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    Spend a Little Time Unplugged

    July 10, 2016 By Jenn 2 Comments

    Lake Solitude Resized

    I spent the last week at my family’s cabin in Hyattville, Wyoming.  The cabin sits on the Paintrock River, in the valley between the Rocky Mountains and the Big Horn Mountains.  There is no internet and no cell service.  It is forced relaxation.  Truly unplugged.

    When I told my associates at work that I would be without cell service and email for a week, they were horrified.  Somewhat shocked that there were still places in the United States where people didn’t have internet, one paralegal admitted “I couldn’t do it.  If I didn’t have access to Internet, I couldn’t relax.”  But isn’t relaxation the point of vacation?  Have we really become a society who can’t relax without the common stream of information?  Or are we just confused about what we really need?

    I have been going to this particular spot in Wyoming my whole life.  When I was a kid, it didn’t even have a land line – or television.  Over the years, we have upgraded the cabin – building a new place that could be rented by others – and have installed a land line and a satellite dish.   But, I never turned the television on while I was there and was completely and joyfully oblivious about what was going on in the rest of the world for an entire week.

    Surprisingly, my kids had a similar experience.  Because they were not permitted to engage in screen time, they found other ways to entertain themselves – reading, playing games with their cousins and hiking.  I recently read an article on the importance of allowing your children to become bored.

    According to the article, unstructured time gives children the opportunity to use their imagination and be creative.  It is in these periods of down time when kids learn to listen to themselves and figure out what they really want to do to solve their boredom, finding their own passions.

    For example, on our vacation, my younger daughter wrote a short story and then read it to the entire family – earning quite a round of applause which was good for both her creativity and self-esteem.

    Adults also benefit from down time.  Just Google “benefits of down time” and you’ll see the experts lining up to tell you the benefits of unplugging.  For example:

    “Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets,” essayist Tim Kreider wrote in The New York Times. “The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration—it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.”

    According to an article in Scientific American, “Downtime replenishes the brain’s stores of attention and motivation, encourages productivity and creativity, and is essential to both achieve our highest levels of performance and simply form stable memories in everyday life. A wandering mind unsticks us in time so that we can learn from the past and plan for the future. Moments of respite may even be necessary to keep one’s moral compass in working order and maintain a sense of self.”

    On my vacation, my brother and I took a twelve-mile hike to secluded Lake Solitude in the Big Horn Mountains with our children.  The hike, which took eight hours, allowed me a lot of “processing time.”  I find that I, purposefully or not, store up issues in my head until I have time to process them.  In the silence of those hours, I was able to listen to myself.  I was able to sort through how I truly feel about three different very important issues in my life that have been quietly nagging at me for the past couple of months.  Now, I can move forward confidently having made decisions about what needs to be done to make me happy.  If that isn’t a productive day – I don’t know what is!

    It is said that the quieter you become, the more you can hear.  I encourage you to turn off your TV once in a while.  And your computer.  And your cell phone.  Sit in silence – or go for a walk.  Quiet your mind and listen to your soul.  You may learn something.

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    Tagged With: Big Horn Mountains, Hyattville, Lake Solitude, Paintrock River, Quieting your Mind, Unplugged, Wyoming

    About Jenn

    Jenn is the founder of Girlfriends' Guide to Living. She is a lawyer and busy single mom of two fantastic girls who are 13 and 10. Over the past couple years, Jenn has undergone many monumental changes. She got divorced, had to move out of a home she loved, and got fired from her job. There were days that she wasn’t sure how she was going to get past the heartbreak, loneliness and fear. But through it all – her girlfriends were by her side – sometimes even holding her up. Many women don’t have the same support network of girlfriends – and thought it would be great if she could lend them her girlfriends. That is the goal of this website.

    Comments

    1. Kamberley says

      July 21, 2016 at 7:44 AM

      And I thought I was the sensible one. Thanks for setting me stihrgat.

      Reply
    2. Maya says

      September 5, 2016 at 3:53 PM

      LOVE this Jen…just LOVE it.

      Reply

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    Mara Wolfsen, LCSW has been a practicing psychotherapist since 1998. Mara has extensive experience with both adolescents and adults who may struggle with a wide array of psychological and or substance abuse issues and specializes in depression, anxiety, body image, trauma/abuse, relationship issues, and maternal mental health, as well as co-dependency and recovery issues.
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