Nothing doing!
A recent study at the University of Virginia showed that most people would rather administer an electric shock to themselves than spend a mere 15 minutes with nothing to do.
What's so horrifying about doing nothing?
Psychologist Tim Wilson of the University of Virginia and his team of researchers asked college students to sit for 15 minutes in a plain room just thinking. He asked them to record how well they concentrated and how much they enjoyed the experience. Most admitted that they couldn't concentrate; more than half hated it.
No wonder. Most people do with nothing better to do will spin some amazingly awful thoughts, mostly about themselves.
But these students even hated thinking positive; they just didn't like being alone with their own thoughts.
Were these ADD teens with Twitter-fingers? Not at all. The researchers also conducted texperiment with a middle-aged church group. The results? The same.
No one seemed to enjoy their thoughtful moments.
Now comes the shocking news: just how far will people go to avoid doing nothing?
Researchers let participants experience a mild electric shock, then put them back in an empty room with nothing but their thoughts...and an electric shock button.
Amazingly, withing 15 minutes, many voluntarily shocked themselves. Sixty-seven percent of the men preferred a shock to doing nothing, and 25% of the women.
Why is doing nothing so hard? Why will we literally go to great pains to avoid it?
Here's a shocking truth: of the 70,000 thoughts we have each day, most of them are awful. At best, those thoughts are just going in circles. At worst, they're taking us down.
But we choose our thoughts. No one outside of you is in charge of what you think. You are the Thought Police for you. And though you have 70,000 fresh choices daily, most of us just keep thinking the same old thoughts over and over again...the bad ones.
Think about this: rethinking old stuff means you are not actually living in the present. Your mind is spinning in the past, which for most of us, is a web of regret or reproach.
Worry. Self doubt. Blame. There you go again.
On the contrary, neuroscientists have actually discovered that doing nothing, done well, can be very productive. Daydreaming, rather than being a waste of time or laziness, can be a very valuable way of finding solutions, setting you up for the experiences you want.
But most people would rather not, thank you.
Maybe it hearkens back to school days when you were scolded or shamed for daydreaming during Algebra (have you used Algebra lately?), Maybe you were called lazy when you just sat still. Mayve it was just too much asking, "what are you doing now?" from well meaning relatives and friends.
But neuroscientists confirm that tedium is actually associated with a distinctive pattern of brain activity: it turns out that when we do nothing, parts of the brain light up that facilitate all kinds of complex thinking. The Buddha used his do-nothing experience to reach enlightenment, meditating beneath the Bodhi tree. Newton discovered the law of gravity not by doing but by, "by thinking on it continually."
It's not just all in your mind: doing nothing can serve your life.
Still for most people, being in your head means reminiscing and reliving mostly unpleasant events in the past ("That barista at Starbucks was rude to me last week"), or planning how to get even ("I'm going to go back to Starbucks just to let him know I'm not tipping him anymore") leading to fantasizing more unpleasantness: ("Just imagine how crushed he'll be.")
But it's not all bad, nor does it have to be. We humans have an ability to choose our own thoughts, detached from our immediate actions and experiences. For better or worse.
Doing nothing can be profound.
And you can practice it every time you do hot yoga.
As active and physically demanding as the 26 poses of hot yoga are, we call the most important and perhaps the most challenging pose, Savasana. In Final Savasana we encourage you to lie still for at least 5 minutes and focus on something that feels good when you think of it. In Standing Savasna between the poses we insist that you stop fidgeting, stand still, not fix your hair or shirt, forgo straighetning your mat and just breathe.
Ah, the art of doing nothing.
While we encourage you to relax but we wont make you go it alone; we'll guide you with our words to this better feeling place of Savasana. Because we know how scary it can be to be alone with your regular thoughts.
But we also know doing nothing is really something.
Savasana is important for your health and well being, even to assimilate the benefits of your 90 minutes of active poses into your entire body.
Go easy on yourself: can come to hot yog and let the asanas feed your impulse to be up and doing, let Savasana nourish all those parts of yourself that know better; that relaxing and reaping the powerful benefits of being rather than doing.
Stop glancing at your cell phone, stop wondering what you're missing on Facebook and stay here now in the present moment, a place of peaceful repose which is the only place from which you can take action.
And then, choose not to act at all. Just be and allow all the answers to come to mind.
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
Reader Comments (11)
Wow! It's hard to believe that people actually shock themselves to avoid thier own thoughts! I remember reading that it is extremely rare for one to have an original thought. We are always reliving, rethinking, remembering and resenting. Which implies we think mainly on past events, negative ones. I've come full circle, from not being comfortable with myself or especially with being alone. Needing the radio or tv on to drone out the mind chatter. Now I adore silence. I wont go so far to say that I have many original thoughts, but there is contentedness and peace. Doesnt mean my mind is ALWAYS doing nothing in Savasana, but when it is, its so good!
Its true - the mind loves to focus. But to me this is good news: you can use your mind to do what it excels at when you focus on what feels good! The problem isnt really that people dont like "doing nothing," it's more that they fill in the "void" with those repetitive, habitual thoughts that make them feel terrible - just like this article notes - anything from reliving old events to arguing mentally with someone you wish you'd told off, etc. Doing nothing is actually quite blissful and so is focusing and filling the mind with lovely thoughts....one of which is, how lovely it is to be floating in Savasana!
Not only does 'doing nothing' frighten people but silence is an unbearable concept for most.....try calmly shushing someone who insists on filling the silence with commentary and they seem to get really frustrated.
Yes Mark, we are always shushing students in the hot yoga room....silence is the only noise you should hear once you cross the threshold. Talk about ailments, worries, problems, stresses - yoga is no place for that. The silence is step 1 to stop the negative talk. This may be why people feel frustrated being silenced: we are addicted to the adrenalin rush of negative talk. Time to go cold turkey on that monkey and get a new habit: to talk only when you have something healing to say. And when no talk is necessary: shush
I've been having a thought that's been bugging me. Now, I got a perfect answer. DO NOTHING ABOUT IT! PAY NO ATTENTION TO IT. As I am typing it, a smile comes to my face. Great. See how it will unfold. It bothers me not, it is not my problem. I need to do nothing about it!!!!!!!!! Yeah, that feels good and liberating. I said it. I want it to be resolved on its own without any envolvment on my part and I will be very pleased with the result.
I wonder where do thoughts come from? Where do they go? Where are they stored? They are such non-physical entities but yet so powerful. How do we create them? We certainly use some physical material to make them and they are so non-physical. They can create such a tremendous effect on us and others. I started practicing "not-thinking" quite a while ago. Just stop talking in your head. It feels so good. Luckily, it is kind of easy to do for me. I just stop. It is like a switch. It is easy to do during the practice and there is no one in the room but you. I like that. You glide from pose to pose and every time I feel great at the end.
Mind Savasana :)
That is the secret Alfia: what you focus upon will expand. If you have a thought that bothers you and you try to "figure it out," you are only focusing on it more and causing it to be more deeply bothersome. Am I saying to ignore what bothers you? Ignore your problems, worries, stresses over things that will most likely (statistically speaking) never happen?
Exactly.
And of course it is the opposite of what you were taught, and what your analytical mind tells you to do.
Thoughts are things. Measurable, reserachable, powerful things. In fact, everything that ever showed up on the outside was a thought first. Thoughts precede manifestatation, as all creatives, inventors and entrepreneurs know.
And how do you get from thoughts to things?
By the power of your focus, and the intention of your feelings.
The more you focus on them, the more energy of feeling you apply to them, the faster you meet them outside of your head
Bask in your thoughts...and create what you want by focus, not by default.
How true that we often believe that the more concern and energy we apply to a bothersome thought, the more the bothersome thought digs its claws in.
Most things we think, we shouldn't believe. It is a conscious effort - that will eventually become an unconscious one - to sweep away the thoughts that we do not want nor have to believe. To let them stay there and rot is harmful.
I often find that when I chase the tail of a bad thought, I do run in circles and circles. I make no progress, I find no answers, I just become more and more insecure and harmed. What is the point of sweeping away an unnecessary thought?
Growth. Health.
I think of a plant. If I tried to apply every single thing I could find at the garden store onto a plant - chemicals, food, mulch, etc. and then tried to apply every single harmful thing as well, such as mites, bugs, too much sun, too much water, etc. That plant would be result in having a challenged and bipolar growth and life that wavered between strong growth and deep detriment. The fruit it bore would not be wholesome nor consistent. Its leaves would be spotty and bitten up. The health it offered me would be compromised.
But if I let the plant receive only the things it needs to grow and be healthy...if I let it be, and did not try to meddle too much, it would find its way. When a farmer or gardener uses conventional chemicals on her plants, it encourages the plant to not send its roots down far in order to find water and nutrients in the soil. The plant gets lazy and detrimental toward itself, it stays shallow and does not make progress. It may look big and healthy, but it has no grounding. When a flood comes, its shallow roots will not hold it and it will be swept away. When a drought comes, its shallow roots will not be able to reach deep enough for sustenance.
That is how we are with our thoughts. We must be able to deny the thoughts that do us harm, make us lazy, give us excuses, etc. We will be stronger for it. We will be able to endure droughts and floods when we are able to deny the ease of chasing every thought that comes our way. We will be able to sit through NOTHING and come out refreshed and enlightened.
Yes, Grace - but in your first sentence I think what you meant was that the more attention we apply to a bothersome thought the more we believe we will SOLVE it. In truth, as you said, the more we focus on it, the deeper we let its roots grow
Its not our fault: when it comes to problems we are taught to "think it through, figure it out, go to therapy and talk about it, find out why you feel this way, get advice, listen to the experts, talk to our friends, journal about it..." exhausting and completely counterproductive.
The one thing that works every time: bring yourself back to the present moment.
How do you know when you are in the present moment? You feel good. Thats all there is in the present moment - good feelings
And what about those "big in your face problems that need to be addressed"?
You can still wait til you feel calmer which you can ONLY do when you look away from what irks you and settle your sights on something that feels better right now.
This is being in the present moment.
There is no pain in the present moment. Worry, stress, anxiety are about the past which is gone o the future which has not yet come. In the present moment you can see the leaves on the trees, take a deep breath, choose chocolate.
Right Action comes only in the present moment. Check where you are at all times - when you choose what feels better you are back to the present where there is A LOT of good feeling stuff to choose
And what about those emergencies that need to be addressed RIGHT NOW (these are fewer than you think)? You always have time for a deep breath that brings you into the present moment where even those emergencies feel manageable as you feel empowered to handle them - which makes them feel good.
Feel better, feel better, feel better
Create by focus by feeling good about something totally irrelevant to something that bothers you. It does feel like a relief and it does bring a smile. Ok. My thoughts are real and so are my dreams by focusing on dreams and living them Wow it is pleasant There is nothing to worry about. There is no resistance and totally free flowing....
Nothing doing isn't the best thing ever?! It feels good but after a while you will want to do something. It also feels good. Sometimes it is so good to let go and allow yourself be. Just be in the moment. It is the beautiful Savasana moment. You realize how tense you were before and how blissful you are now. Savasana Ihnale Exhale :) Love it every time.