--- title: Life Advice: Why You Should Slow Down Your Day description: When we rush, we fail to connect with the world around us. canonical: https://time.com/4151648/why-you-should-slow-down/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-23T13:00:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:56:48.076Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why You Should Slow Down Your Day og:description: When we rush, we fail to connect with the world around us og:url: https://time.com/4151648/why-you-should-slow-down/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb19d658d32e8ba5d/698875a55f570f6cfbb1edb7/woman-eyes-closed.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4304 og:image:height: 2421 og:image:alt: woman-eyes-closed og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why You Should Slow Down Your Day twitter:description: When we rush, we fail to connect with the world around us twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb19d658d32e8ba5d/698875a55f570f6cfbb1edb7/woman-eyes-closed.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why You Should Slow Down Your Day > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now [Watch (HLS stream): A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uJFYIrvP.m3u8) (3:13)  _Published 2014-08-20. A practicing sex therapist in New York City, Dr. Shirley Zussman has witnessed everything from the legalization of the contraceptive birth control pill to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s to the rise of internet porn in the new millenium._ by [Xiao Xu / Bit of News](https://time.com/author/bit-of-news/) ## Xiao Xu / Bit of News Dec 23, 2015 1:00 PM UTC  Young woman leaning on rail, eyes closed Young woman leaning on rail, eyes closed Getty Images by [Xiao Xu / Bit of News](https://time.com/author/bit-of-news/) ## Xiao Xu / Bit of News Dec 23, 2015 1:00 PM UTC “These days, even instant gratification takes too long,” Carl Honoré joked to a roomful of [TEDTalk audience](https://www.ted.com/talks/carl%5Fhonore%5Fpraises%5Fslowness?language=en). Honoré is the author of [_In Praise of Slowness_](http://amzn.to/1YazMeF), a book that tries to bring back the artful style of “slowness” in our cult of speed. Honoré examines how we can channel our minds to a more productive path when confronted with information overload. Our brains simply haven’t evolved fast enough to take advantage of the avalanche of data, a problem all the more urgently relevant today. In his book, Honoré writes: --- > “” --- We complain about the lack of time, yet we constantly seek stimulations that detract us from our main goals. When we live in an age where a diverse palette of stimulations lures us – “media-drenched, data-rich, channel-surfing, computer-gaming age” — it becomes a chore to focus on anything longer than 30 seconds. There’s something unsettling about the constant craving for the new without any regard for the things we already have. I’m personally guilty of this too. In the time it took for me to draft this article, I got up to boil a pot of coffee, watched an episode of _Friends_, made an omelette, and cleaned my room twice. So many things to do, in so little time! While he encourages us to slow down, Honoré says the book isn’t a “declaration of war against speed”. He concedes that technology has made our life more convenient — “Who wants to live without the Internet or jet travel?” The problem comes when speed and stimulation become addictions, and when a society of improving conveniences becomes one of “turbo-capitalism.” “The problem is that our love of speed, our obsession with doing more and more in less and less time, has gone too far,” Honoré writes, “it has turned into an addiction, a kind of idolatry.” This idea is encapsulated by the timeless truism: everything in moderation. It’s fine to rush when it makes sense, but don’t forget that the unconditional worship of “faster is better” often makes us forget that there’s a price to pay. --- > “” --- Honoré writes that when we rush through our days, we not only fail to connect with new ideas, we fail to connect with people around us. “Inevitably, a life of hurry can become superficial when we rush,” says Honoré, “we skim the surface, and fail to make real connections with the world or other people.” “All the things that bind us together and make life worth living—community, family, friendship—thrive on the one thing we never have enough of: time.” Mohatma Ghandi echoed the sentiment six decades earlier: “There is more to life than increasing its speed.” A life of fast and furious can also damage children, who most of all need time to play and mess around in a creation fashion. --- > “” --- So what are we suppose to do? Do we just throw our hands up and give up all the technology that make our lives faster and infinitely more convenient? Not so, says Honoré. The key is to enjoy the fast conveniences of modern life, but slow down occasionally to do things you enjoy: --- > “” --- In a way, the Slow movement ties nicely together with being mindful, which has surprising benefits such as improving your [decision-making skills](https://www.helpscout.net/blog/practicing-mindfulness/), decreasing [high blood pressure](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17107296), and making you [more attractive](http://www.businessinsider.com/mindful-men-are-more-attractive-to-women-2015-11). “Slowing down” is really another way of giving your complete and sincere attention to current moment. Focus on the now to the point that you enjoy every bit of time. Life is incredibly short, and some want to rush through it, thinking it allows them to accomplish more and more. But they have it backwards: when life is limited, take the time to slow down and enjoy what you’re doing. After all, this is all the time that you get. _This_ [_article_](http://news.bitofnews.com/in-praise-of-slowness/) _originally appeared on_ [_Bit of News_](http://news.bitofnews.com) _More from Bit of News:_ * [The Best Books of 2015, Summarized in One Sentence Each](http://news.bitofnews.com/best-books-of-2015-summarized/) * [The Genetic Reason Why Some People Are Born To Travel All Over The World](http://news.bitofnews.com/the-wanderlust-gene-why-some-people-are-born-to-travel-all-over-the-world/) * [10 Pairs of Oxymoronic Traits that Extremely Creative People Have](http://news.bitofnews.com/10-traits-that-extremely-creative-people-have/) ## Transcript Sexual pleasure is only one part of what men and women want from each other. They want intimacy, they want closeness, they want understanding, they want comfort, they want fun, and they want somebody who really cares about them beyond going to bed with them, and I think people are always seeking that. In every generation. [ MUSIC ] My name is Shirley Zussman. I just reached a hundred years of age, and I am a practicing sex therapist. I was invited with my husband to a lecture in New Jersey, in 1966. Masters and Johnson were the speakers. No body knew about them. Human sexual response had just been published, what I saw was a couple who will say that people had problems in an area in their lives that was very important and they were recognizing that it was all not just. Glamorous and wonderful to be sexual. One had to almost had to learn how to be a good partner and to endure the pleasure not only for yourself but for each other. And I thought we can do that. Why can't we do that? And we applied for training with Masters and Johnson at that time. The patients that came to us were people who read the paper. The only way they do anything about the work that was being done there. And the problems they came with, was somewhat different than the problems they come with today. Mostly, women came because would put out orgasmic, they didn't know how to achieve an orgasm, but they wanted one. It was so over that ,. Goal they had for themselves and how do I get there. That was one Masters and Johnson's contribution that there was a relatively simple way to start learning about your body. In other words, get, get to know your, who you are sexually and physically and that was. And encouragement for masturbation for learning what makes you feel good. I see a big change in the we view casual sex. In the 60's I think it was not just casual it was frantic. I'm shocked at the lack of connection with people; because of iPhones, even I love my iPhone. There is so much less actual physical connection, there's less touching, there's less talking, there's less holding, there's less looking, [ INAUDIBLE ]. People get pleasure from looking at each other. But the most common problem, I would say, in the sex therapy that I live in, is a lack of desire. You have to look at your priorities. You have to decide what is important to make you feel good about yourself and your life. 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