"The day I learned to breathe again began, ironically, in a hospital corridor. It was 9:15 a.m., and I was already behind schedule. Emails unanswered, phone buzzing, mind juggling three patient stories at once. Then an elderly man with a cane stepped into the hallway in front of me. He moved slowly, deliberately, pausing between steps as if listening for instructions from the ground."
"For a moment, I considered darting around him. But something-maybe exhaustion, maybe curiosity-made me stop. I matched my pace to his. Our footsteps echoed in unison. My mind quieted. The urgency dissolved. That was the first time I understood: slowing down is not doing less-it's accessing more. Modern life trains us to compress moments, stacking one on top of another until the day feels like a precarious tower. We check our phones while stirring the soup. We plan tomorrow's meeting during today's conversation."
"Neurologically, this constant future focus floods the brain with anticipatory stress signals-spikes of cortisol and adrenaline that keep us hyper-vigilant but drain our emotional bandwidth. When we operate this way for too long: The prefrontal cortex (responsible for focus, empathy, and decision-making) goes offline. The amygdala (our fear/alarm center) becomes overactive. Memory and creativity decline, because the brain is always primed for "what's next" rather than "what's now.""
Presence calms physiological stress and sharpens attention by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, lowering heart rate and blood pressure, and increasing oxygen flow. Chronic future-focused multitasking floods the brain with cortisol and adrenaline, impairing the prefrontal cortex and overactivating the amygdala, which reduces empathy, decision-making, memory, and creativity. Slowing down permits fuller sensory engagement, richer subjective time, and restored access to higher cognitive functions. Small, regular pauses throughout the day strengthen brain-body regulation and deepen interpersonal connection. Multitasking appears to reduce productivity by up to 40 percent and increases the likelihood of errors, undermining trust and presence.
Read at Psychology Today
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