also applies to music. Now, certain music is soothing and
helps you focus. It might be jazz, it might be classical music, it might be instrumentals, but there's certain music that in engages you a little more. And if you're constantly engaging your brain and engaging your mind and there's no time to disengage, disconnect and be in silence, we're actually creating more speed in our minds.
Right, We're creating.
More speed in our minds because our minds are constantly trying to process and are never getting a break.
This next one is probably one of my favorite ones.
And it's because I've felt the benefits a lot, both in La where I live and in New York where I used to live. And I felt it recently when I was in Bhutan. Now, Bhutan's a phenomenal country. You might have heard me mention it before here on the podcast. It's landlocked between Indian and China. It's a small country, but it's primarily nature. I mean when we went there, I didn't see a restaurant, I didn't see a mall, I didn't see a cinema. Like it was really like
it felt like it went back in time. But I felt this beautiful or slowness when I was there. And I was looking into this and Ricardo Carrera, who's at a university in Finland, he discovered that being in nature changes how we experience time and actually gives us a
sensation or a feeling of time abundance. So Carrera's research looked at comparing people's experiences of time when they were in the city and when they were in nature, and what it consistently showed is that when people were in nature, their sense of time was slower and more meaningful. So what was really remarkable though, is that he found that people are more likely to see a walk in the
countryside is longer than a walk in the city. And he also found that what's really interesting as well is that other research suggests that when we're in nature we're also able to zoom out, whereas when we're in the city, we're kind of zoomed in, and so we can't see the bigger picture, we can't get perspective. And I think a big part of this for me is because nature itself is slow. Right, when something's growing in nature, it doesn't happen overnight. If you see something in nature eating,
it doesn't eat it really fast. It's a slow process. When you see the leaves slowly start to go beautiful in the fall, like that doesn't happen overnight. And so I feel like the pace of nature. And remember, we are nature, right, we are nature. We're natural. So moving at the pace of nature is far more normal than moving at the pace of technology. If you think about the difference between climbing a tree and taking an elevator, there are two things humans wanted to do. Is to
gain elevation. But if you get into an elevator and you go up or you climb a tree.
Climbing a tree takes longer.
It's naturally it engages touch, it engages your sense of height you're looking down. I literally am in a hotel right now and it's pretty trippy. I'm in Atlantaism recording this and literally it's so high and when you get I went to the forty seventh floor today and I look down and it is so trippy. If you've seen the TV show on Apple called Silo, it's literally like they've built a city underground in Silo.
This feels like that, but.
It's overground, and it's so trippy when you look down because it's just stairs and it's every floor that you can see. And the reason I'm saying this is because when you're going up in an elevator, you don't actually know you're not choosing the pace. There's no senses involved, you're not making meaning out of it, and so it just moves so fast, Whereas when you're climbing a tree, there's effort, there's focus. So I'm not saying we have to climb a tree to get to the top of
a building. I'm saying when we spend more time in nature, we get more accustomed to a pace that suits us, that feels natural to us, that allows us to zoom out. When we're spending time in nature, we're less reactive, we're less impulsive because it doesn't work that way right. We can't process it all. And I've shared with you some tips here today. So wake up twenty minutes before you have to and set one day a month where there
is no schedule or time. Remember to be on only one device set of time, and to set no technology zones and no technology times in your home. Engage all five senses. When you're in a space and you're feeling flustered, stick to the speed limit. Breathe in for four and out for four to align your body and mind. Find and create moments of silence, focusing on the cognitive load, and observe and be present in nature. I really hope
this helps you slow down in a fast world. I really hope this helps you zoom out in a world where we're constantly pulled in. And I want you to remember that I'm always rooting for you and I'm forever in your corner. Thank you for listening. Leave a review. Shared this episode with a friend. Go back in and listen to all the other way Of over five hundred episodes.
Available to you right now, I appreciate you.
Remember I'm always in your corner and I'm forever rooting for you. If you love this episode, you will also love my interview with Charles Douhig on how to hack your brain, change any habit effortlessly, and the secret to making better decisions. Look, am I hesitating on this because I'm scared of making the choice because I'm scared of doing the work, Or.
Am I sitting with this because it just doesn't feel right yet?
For Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm partnering up with the National Alliance of Mental Illness NAMI. If you're someone you know is struggling with mental health, there is help. Call Name Helpline at eight hundred nine fifty NAMI, or go to www Dot name dot org, forward slash help, or text Helpline to six two six four zero for immediate twenty four to seven crisis support. Call your text nine eight eight or visit www Dot nine eight eight lifeline dot org.