Test: What stops you pressing pause?

It can be deeply frustrating when you long for a slower pace of life, but pressing pause just seems to make your mind busier than ever. As a reflective person, you may be genuinely interested in analysing past conversations, or thinking about how you and others have behaved.

And mulling over the past, present or future can create a sense of being prepared or more in control. At times it does make sense to think things through, but overthinking is rarely insightful, and an overly busy mind can make you feel like your life is more overwhelming than it actually is.

Mental busyness is not only a significant barrier to creating a slower pace of life – left unchecked it can leave you vulnerable to low mood and anxiety. It might seem hard to resist filling slow moments with thinking, and you’ll no doubt get sucked into it without realising.

When you do, simply acknowledge by mentally saying ‘thinking’ and then bring your attention to the here and now instead by connecting with what you can see, hear and feel.

Your aim is not to silence your thoughts which is an impossible task, but to build trust that you can switch off from them and instead, savour the opportunities to pause that present themselves throughout the day – however small.