Thoughts on Living a Less Stimulated Life
The word “stimulate” means — to raise levels of physiological or nervous activity in the human body.
Let’s go through a few examples:
The vibrant colors of the garden stimulate creativity and inspire new artistic ideas.
Reading challenging books can stimulate intellectual growth and critical thinking.
Listening to calming music can stimulate relaxation and help reduce stress.
That all sounds very positive!
Then, why do I want to live a less stimulated life?
While stimulation is an essential part of life that keeps us engaged and motivated, overstimulation can lead to mental fatigue, anxiety, impaired attention span, numbness, addiction, and an inability to form original thoughts and opinions.
Unfortunately, in the modern world, we are more often exposed to constant overstimulation, particularly from unlimited access to information, entertainment, and social media.
In this blog post, I want to share my thoughts on some of the biggest sources of overstimulation, how they can negatively affect us, and finally wrap up by sharing a few things I plan on doing to live a less stimulated life.
Information Overload
Whether you are doomscrolling on social media, binge-watching some Netflix show, watching YouTube, or listening to podcasts, you are always being bombarded with content of some kind.
The sheer amount of content on the internet is frightening.
To put it in perspective, here are a few interesting stats.
Global data creation and consumption have skyrocketed. In 2010, the total amount of data created, captured, copied, and consumed worldwide was about 2 zettabytes. By 2020, this had grown to 64.2 zettabytes.
With that much content, I wonder how much of it is truly original thought.
Most content nowadays tends to be modified or enhanced versions of information you already know. Odds are, you are consuming the content for entertainment only, not for anything insightful.
Worse, people can consume content to stay distracted. It gives them a way out from the realities of life. It helps them procrastinate for another day. The constant sound or visual stimuli keep them distracted long enough to their problem to their future selves.
Such passive consumption is detrimental to so many things — the ability to think, come up with original thoughts, attention span, and so much more.
When you have something “playing in the background” 24/7, your mind does not get the time, space, and silence to come up with its thoughts. Instead of forming your own opinion, you start echoing whatever you hear in your last YouTube video or Podcast.
Next time you are consuming content on a topic you are already familiar with, pause for a second and ask yourself — Is it something original enough for me to take notes on? Or am I just listening/watching to not be bored?
The Power of Silence
When the idea of living a “less stimulated life” came to me, I made a few small tweaks in my daily routine:
Stop taking the phone into my bathroom
No background podcast during the shower
Read books in silence
Drive without any music playing
The more I did these, the more I realized how much calmer life can be.
These pockets of silence sprinkled throughout my day were the perfect venues to be reflective, think originally about things, be grateful instead of always wanting more, and so much more.
Most importantly, it made time slow down.
On days where I had more of these “pockets of silence”, I did not go to bed asking myself — what did I even do today? It all seems a blur.
Of course, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.
When you are understimulated, your thoughts can take you to dark places — regrets!
During these times I realized so many things I have done in the past that I haven’t truly addressed. It gave me a chance to confront such thoughts head-on, repent, make my peace, and try to become a better person.
Boredom + Silence can be truly transformative.
What Am I Doing?
Promote silence — less YouTube and podcasts
Curate content feeds
Avoid search recommendations
Quiet deep work sessions
Think, pray, reflect, talk to people during free time
After my successful experiment sprinkling these “pockets of boredom+silent time” throughout the day, I wanted to make it a part of my identity.
That meant one thing — I had to make systematic changes to my life.
Here are a few things I started doing. They have done wonders for me so far.
Overall, less YouTube and Podcasts (enforced through Opal)
Curate content feeds — don’t follow more than 1-2 creators for every topic
Stay far away from recommendation algorithms — no feeds, nothing resembling infinite scrolls
No music during deep work sessions
No phones in the bathroom
Replace using a phone during micro-breaks (5-15 minutes) with actual in-person or phone conversations
I will continue making tweaks as I shift away from an always hyperconnected life to one with less stimulation, more silence, and more original thoughts.
Closing Thoughts
Okay, folks, that’s all for today.
Thank you for your time. I hope you found it valuable.
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