Usually I’m the biggest “hater” when it comes to new trends, as I find most of them wrong and unhealthy. So whenever I see a new lifestyle that I actually love, I think it’s my duty to write about it.

One of my favorite trends is the concept of slow life. Some also call it a sloth’s philosophy. What is it? Wikipedia defines it as “a lifestyle which encourages a slower approach to aspects of everyday life, involving completing tasks at a leisurely pace”. So, basically it’s the opposite of “running on a hamster wheel”, when you don’t rush things, don’t compete with others, trying to do sth faster and better than others. You just be you, do what you love and what brings you joy. I truly believe that this lifestyle is the key to living a happy and whole life.

It’s ironic though, that what we call now “slow living” used to be the normal and regular rhythm of life around 10-15 years ago. But with every new year life passes by at a greater speed, so this technique is perfect for bringing some balance into your life. In this post I want to talk about the perks of a slow life.

1. Enjoying and Appreciating Life.

You can’t possibly do that when you’re in a constant rush. Imagine traveling on a high-speed train, when the sceneries change every second and you can’t physically notice the beauty of the road. But when you’re on a car or a regular train, the low speed allows you to actually see your surroundings and enjoy your ride. Same goes with this trend. When you start doing everything with a lower speed, you start noticing the details and fun parts of each activity, even if before it seemed boring to you.

2. Not being addicted to phones and internet.

A big and crucial part of the slow life is spending more time offline and having regular digital detoxes. We spend the majority of our time with phones glued to our hands. We go to movies, eat dinner, have conversations holding the gadgets in our hands, which, again, doesn’t allow us to enjoy neither the delicious meal, nor the interesting films or conversations. Slow lifestyle teaches you to leave your phone behind and be present in this three dimensional reality. It doesn’t mean not using internet or gadgets at all, it’s about finding the perfect balance of using them in your favor.

3. Less Stress and Anxiety.

I haven’t studied actual statistics, but I truly believe that nowadays the majority of people suffer from mental problems, like stress, depression, anxiety and various disorders. Most of those are connected with the constant this crazy rhythm of life, the constant flow of information, the overwhelming feeling that you’re not enough, you’re not doing something good. These feelings are sadly inevitable in this materialistic world. The slow lifestyle spare us from this madness, it gives us a chance to choose our own rhythm for our lives, the one that we will comfortable in. Hence it will reduce our stress, worries and anxieties a lot, as you won’t feel the need to constantly compare yourself or do sth you don’t wanna do, you won’t feel left behind.

4. More Quality Time.

You’ve probably heard many people claiming that they need to spend some quality time either on their own or with their close people. The sad thing is that with everything going on in our lives we don’t get to do it as much as we’d love to. But with slow living (honestly I feel like a marketing agent who’s trying to sell a product haha), the amount of your quality time increases, as pretty much everything you do (cook dinner, do chores, go to work) can be absolutely considered as quality time, because you actually enjoy pretty much every single thing you’re doing. You’ll enjoy the coffee you drink in the mornings, looking out of the window, listening to music or podcast or reading. You’ll enjoy cleaning your house as you’ll start appreciating the satisfying feeling when dirty things start shining. You’ll start seeing beautiful sceneries on your way to work. Which means that your day will be filled with more quality time than ever.

5. Finding New Hobbies.

There’s a meme saying that most of those people who have various hobbies are introverts, cause they spend so much time at home that they need to come up with things to entertain themselves. Well, basically the same goes with slow life, as you start looking for new fun things that will fill your life with more joy. You’ll suddenly discover how good it is to do some embroidery, journaling or pottery, solve crosswords, draw, learn to play a new instrument. This means that you’ll learn many versatile skills that may be beneficial one day. And your life definitely won’t ever be boring cause you’ll have so many activities waiting for you, that you won’t know where to start.

6. Shaping the right mindset.

Once you start “studying” the concept of slow life you’ll start shaping the right mindset and mentality for your life in general. It’ll bring such a deep understanding of how things work, you’ll realize that things happen at their perfect time, you can’t rush them or make them “go away”. You become more tolerant and accepting of yourself and life with its difficulties, you just start swimming with the flow instead of constantly loosing battles to huge waves.