Abby Quillen

Freelance Content Marketing Writer and Editor

Mindfulness

I Gave Up Podcasts for Two Weeks. Here’s What Happened.

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What’s not to love about podcasts? They’re educational, entertaining, and free. I’ve been a fan since I downloaded my first one on my iPod Nano back in 2008.

I’ve listened to countless hours of Radiolab, This American Life, Invisibilia, Serial, and S-Town. I’d recognize Jad Abumrad’s voice in a crowded room.

I’ve also listened to amateur podcasts about arcane topics. I may admit to streaming them if I remembered the titles.

I’ve discovered interesting books and authors through podcasts. I’ve stumbled on topics to write about and people to interview. Podcasts helped me stay entertained during long nights pacing with crying babies and harried days at home with two little boys.

So why would I take a break from podcasts? In December, I was assigned to write an article with the title: “Is it Bad to Listen to Podcasts All Day?”

My immediate answer was, “No way! That’s my dream life!”

But then I dug into the research and reflected on my podcast habit.

My total listening added up to about one to two hours a day, or 7 to 14 hours a week. That put me in the super listener category, according to Edison Research. I usually listened when I was doing something else, like getting ready in the morning, cooking, walking, or driving.

I thought of my listening habit as a good thing. I love learning new things.

But as I revisited the research on multitasking, I wondered if trying to listen to podcasts while I hustled through life was causing me mental stress and fatigue and was actually dumbing me down. (Multitasking does that.)

Plus, some of the podcasts I was listening to were about how to live a more mindful life. And multitasking is, ahem, the opposite of mindfulness.

So I decided to do an experiment. I gave up podcasts for two weeks and replaced them with silence. Just me and my wandering mind. What happened next amazed me.

I felt relieved.

The first time I stepped out the door for a walk without glancing at my podcast feed felt like a vacation. Then I had the same sensation when I got in my car.

I wasn’t expecting to feel relief, because I thought of podcasts as something I enjoyed. But, like most people, I’m bombarded with choices and decisions constantly, which is draining. Not having to scan through feeds and find a podcast was refreshing.

Plus, it felt great to turn off the chattering in my ear (even if in this case, the chattering was entertaining me with well-crafted stories and occasional profound insights).

I live with two chatty little boys, who enjoy listening to Taylor Swift songs at high volumes. Our house is noisy when we’re all home. When I’m home alone, I read, research, and write a lot, so my mind is a busy place.

Quiet sounded so good.

Of course, this shouldn’t have surprised me. I’ve experienced enough quiet in my life to know it’s restorative.

Silence is regarded as holy in most religions. Spiritual people of all traditions herald the importance of quiet contemplation. Mother Theresa equated silence with prayer.

And scientists have discovered the power of silence accidentally when they used it as a control in research. In one study, researchers discovered that a two-minute silent pause in a piece of music was more beneficial for the body and nervous system than relaxing music.

In another study, two hours of silence a day caused mice to grow new functioning neurons in the hippocampus region of their brains. Imke Kirste, the lead researcher, theorizes that if the same results are found in humans, someday silence may be used to treat conditions like dementia and depression

But sometimes you have to immerse yourself in quiet to remember how healing it is.

Everything got easier.

When I turned off the podcasts when I was doing housework, the residual backlog of dishes and laundry at our house disappeared. I zipped through making dinner, even complex recipes. And I felt calmer and more engaged when I was with my kids. (I didn’t usually listen to podcasts when I was hanging out with my family, but I often felt in a hurry to get back to the chores so I could listen to one.)

Writing also felt easier. I attribute this to having more free time to think. The brain goes into its default mode when it’s not concentrating, where it wanders and self reflects. This state is just as essential to learning as concentration. In my well-intentioned attempts to learn more, I may have been shortchanging myself of going into this just-as-important brain state

You may think that listening to a podcast while doing something else isn’t really multitasking in the way that driving and talking on the phone is. But listening to a podcast is actually hard work for the brain. The brain is five times more active when listening to a story than when listening to a list of facts. Add sound effects, multiple characters’ voices, and a relatively fast pace, and the brain is busy.

When people were hooked up to MRI machines while they listened to Moth Radio Hour for a study, “Widely dispersed sensory, emotional and memory networks were humming, across both hemispheres of the brain,” according to Benedict Carey of the New York Times.

In hindsight, it’s funny that I thought I could listen to a complex story at the same time as I was making a new-to-me recipe or navigating an unfamiliar route in my car.

But that’s the strange thing about multitasking. We think we can do it, even though the brain can’t focus on two things at once.

Research suggests we lose 40 percent of our productivity and are four times slower at learning new things when we multitask.

I certainly felt 40 percent more productive when I stopped. But this seems to be a lesson I must learn repeatedly. I hope I finally got it this time.

Real life was more interesting.

What could be the downside of listening to a steady stream of well-crafted narratives and conversations designed to make you feel a deep sense of awe? Real life and real conversations can feel a little ho-hum. There are relatively few earth-shattering revelations, profound insights, and moments of realization in everyday chitchat.

Worse, listening to podcasts can give you the illusion you’re already socializing, which makes real socializing feel less essential. Pamela Druckerman, a self-confessed recovering podcast addict, writes in the Atlantic: “Podcasts gave me the illusion of having a vibrant social life. I was constantly “meeting” new people. My favorite hosts started to seem like friends: I could detect small shifts in their moods, and tell when they were flirting with guests.”

I hadn’t thought much about these downsides of listening to podcasts until I gave them up. Within a couple days, I felt more eager to run into people and chat. And when I was conversing with people, I felt more refreshed and engaged.

Plus, when I went for walks without a podcast, even around my neighborhood, I was blown away by all of the beauty: murmurations of starlings, fog twisting through the hills, delicate patterns etched across iced-over puddles. Had I really been missing all this before? Oh right, my brain was busy listening.

I felt happier.

I felt notably calmer. I slept better. I felt more present and engaged with my family. I noticed fewer moments of stress or anxiety.

Plus, at times, I had a feeling of spacious expansion that I haven’t felt since I was a kid. One day I was bringing books up to my son’s room. It was raining, and I laid down on his bed and listened for awhile before I returned to my chores. Another day, I sat down and read poetry, which I haven’t done for years.

My time was mine again. I could just focus on what I was doing. Or just be.

Of course, changing any habit can be hard, and giving up podcasts was no exception. I felt symptoms that felt like withdrawal (similar to when I quit drinking coffee awhile ago). I especially felt antsy when I was cooking, which is strange because cooking requires a lot of focus (and some inherent multitasking). Fortunately, preparing food in the quiet got a little easier as time went on.

Going Forward

Of course, podcasts are fun and interesting, and I miss some of them. Will I listen going forward? How much? To what?

I’m not sure yet. But I know I’ll be more mindful about what I trade my quiet for. Plus, I’m swearing off multitasking (again). Lesson learned (again).

Will taking a break from podcasts (or social media, radio, or television) change your outlook as much as it did mine? There’s no way to know except to try. If you do (or if you have in the past), leave me a comment. I’d love to hear about it!

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these similar posts:

13 Aha Moments in 2013

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In 2010 and 2012, I shared the magic moments when I heard or read something that surprised or inspired me. Moments that made me say, “aha.” As we say farewell to 2013, I have 13 more for you:

Cooking might be the most important factor in fixing our public health crisis. It’s the single most important thing you can do for your health. – Michal Pollan

The next time you look in a mirror, think about this: In many ways you’re more microbe than human. There are 10 times more cells from microorganisms like bacteria and fungi in and on our bodies than there are human cells. – Rob Stein

You can find a way to make economic exchange one of the most satisfying, meaningful, and loving of human interactions.” – Judy Wicks

Since there is no “healthy soil/healthy microbe” label that can steer us toward these farms, my suggestion is to ask this simple question: “Does the farmer live on the farm?” Farmers who live on their land and feed their family from it tend to care for their soil as if it were another family member. – Daphne Miller

In Asian languages, the word for mind and the word for heart are same. So if you’re not hearing mindfulness in some deep way as heartfulness, you’re not really understanding it. Compassion and kindness towards oneself are intrinsically woven into it. You could think of mindfulness as wise and affectionate attention. – Jon Kabat-Zinn

“A seed makes itself. A seed doesn’t need a geneticist or hybridist or publicist or matchmaker. But it needs help. Sometimes it needs a moth or a wasp or a gust of wind. Sometimes it needs a farm and it needs a farmer. It needs a garden and a gardener. It needs you.” – Janisse Ray

Thanks to cutting-edge science, we know that happiness and optimism actually fuel performance and achievement — giving us the competitive edge that I call the happiness advantage. – Shawn Achor

I melted, and accepted, and only then could I actually enjoy his presence instead of worrying about losing him or changing him. And this, as I’ve learned, is the best way to be. – Leo Babauta

Analysis of the mid-Victorian period in the U.K. reveals that life expectancy at age 5 was as good or better than exists today, and the incidence of degenerative disease was 10% of ours. Their levels of physical activity and hence calorific intakes were approximately twice ours. They had relatively little access to alcohol and tobacco; and due to their correspondingly high intake of fruits, whole grains, oily fish and vegetables, they consumed levels of micro- and phytonutrients at approximately ten times the levels considered normal today. – Paul Clayton and Judith Rowbotham

The findings suggest that job burnout is “a stronger predictor of coronary heart disease than many other known risk factors, including blood lipid levels, physical activity, and smoking. – Anne Fisher

We also know, more definitively than we ever have, that our brains are not built for multitasking — something that precludes mindfulness altogether. When we are forced to do multiple things at once, not only do we perform worse on all of them but our memory decreases and our general wellbeing suffers a palpable hit. – Maria Konnikova

Over the same decades that children’s play has been declining, childhood mental disorders have been increasing. … Analyses of the results reveal a continuous, essentially linear, increase in anxiety and depression in young people over the decades, such that the rates of what today would be diagnosed as generalised anxiety disorder and major depression are five to eight times what they were in the 1950s. – Peter Gray

The most profound thing I have learned from indigenous land management traditions is that human impact can be positive — even necessary — for the environment. Indeed it seems to me that the goal of an environmental community should be not to reduce our impact on the landscape but to maximize our impact and make it a positive one, or at the very least to optimize our effect on the landscape and acknowledge that we can have a positive role to play. –  Eric Toensmeier

Did you hear or read something in 2013 that surprised or inspired you? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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How Transforming Your Meals Can Transform Your Life

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Recently, I had an aha moment while I was eating a salad for lunch and skimming the newspaper.

I don’t have much time for newspaper reading in this season of life. Of course, we all know it’s not that we don’t have time for things; it’s that we’re not making time for them. But I make time to appear on the non-stop quiz show that is hanging out with my four-year-old: “How do the flowers bloom?” “Why does glass break?” “Why does it get dark at night?” I make time to chase my naked one-year-old around the house with a diaper, to prepare more sandwiches some days than a bustling Subway, and to meet writing deadlines, polish blog posts, and edit a book. So, reading the newspaper doesn’t always rise to the top of my to-do list.

But I grew up in a newsroom. My parents owned or edited newspapers until I was ten and then wrote for them. Newspapers were our bread and butter, and according to my parents (and civics teachers), the foundation of an informed democracy. Thus I’ve always tried to squeeze reading one into any moments of my days when I am sitting. Lately, during those moments, I’m also eating.

But on this day, as I ravenously devoured my salad with our bizarrely sordid City Region section  — Armed man mistakes pregnant wife for an intruder! Mom lets toddler inhale marijuana smoke! Blind rapper robs car! Seriously.  — I realized how ridiculous it was. I was hardly tasting the fresh, organic food that I’d spent good money on and labored to prepare.

Moreover, I was squandering one of life’s greatest pleasures – eating.

More ridiculous still, I meditate for fifteen minutes a day. So I was rushing through my lunch, distracted and multi-tasking, so that I’d have time to sit and pay attention to my breath. It’s like driving across town to run on a treadmill.

So that day I stopped.

Now I just sit and eat. If someone’s eating with me, we converse. If I’m alone, I pay attention to my food. Sometimes I watch the chickens peck around the grass, the squirrels scamper along the fence tops, and the bluebirds flit between the branches.

My meals are incredibly relaxing and pleasurable.

And when lunch is over, I usually find myself scribbling down notes, because it turns out quiet, unhurried lunches are perfect incubators for ideas — for stories, novels, essays, blog posts…

There’s a name for this magic that I’ve discovered: mindful eating.

Full confession: I’ve long been aware of it. I’ve seen half a dozen magazine articles and blog posts about it over the years. I’ve possibly even wolfed down a story about it in the lifestyle section while inhaling my lunch.

But I long resisted actually doing it. Why? I’m a compulsive reader. And the truth is, eating has always seemed, well, a little boring.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way. When I worked in offices, the few people who left their desks for lunch lugged along a book, magazine, or laptop to bury themselves in.

The truth is, being mindful of anything can be deceptively tricky. It takes getting used to. But psychologists say practicing mindful eating can help people form a healthy relationship with food, desire more nutritious meals, and sustain a healthy weight.

And as I can attest, once you get the hang of it, it could become the best part of your day.

Do you practice mindful eating? Have you stumbled upon another small change that made a huge difference in your life? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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12 Aha Moments in 2012

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At the end of 2010, I shared 10 magic moments when someone said or wrote something that surprised or inspired me. Moments that made me say, “aha.” Now, as we say so long to 2012, I have 12 more for you:

I unsubscribed from the clock. Dropped my watch right into the garbage. Shut off the glowing green-blue digital clocks that seem to piggyback on every appliance known to man – microwave, stove, VCR. … I’m less stressed. I don’t worry about how long things take or even bother considering how long they should take. … I’m no longer chained to the clock. I measure my life in heartbeats and years, the only significant units to me. – Steven Corona, Living Without Time

Plants, it turns out, possess a sensory vocabulary far wider than our perception of them as static, near-inanimate objects might suggest: They can smell their own fruits’ ripeness, distinguish between different touches, tell up from down, and retain information about past events; they “see” when you’re approaching them and even “know” whether you’re wearing a red or blue shirt; like us, they have unique genes that detect light and darkness to wind up their internal clock. – Maria Popova, What a Plant Knows

Micro-publishing means that every person is a publisher. It takes away the whole idea of “us” vs. “them” that comes part and parcel with indie publishing and establishes that there is only Us, all of the people in the world, and we are all publishers. – Christina Katz, “What is What Is Micro-Publishing? A Thorough Definition By Christina Katz”

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. 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. – Tim Kreider, “The Busy Trap,” New York Times

Pushing our children toward adulthood takes us (and them) away from seeing that each of us are whole people exactly as we are. A baby is not an unformed child, a child is not an ungrown adult, an elder is not an age-ruined version of a once younger self. … We don’t have to paddle away from the moment we live in toward some ideal age. Doing so doesn’t just wish away right now, it also condemns every other age we live in to be something less. – Laura Grace Weldon, What’s the Perfect Age?

Focus on your masterpiece. Whatever you focus on, you’ll create. Think your project is crappy? Then it will be crappy. Think you’ll get it done no matter the odds? Then you’ll finish it even if you get hit by a bus. – Joshua Fields Millburn, Create Your Masterpiece, a 16-Step Guide

So began my year of living the shareable life, which I chronicled on shareable.net. … I hadn’t thought my blog would make a difference, but I was wrong. My story was picked up by Fast Company, Sunset, and NBC Nightly News, reaching tens of millions of people with the message that sharing is both good for the soul and a savvy financial move. At the end of the day, I reaped the personal reward of sharing with my neighbors. And I have an extra $17,000 in my pocket. – Neal Gorenflo, How I saved $17,000 in one year by sharing

I remember hearing about a book called “How to Parent without Bribes, Threats and Punishments,” and I laughed because those were all my discipline tools, and I believed in them. But, 2 years later, I’m orbiting a more peaceful planet and making an occasional smooth landing.  … I still value compliance, but not the kind that comes from threats or promise of a reward, because in the long run, I want my children to be motivated to make choices from their intrinsic desire to add to the peace and harmony of our family (and the planet). – Rachel Turiel, orbiting a more peaceful planet

I learned a little trick while practicing meditation that helped me, not only with meditation, but with just about everything I do. I noticed I was reluctant to start the meditation, and paused to wonder why that is. What I noticed was a kind of tightness, in my chest and shoulders and neck, but also in my mind. … I chose to let go of the tightness. – Leo Babauta, The Little Trick to Make Any Moment Better

What if we stopped labeling our children, criticizing our children, fretting over our children, and instead just loved them unconditionally and let them be themselves? I have a theory about this: If we stop trying to change and mold our children and start loving them just the way they are then we have to extend the same courtesy to ourselves. – Jennifer Margulis, Mismatched: When Your Child’s Personality Clashes With Your Own

I looked in the other pocket. I looked in my bag. And then I remembered, with dull thud to the gut—I changed trousers before leaving my room. The Fitbit was back at the hotel, clipped to my jeans, motionless, recording nothing. … Part of me wanted to cab it back to the hotel. Cab it back and clip on the Fitbit and do the walk again. … Smiling, I looked out over a Paris glowing golden—caught in a long summer twilight—and enjoyed the day for what it was: a beautiful walk, existing only in my mind, to be forgotten, unrecorded and fleeting, just as it’s always been.” – Craig Mod, Paris and the Data Mind

Our children don’t need us to play with them all the time. It only seems like that because we keep running away from them. … Child development experts say preschoolers need one hour of undistracted play with a parent each day. … But this means one hour when you sit on the floor and don’t get up. You don’t leave to fold the laundry or start supper. You don’t abandon the game to do something more interesting or important. You don’t check your email or fiddle on your phone. And the game is one they choose, not something you think is worthwhile or educational for them.” – Karen Maezen Miller, momma time

 

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