The Power of Slow Living (Plus Tips on How to Slow Your Life Down)
Are you burnt out or know someone who is? Odds are, the answer to that question is yes. In today’s world, people are over 6 times more likely to be burnt out than not.
It’s not entirely our own doing, many of us were raised under the belief that enough was never enough. As children we were pushed to do more, to be better, get better grades to get into a good college and then get a good-paying job. But what happens when we get that good-paying job? We’ve just entered the world of burnout glorification, where nothing you do is ever enough. The world where you’re not respected unless you’re working 50-60 hour weeks at some high paying job, but even then you’re not really respected. Especially not when you’re too tired to really experience your days. Or when you’ve been chronically stressed for so long that your nervous system is now living in a constant state of survival mode. That’s not respect, certainly not to yourself.
According to a recent Forbes study, 66% of Americans are experiencing some kind of burnout in 2025. As if that number wasn’t high enough, it skyrockets to 81% among people aged 18-24 and to an astonishing 83% among 25-34 year olds.1 And worldwide? A study done in 2024 found that 82% of white-collar workers globally reported experiencing burnout. 57% of baby boomers reported experiencing burn out, 76% of Gen X, 85% of millennials, and 87% of Gen Z all experiencing some kind of burnout.2 So what is the solution?
Slow Living: the Solution to Burnout
Enter the concept of slow living: something that society likes to tell us is laziness, but in reality, is a form of self love. Slow living is the practice of detaching from our rushed lives, and becoming aware of, and finding enjoyment in all the simple pleasures of life. It focuses on eliminating all the extra noise by promoting mindfulness. If you’re always rushing to get to the next place or complete the next task, you’re not stopping to notice anything around you, much less find pleasure in anything. You’re focused on getting from point A to point B and that’s it. There’s no time for anything else.
Slowing down the pace of your life is not lazy. In fact, in the beginning it takes a lot of brainpower to break the habit of always rushing around and to instead make the conscious choice to stop and notice your surroundings. It is in this way that slow living, intentional living, and mindfulness all go hand in hand. You need to make intentional choices throughout your day to be mindful of all the little things. The continued practice of that will in turn lead you to a slower lifestyle full of joy, gratitude, beauty, and breath, rather than stress and anxiety.
Burnout ≠ Success
When I was in college, I had my first experience with burnout. I was taking extra classes in order to graduate a year early, working 30+ hours a week, I was a member of various clubs and organizations, one of which included a hefty amount of travelling, and I had a social life. I got an average of 4-5 hours of sleep a night and couldn’t function without at least 3 cups of coffee a day.
Safe to say, I felt miserable. I was sick all the time, chronically stressed, unable to lose weight even though I went to the gym 6 days a week, and I actually started to notice it impacting my memory. I would forget due dates even though I kept everything in a planner. I would go to class, take notes, and ask questions, but leave unable to recall most of what I just learned. I couldn’t stay focused during conversations with anyone. I felt like I was losing my mind.
In a way, I was. Burnout, while not classified as a medical condition, can in fact induce various mental and physical symptoms. It depletes a person’s mental and physical energy, both of which are finite resources in our bodies. Mental energy is what is responsible for your attention span, working memory, emotions, decision making and judgement, and more.3 When you deplete your physical energy, you become more prone to fatigue, sickness, headaches, and body aches because your body can’t repair itself at the same rate as when you’re healthy.4 When you use up all your energy focusing on work, school, life, or whatever else is causing your burnout, you no longer have any left to power those basic biological functions.
The Power of Slow Living
Eventually, I hit a point where I realized the way I was living was not sustainable. I decided to lighten my workload, prioritize sleep, and take more time for myself. Instead of biking to class, I opted to walk. It turned my 15 minute commute to campus into 30 minutes, but the effects on my mental and physical health were shocking.
Even though I took the same route every day, I began noticing things along the path that I never noticed before. A pretty patch of yellow wildflowers to my left, a family of baby ducks to my right, the beauty of the sun hitting a tree in front of me; the light trickling through the leaves slowly swaying in the breeze. I became aware of the sensation the breeze left on my skin, and the warmth from the sun. Fully immersed in the present moment, I felt joy. Bliss. Gratitude. I could breathe deeply, without feeling the familiar tightness in my chest. And I would arrive at class feeling refreshed, rather than in need of another coffee.
Once I began getting 8-9 hours of sleep on a regular basis, I noticed something else. At the time, I was studying French, and I was really struggling because I couldn’t remember anything I learned more than a week or so prior. But after a couple months of really focusing on slowing down and taking care of myself, I found I was able to remember almost all of the lessons for months and even years prior that I thought I had forgotten. It felt like a switch had been turned in my mind and all of a sudden, I could speak French. I began excelling in the class and ended up adding the subject as a second major.
I noticed similar effects in almost every aspect of my life. I went from getting sick every other week to rarely getting sick in a year. I began seeing results in the gym. I noticed myself feeling lighter and less stressed. Just making those simple life shifts changed my life in more ways that I can count.
How to Start Living Slower
If you already feel like you don’t have enough time in your day to complete everything on your to-do list, the idea of slowing down and taking time for yourself can be very stress-inducing. Here are some simple yet powerful slow living tips that will make a lasting impact on your health and wellbeing:
- Take 5 minutes in the morning and at night to simply sit with yourself and breathe. Maybe this looks like meditation. Maybe you focus on what you’re grateful for. Maybe you let yourself decompress from a busy day.
- Avoid technology an hour before you go to bed and after you wake up. If an hour is too much, start with 30 minutes. In the time you would be scrolling through social media or binge watching netflix, go for a walk outside instead. Challenge yourself to find at least 3 new details of your surroundings you haven’t noticed before.
- Build in quick rests throughout your daily schedule. Set a timer on your phone for one hour and every time that timer goes off, take 5 deep breaths.
- Learn to set boundaries and say no. Be realistic with yourself. In what areas of your life are you over-burdening yourself? Where can you make space for yourself and slow down? Giving yourself this time and space is not selfish, it’s self love.
If you feel overwhelmed by all this, pick just one to start with and work your way up from there. Taking the smallest action and starting will have such a big impact on the rest of your life.
Rest is a Need, Not a Reward
Remember to be gentle and patient with yourself. Tune into yourself and become aware of what you need. Needing to rest and slow down is normal, and taking the time to heal yourself isn’t selfish; it’s self care. The ability to listen to what your body is telling you and give it what it needs is an essential skill in learning to live more authentically and in creating a life that truly feels like yours.
- Robinson, B. (2025, February 10). Job burnout at 66% in 2025, new study shows. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2025/02/08/job-burnout-at-66-in-2025-new-study-shows/
↩︎ - Ahuja, Amrita. “82% of Workers Globally Experiencing Burnout, Survey Says.” Staffing Industry Analysis. Accessed July 22, 2025. https://www.staffingindustry.com/news/global-daily-news/82-of-workers-globally-experiencing-burnout-survey-says. ↩︎
- Khammissa, Razia A G, Simon Nemutandani, Gal Feller, Johan Lemmer, and Liviu Feller. “Burnout Phenomenon: Neurophysiological Factors, Clinical Features, and Aspects of Management.” The Journal of international medical research, September 13, 2022. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9478693/. ↩︎
- “Burnout: Symptoms, Risk Factors, Prevention, Treatment.” WebMD, March 5, 2024. https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/burnout-symptoms-signs. ↩︎
