In praise of doing nothing

Modern life seems to encourage acceleration for the sake of acceleration – to what end? JoeyCheung/Shutterstock.com

In the 1950s, scholars worried that, thanks to technological innovations, Americans wouldn’t know what to do with all of their leisure time.

Yet today, as sociologist Juliet Schor notes, Americans are overworked, putting in more hours than at any time since the Depression and more than in any other in Western society.

It’s probably not unrelated to the fact that instant and constant access has become de rigueur, and our devices constantly expose us to a barrage of colliding and clamoring messages: “Urgent,” “Breaking News,” “For immediate release,” “Answer needed ASAP.”

It disturbs our leisure time, our family time – even our consciousness.

Over the past decade, I’ve tried to understand the social and psychological effects of our growing interactions with new information and communication technologies, a topic I examine in my book “The Terminal Self: Everyday Life in Hypermodern Times.”

In this 24/7, “always on” age, the prospect of doing nothing might sound unrealistic and unreasonable.

But it’s never been more important.

Acceleration for the sake of acceleration

In an age of incredible advancements that can enhance our human potential and planetary health, why does daily life seem so overwhelming and anxiety-inducing?

Why aren’t things easier?

It’s a complex question, but one way to explain this irrational state of affairs is something called the force of acceleration.

According to German critical theorist Hartmut Rosa, accelerated technological developments have driven the acceleration in the pace of change in social institutions.

We see this on factory floors, where “just-in-time” manufacturing demands maximum efficiency and the ability to nimbly respond to market forces, and in university classrooms, where computer software instructs teachers how to “move students quickly” through the material. Whether it’s in the grocery store or in the airport, procedures are implemented, for better or for worse, with one goal in mind: speed.

Noticeable acceleration began more than two centuries ago, during the Industrial Revolution. But this acceleration has itself … accelerated. Guided by neither logical objectives nor agreed-upon rationale, propelled by its own momentum, and encountering little resistance, acceleration seems to have begotten more acceleration, for the sake of acceleration.

To Rosa, this acceleration eerily mimics the criteria of a totalitarian power: 1) it exerts pressure on the wills and actions of subjects; 2) it is inescapable; 3) it is all-pervasive; and 4) it is hard or almost impossible to criticize and fight.

The oppression of speed

Unchecked acceleration has consequences.

At the environmental level, it extracts resources from nature faster than they can replenish themselves and produces waste faster than it can be processed.

At the personal level, it distorts how we experience time and space. It deteriorates how we approach our everyday activities, deforms how we relate to each other and erodes a stable sense of self. It leads to burnout at one end of the continuum and to depression at the other. Cognitively, it inhibits sustained focus and critical evaluation. Physiologically, it can stress our bodies and disrupt vital functions.

For example, research finds two to three times more self-reported health problems, from anxiety to sleeping issues, among workers who frequently work in high-speed environments compared with those who do not.

When our environment accelerates, we must pedal faster in order to keep up with the pace. Workers receive more emails than ever before – a number that’s only expected to grow. The more emails you receive, the more time you need to process them. It requires that you either accomplish this or another task in less time, that you perform several tasks at once, or that you take less time in between reading and responding to emails.

American workers’ productivity has increased dramatically since 1973. What has also increased sharply during that same period is the pay gap between productivity and pay. While productivity between 1973 and 2016 has increased by 73.7 percent, hourly pay has increased by only 12.5 percent. In other words, productivity has increased at about six times the rate of hourly pay.

Clearly, acceleration demands more work – and to what end? There are only so many hours in a day, and this additional expenditure of energy reduces individuals’ ability to engage in life’s essential activities: family, leisure, community, citizenship, spiritual yearnings and self-development.

It’s a vicious loop: Acceleration imposes more stress on individuals and curtails their ability to manage its effects, thereby worsening it.

Doing nothing and ‘being’

In a hypermodern society propelled by the twin engines of acceleration and excess, doing nothing is equated with waste, laziness, lack of ambition, boredom or “down” time.

An ad for Microsoft Office stresses the importance of being able to always work. Microsoft

But this betrays a rather instrumental grasp of human existence.

Much research – and many spiritual and philosophical systems – suggest that detaching from daily concerns and spending time in simple reflection and contemplation are essential to health, sanity and personal growth.

Similarly, to equate “doing nothing” with nonproductivity betrays a short-sighted understanding of productivity. In fact, psychological research suggests that doing nothing is essential for creativity and innovation, and a person’s seeming inactivity might actually cultivate new insights, inventions or melodies.

As legends go, Isaac Newton grasped the law of gravity sitting under an apple tree. Archimedes discovered the law of buoyancy relaxing in his bathtub, while Albert Einstein was well-known for staring for hours into space in his office.

The academic sabbatical is centered on the understanding that the mind needs to rest and be allowed to explore in order to germinate new ideas.

Doing nothing – or just being – is as important to human well-being as doing something.
The key is to balance the two.

Taking your foot off the pedal

Since it will probably be difficult to go cold turkey from an accelerated pace of existence to doing nothing, one first step consists in decelerating. One relatively easy way to do so is to simply turn off all the technological devices that connect us to the internet – at least for a while – and assess what happens to us when we do.

Danish researchers found that students who disconnected from Facebook for just one week reported notable increases in life satisfaction and positive emotions. In another experiment, neuroscientists who went on a nature trip reported enhanced cognitive performance.

Different social movements are addressing the problem of acceleration. The Slow Food movement, for example, is a grassroots campaign that advocates a form of deceleration by rejecting fast food and factory farming.

As we race along, it seems as though we’re not taking the time to seriously examine the rationale behind our frenetic lives – and mistakenly assume that those who are very busy must be involved in important projects.

Touted by the mass media and corporate culture, this credo of busyness contradicts both how most people in our society define “the good life” and the tenets of many Eastern philosophies that extol the virtue and power of stillness.

French philosopher Albert Camus perhaps put it best when he wrote, “Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.”

Simon Gottschalk, Professor of Sociology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
This article was originally published on The Conversation.

The Bible's message on separating immigrant children from parents is a lot different from what Jeff Sessions thinks

Jeff Sessions is citing the Bible in defending the Trump administration’s immigration policy. AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File

In a speech to law enforcement officers on June 14, Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited biblical scripture Romans 13 to claim support for zero tolerance immigration policies, including the Trump administration’s forced separation of immigrant families.

He said:

“Illegal entry into the United States is a crime – as it should be. Persons who violate the law of our nation are subject to prosecution. I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.”

Later in the same day, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders echoed these sentiments, saying that “[it] is very biblical to enforce the law [and] that is actually repeated a number of times throughout the Bible.”

As a scholar whose research is on Christian ethics, human rights and obligations to the poor, I would dispute this interpretation. Scripture commands Christians to help the poor, to recognize the importance of the family, and to criticize unjust laws.

Loving thy neighbor

The Bible. JamesNichols, CC BY

In the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly teaches that Christians should love their neighbors. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Later in Matthew, Jesus explains what loving your neighbor involves: feeding the hungry, slaking the thirsty, inviting in the stranger, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and imprisoned. “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these,” Jesus says, “you did not do for me.”

And in the very passage that Sessions cites, Romans 13, the Apostle Paul mirrors Jesus’ teaching. “Whatever other command there may be,” he writes, “[they] are summed up in this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.“

Given the scriptural emphasis on acts of mercy and love of neighbor, Sessions’ claim that Paul’s command is clear is at best dubious. It is at worst indefensible.

The centrality of the family

How do mercy and neighborly love relate to the family? Beginning with Genesis, Scripture emphasizes the centrality and importance of the family for individual and social well-being. In Genesis, God creates Adam and Eve so that they may be companions to one another. God also commands them to be fruitful and multiply.

In addition to being placed by Jesus at the heart of the Kingdom of God, children are a gift from God. And parental love aims to mirror for children the love of God.

The import of these teachings is reflected in several contemporary documents, including Catholic social doctrine, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, all of which claim that civil society and the state should prioritize care for mothers and children.

Forced separation of immigrant families

Demonstrators taking part in the Families Belong Together Day of Action, on June 1, 2018, in Miramar, Florida. AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee

In recent days, the media have reported the painful stories of the forced separation of hundreds of immigrant families at U.S. border detention centers.

What’s conspicuous and morally problematic about these stories, is the trauma that forced separation causes to families, and in particular to children.

Sessions’s invocation of Romans 13 is only the most recent example of the use of this passage which has been used to justify all manner of immoral behavior: imperialism, slavery, Nazism and apartheid.
What Sessions and others have missed is the moral of Romans 13. Care for the most vulnerable, falls to the family first and then to the state. Immigrant families fleeing from destitution are attempting to find the means to provide for their themselves. The state must honor this priority if people are to consider their laws just and worthy of the submission Paul enjoins on Christians.

The spirit of charity and hospitality, recognizing that we are all strangers and sojourners alike, demands caring for the most vulnerable members of the human family. The Trump administration’s rhetoric and action flout these.

Bharat Ranganathan, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Notre Dame
This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Why religions of the world condemn suicide

A mourner reads a sympathy card left for Anthony Bourdain at a makeshift memorial in New York. AP Photo/Mary Altaffer

The recent suicides of fashion designer Kate Spade and celebrity chef and writer Anthony Bourdain have reminded all of us that, even for the wealthy, life can become too painful to bear.

The sad truth is that suicide rates have been increasing in the United States. In the last decade, the suicide rate increased by nearly 30 percent, with women and teens particularly affected.

And it’s not just the United States. Suicide is increasingly taking a toll on individuals and families throughout the world.

The ethics of self-inflicted death have historically been an important area of reflection for the world’s religions.

Whose life is it?

Many of the world’s religions have traditionally condemned suicide because, as they believe, human life fundamentally belongs to God.

Many of world’s religions have beliefs that condemn suicide. Jossifresco, revisions by AnonMoos

In the Jewish tradition, the prohibition against suicide originated in Genesis 9:5, which says, “And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning.” This means that humans are accountable to God for the choices they make. From this perspective, life belongs to God and is not yours to take. Jewish civil and religious law, the Talmud, withheld from a suicide the rituals and treatment that were given to the body in the case of other deaths, such as burial in a Jewish cemetery, though this is not the case today.

A similar perspective shaped Catholic teachings about suicide. St. Augustine of Hippo, an early Christian bishop and philosopher, wrote that “he who kills himself is a homicide.” In fact, according the Catechism of St. Pius X, an early 20th-century compendium of Catholic beliefs, someone who died by suicide should be denied Christian burial – a prohibition that is no longer observed.

The Italian poet Dante Aligheri, in “The Inferno,” extrapolated from traditional Catholic beliefs and placed those who had committed the sin of suicide on the seventh level of hell, where they exist in the form of trees that painfully bleed when cut or pruned.

According to traditional Islamic understandings, the fate of those who die by suicide is similarly dreadful. Hadiths, or sayings, attributed to the Prophet Muhammad warn Muslims against committing suicide. The hadiths say that those who kill themselves suffer hellfire. And in hell, they will continue to inflict pain on themselves, according to the method of their suicide.

In Hinduism, suicide is referred to by the Sanskrit word “atmahatya,” literally meaning “soul-murder.” “Soul-murder” is said to produce a string of karmic reactions that prevent the soul from obtaining liberation. In fact, Indian folklore has numerous stories about those who commit suicide. According to the Hindu philosophy of birth and rebirth, in not being reincarnated, souls linger on the earth, and at times, trouble the living.

Buddhism also prohibits suicide, or aiding and abetting the act, because such self-harm causes more suffering rather than alleviating it. And most basically, suicide violates a fundamental Buddhist moral precept: to abstain from taking life.

Altruistic suicide

While many religions have traditionally prohibited suicide when motivated by despair, certain forms of suicide, for the community or for a greater good, are permitted, and at times, even celebrated.
In his classic work “On Suicide,” French sociologist Emile Durkheim used the term “altruistic suicide” to describe the act of killing oneself in the service of a higher principle or the greater community. And consciously sacrificing one’s life for God, or for other religious ends, has historically been the most prominent form of “altruistic suicide.”

Recently, Pope Francis has added another category for sainthood, that of giving up one’s life for another, called “oblatio vitae.” Of course, both Christianity and Islam have strong conceptions of martyrdom, which also extend to intentionally giving one’s life in battle. For example, the Crusader Hugh the Insane self-destructively leapt out of the tower of a besieged castle in order to crush and kill Turkish soldiers below.

A candlelit vigil to remember two Tibetans who self-immolated in Tibet, in Dharmsala, India, in 2012. AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia

Buddhist monks have burned themselves to death, most famously in Vietnam, but also in Tibet, to draw attention to violence and oppression. And within Hinduism, there is a tradition of ascetics fasting to death after they gained enlightenment. Then there are the ancient Hindu traditions of “sati”, where the wife dies on her husband’s funeral pyre, and “jauhar”, the ritual self-immolation of an entire community of women when they were certain of defeat in war and consequent enslavement.

What unifies all these examples is the idea that there are principles or goals that are more important than life itself. And so, self-sacrifice is not suicide: letting go of life because of faith is different, from letting go of life because of lack of hope.

Rethinking suicide

While striving to emphasizing the sacredness of life, it’s most certainly the case that traditional religious prohibitions against suicide provide little comfort to those who contemplate taking their own life, not to mention to the loved ones who will be left behind.

The good news is that today, there are more and more resources for talking about and preventing suicide. In particular, world religions have become more sympathetic and nuanced in their understanding. Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus have all established extensive outreach programs to those who suffer from suicidal thoughts.

Such efforts recognize that God especially loves those who suffer in the darkness of depression. Suicide then is not an act that calls for divine punishment, but an all-too-common threat that calls us to reaffirm hope in life as a precious gift given by God.

Mathew Schmalz, Associate Professor of Religion, College of the Holy Cross
This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Spending time alone in nature is good for your mental and emotional health

Hiking the Savage River Loop in Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Lian Law/NPS

Today Americans live in a world that thrives on being busy, productive and overscheduled. Further, they have developed the technological means to be constantly connected to others and to vast options for information and entertainment through social media. For many, smartphones demand their attention day and night with constant notifications.

As a result, naturally occurring periods of solitude and silence that were once commonplace have been squeezed out of their lives. Music, reality TV shows, YouTube, video games, tweeting and texting are displacing quiet and solitary spaces. Silence and solitude are increasingly viewed as “dead” or “unproductive” time, and being alone makes many Americans uncomfortable and anxious.
But while some equate solitude with loneliness, there is a big difference between being lonely and being alone. The latter is essential for mental health and effective leadership.

We study and teach outdoor education and related fields at several colleges and organizations in North Carolina, through and with other scholars at 2nd Nature TREC, LLC, a training, research, education and consulting firm. We became interested in the broader implications of alone time after studying intentionally designed solitude experiences during wilderness programs, such as those run by Outward Bound. Our findings reveal that time alone in nature is beneficial for many participants in a variety of ways, and is something they wish they had more of in their daily life.

On an average day in 2015, individuals aged 15 and over spent more than half of their leisure time watching TV. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans Time Use Survey

 

Reflection and challenge

We have conducted research for almost two decades on Outward Bound and undergraduate wilderness programs at Montreat College in North Carolina and Wheaton College in Illinois. For each program, we studied participants’ experiences using multiple methods, including written surveys, focus group interviews, one-on-one interviews and field notes. In some cases, we asked subjects years later to look back and reflect on how the programs had affected them. Among other questions, our research looked at participant perceptions of the value of solo time outdoors.

Our studies showed that people who took part in these programs benefited both from the outdoor settings and from the experience of being alone. These findings build on previous research that has clearly demonstrated the value of spending time in nature.

Scholars in fields including wilderness therapy and environmental psychology have shown that time outdoors benefits our lives in many ways. It has a therapeutic effect, relieves stress and restores attention. Alone time in nature can have a calming effect on the mind because it occurs in beautiful, natural and inspirational settings.

Spending time in city parks like Audubon Park in New Orleans provides some of the same benefits as time in wilderness areas, including reduced stress levels and increased energy levels. InSapphoWeTrust, CC BY-SA

Nature also provides challenges that spur individuals to creative problem-solving and increased self-confidence. For example, some find that being alone in the outdoors, particularly at night, is a challenging situation. Mental, physical and emotional challenges in moderation encourage personal growth that is manifested in an increased comfort with one’s self in the absence of others.

Being alone also can have great value. It can allow issues to surface that people spend energy holding at bay, and offer an opportunity to clarify thoughts, hopes, dreams and desires. It provides time and space for people to step back, evaluate their lives and learn from their experiences. Spending time this way prepares them to re-engage with their community relationships and full work schedules.

Putting it together: The outdoor solo

Participants in programmed wilderness expeditions often experience a component known as “Solo,” a time of intentional solitude lasting approximately 24-72 hours. Extensive research has been conducted on solitude in the outdoors because many wilderness education programs have embraced the educational value of solitude and silence.

Solo often emerges as one of the most significant parts of wilderness programs, for a variety of reasons. Alone time creates a contrasting experience to normal living that enriches people mentally, physically and emotionally. As they examine themselves in relation to nature, others, and in some cases, God, people become more attuned to the important matters in their lives and in the world of which they are part.

Solo, an integral part of Outward Bound wilderness trips, can last from a few hours to 72 hours. The experience is designed to give participants an opportunity to reflect on their own thoughts and critically analyze their actions and decisions.

Solitary reflection enhances recognition and appreciation of key personal relationships, encourages reorganization of life priorities, and increases appreciation for alone time, silence, and reflection. People learn lessons they want to transfer to their daily living, because they have had the opportunity to clarify, evaluate and redirect themselves by setting goals for the future.

For some participants, time alone outdoors provides opportunity to consider the spiritual and/or religious dimension of life. Reflective time, especially in nature, often enhances spiritual awareness and makes people feel closer to God. Further, it encourages their increased faith and trust in God. This often occurs through providing ample opportunities for prayer, meditation, fasting, Scripture-reading, journaling and reflection time.

Retreating to lead

As Thomas Carlyle has written, “In (solitary) silence, great things fashion themselves together.” Whether these escapes are called alone time, solitude or Solo, it seems clear that humans experience many benefits when they retreat from the “rat race” to a place apart and gather their thoughts in quietness.

In order to live and lead effectively, it is important to be intentional about taking the time for solitary reflection. Otherwise, gaps in schedules will always fill up, and even people with the best intentions may never fully realize the life-giving value of being alone.

Brad Daniel, Professor of Outdoor Education, Montreat College; Andrew Bobilya, Associate Professor and Program Director of Parks and Recreation Management, Western Carolina University, and Ken Kalisch, Associate Professor of Outdoor Education, Montreat College
This article was originally published on The Conversation.

The mystery of how babies experience pain

Crying may not tell the whole story. Maesse Photography

Before the 1980s, clinicians actually performed surgery on newborns without giving them anaesthetics or pain medications. This wasn’t because they thought babies were completely incapable of feeling pain. But they didn’t know how much pain the newborns could experience and feared that the medications may be too dangerous to warrant use.

Luckily we are better informed today. As babies can’t tell us how much pain they are in, scientists have invented several ingenious methods to try and work out what they are feeling. But there’s still a remarkable amount we don’t understand. And our new study, published in Current Biology, shows that we may be underestimating how much pain babies feel when they are under stress.

The reason progress has been relatively slow is that there was for a long time no agreed method for reliably measuring babies’ pain perception. It’s only in the last few decades scientists have made increasing efforts to do this – and the results may be applicable to other people who are unable to communicate too.

The first clues came from animal models in the early 1980s. These showed that the structural and functional connections within the nervous system required to perceive a painful event are present from birth. However, we still do not know whether these connections are sufficiently mature for infants to experience pain in quite the same way as adults.

For a long time, we had no way of measuring babies’ pain. Everett Collection

At the same time, clinical investigators started exploring ways of measuring pain in human infants. Following a painful procedure, such as the heel stick used for blood tests (much like a finger prick used for adult blood tests), infants show several significant responses. These range from physiological (changes in heart rate or breathing) and hormonal (release of the “stress hormone” cortisol) to behavioural (crying or grimacing).

Extensive research in this area suggested that infant pain should be evaluated with a combination of these measures, leading to the development of neonatal clinical pain scoring systems, such as the Premature Infant Pain Profile.

Pain in the brain

Another big advance in the field came from the Fitzgerald lab here at University College London, which moved away from solely using observations of behaviour and physiological responses to measure pain. Instead, it turned to the brain. We know that the perception of pain is generated by the central nervous system, so these researchers aimed to directly measure the activity of neurons (brain cells) that are responsible for the sensation of pain.

To do this, they used non-invasive measures like electromyography (EMG) and electroencephalography (EEG), which measure the electrical activity generated by muscles and brain cells, following a painful event. This method has the advantage of being both objective and quantitative, as it does not depend on observational scoring.

These studies confirmed that infants do process pain in the brain, but that they differ in their experiences with age. First, the lab recorded spinal reflexes – such as the withdrawal reflex, which is intended to protect the body from damaging stimuli – and found that premature infants are more sensitive to sensory stimulation than older infants. They subjected babies to repeated non-painful touches, and found that younger infants moved their limbs following lighter touches than older infants. In fact, the older infants got used to the repeated touches and eventually stopped moving their limbs.

They also found that premature infants responded to both painful and non-painful touch with whole body movements. In older babies (at term age, around 40 weeks) this matured into more a purposeful withdrawal of the stimulated limb, becoming more specific to pain rather than any touch.

An important next step was to record activity in the brain, which is where pain perception occurs. They did this with EEG, which uses electrodes placed on the scalp to track and record brain waves. They found that premature infants exhibited large bursts of brain activity which, as with early reflexes, are not specific to pain (a simple tap could produce a similar effect as a heel prick). Towards normal term age (a few weeks prior), infants were more likely to show a clear pain-specific brainwave similar to that seen in adults.

However, while this was a direct read out of what was happening in the nervous system after a painful event, you shouldn’t assume it was a direct reflection of what the baby was feeling. This is because the feeling of pain requires an emotional component as well as a sensory part, and although we can measure the sensory aspect, we can not measure or make assumptions about the emotional processing in a newborn.

Stress and pain

In our latest research, my colleagues and I at the Fitzgerald lab focused on stress and pain. Many infants experience physiological stress as a result of necessary clinical procedures. For example, hospitalised babies often require several painful procedures a day as part of their care, and those who do not will likely experience events such as being weighed or loud noises (alarms) as stressful.

Premature baby in intensive care. Maesse Photography/shutterstock

For the first time, we measured both pain and stress at the same time as a single, clinically required blood test. In 56 hospitalised newborns, the pain-related brain activity and behavioural response was measured following the blood test, while the babies’ background level of stress was measured using the concentration of a stress hormone (cortisol) in the saliva and heart rate patterns.

The results show that for babies who are not stressed, a painful procedure will often result in a coordinated increase in brain activity and behaviour, in the form of facial expressions. Babies who are more stressed have an even larger response in the brain following a painful procedure, but, importantly, this is no longer matched by changes in behaviour. In other words, a stressed baby may have strong pain-related activity in their brain, but you could not tell that from simply observing their behaviour.

Since increased levels of stress can increase the amount of pain-related brain activity, it is clear that we should monitor and control the stress levels of hospitalised babies. Stressed babies may not seem to respond to pain although their brain is still processing it. The phenomenon has been seen in premature babies who sometimes “tune out” and become unresponsive when they are overwhelmed. But that doesn’t mean they are not experiencing something. Importantly, this means that doctors and nurses may underestimate their pain.

Given its huge importance, it may seem surprising that we know so little about what newborns actually feel. Thankfully, research is unravelling the mystery with impressive speed.
If you’re interested in learning more about pain, listen to our Anthill podcast episode on the topic here.

Laura Jones, Research Associate in Neuro, Physiology & Pharmacology, UCL
This article was originally published on The Conversation.