Feel like you're always rushing but never catching up?Are you doing more, but enjoying it less? The frantic pace and pressure of modern life can take a serious toll on your happiness and your health'but there is one way to step off the treadmill without giving up your career or your activities. The answer lies not in sacrificing your work productivity or your lifestyle but rather in changing your attitudes. By using simple exercises to slow down your mind and focus on the present moment, you can actually achieve greater productivity and creativity-all while maintaining a calmer, healthier state of mind.
Slowing Down to the Speed of Life helps you:
Slow down your life without downsizing your lifestyle
Enjoy the increased creativity and productivity that flow from inner calm
Free yourself from the stressful influence of other peoples' habits, attitudes, behaviors, and moods
Attain a sense of satisfaction with your life'and be happy!
Amazon.com Review This is the book for you if you've ever had the urge to tell off your boss, quit your job, hurl your Palm Pilot into the trash, and move to a farm. Written by bestselling stress consultant and psychotherapist Dr. Richard Carlson Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, it advocates the cultivation of a personal mindfulness and "thought navigation" to foster a sense of mental calmness and increased creativity and productivity.
With sage tips reminiscent of those in Jon Kabat-Zinn's Wherever You Go, There You Are, Carlson recommends a "Psychology of Mind" approach that involves being fully present in each situation and not letting the attitudes of others ruin your day. This way, your thoughts become more organized--wiser, if you will--and you get more work done without even trying. This time management trick is what he says will improve your life--not a cell phone or an electronic scheduler or a personal assistant. Carlson's advice can be taken to heart, as he's used these techniques to improve his own life. While he was working on his Ph.D., he rose at 4 a.m. and "gulped down ten or fifteen cups of coffee" each day just to get all his work done, and would bristle if family emergencies took him away from his studying.
Not only does Carlson promise to help boost one's productivity, but he says that relationships and intimacy will improve as well. He maintains that disagreements--at home or at work--are less likely to blow up into full-fledged arguments if you're being calm and levelheaded. "A mind operating at the speed of life can see things as they really are," he writes. "Slowing down gives you needed perspective during times of transition and stress. When you operate at the speed of life and your child desires privacy, you'll probably remember that almost all teenagers go through phases of wanting space from their parents....Rather than take it personally, you'll be able to see the bigger picture. If your mind is moving too quickly, events as well as your own thoughts about events become much larger than they really are."
For anyone fed up with life's chaos, Slowing Down to the Speed of Life should prove to be an immensely helpful mental health manual. --Erica Jorgensen
A MUST READ !!! August 30, 2008 I read this book during a stressful semester of college while I was also running my own business. After I started reading this book my stress levels dropped 80% in just a day...and stayed that way. There's some REALLY great advice in this book about how to think in such a way that you limit stress and enjoy more of life. An AWESOME book!!
Helps me feel consistently joyful May 10, 2008 Another reviewer was saying that it's repetetive and doesn't give answers. I too was wanting more answers halfway through the book. Then I realized that the one thing not mentioned in the book is how to deal with GUILT. If you practice the concepts taught in the book then dealing with that too will come with time. You come to the realization that you can't get more answers because there aren't any. As others said, it's based on Buddhist concepts. There is no order or closure or answer to your life. That is really the whole point of the book. Trust me, read it if you are having trouble enjoying your life, and then read it again. It comes with time, but it really did start to help me immediately. The authors can't make you change your mind through telepathy, you just have to read the concepts and start to implement them and it makes more sense as you go forward, just like any other thing that you learn. Like others, I appreciated the absence of religious aspects and found it to be incredibly practical, easy to implement, enjoyable and refreshingly helpful.
Reviewed by A. Ellingson March 30, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Personal Assessment I am typically not a reader of self-help books or publications, but a colleague recommended this book to me after he continually heard me complain about how I can never seem to get ahead in my life with graduate school in the evenings, a stressful work environment with frequent travel, a 2-year old, while trying to maintain a healthy relationship with my wife. I was pleasantly surprised with the book. I always used to make lists, cross off items on the list which only resulted in new lists being made. I guess my (and everyone's) premise of making and completing lists was/is to hopefully realize a good feeling when all the items on the list are completed and crossed-off. Unfortunately, there is always another list to start and finish, so the good feeling, if one exists, will never last long, if you even get a good feeling...
The book is an easy read, but to completely grasp the basis of the philosophy presented in the book, as the book authors would say, requires a healthy, free-flowing state of mind to grasp the tools presented to the reader. In fact, the author states in the introduction of the book, to open/clear your mind in preparation for reading the book to allow the concepts to sink in.
I am agreeable to the general premise of the book. I believe in the Psychology of the Mind philosophy and in the presentation of said material in Carlson's and Bailey's Slowing down to the Speed of Life. The 2 forms of thinking identified in the book, Analytical and Free-Flowing modes, both seem to me to be realistic to me. I actually found myself recognizing processing thoughts that I was having both at home and work and was able to shift my mode of thinking away from these thoughts which may have prevented further unhealthy states of mind.
The book has 8 chapters, with the first 3 dedicated to understanding and learning to the philosophies and tools associated with Psychology of the Mind. The first 3 chapters are: Slowing Down to the Moment, Navigating your Thinking and Getting Back to the Moment. They discuss the 2 modes of thought, how to start recognizing your thoughts and how, after your realize your in a negative thought pattern, you can get back to the moment you are presently in. The final 5 chapters of the book apply the tools to the different facets of your everyday life. These chapters are titled, Stress and Your Innate Mental Health, Being Present in Relationships, Peaceful parenting Working Smarter, and Enjoying Life. Each of these chapters basically cover the same information but in a way relevant to each of these areas of our lives.
Working in an engineering capacity with my current employer, it was somewhat challenging to accept the book's view that shifting from an analytical thought mode to a free-flowing thought mode would result in a more efficient and productive use of my time. However, as the book states, there are times when being in the analytical mode are advantages and appropriate and there are times when being in the free-flowing mode is more advantages and appropriate. While working through problems at work, I've now realized that it is ok to step away from the project for an hour, day, or 3 days in hopes that staying in a more healthy state of mind will allow creative or innovative thoughts to replace fearful thoughts or thoughts rooted in an existing solution to a similar problems which may lead me astray or to dead-ends while trying to solve the problem at hand. This can be challenging given the ever increasing demands that the work environments can impose on technical employees, so a paradigm shift in thinking is required to accept the philosophies of the book.
In summary, I would recommend the `Slowing Down to the Speed of Life' to anyone willing to accept and practice a new paradigm in thinking. Having said this, I would also recommend the book to anyone who currently feels that they are always struggling to stay positive or feel they never get ahead in their personal or professional life. This book might be particularily helpful to persons with type A personalities or persons who are viewed as perfectionists, because it is typically these people that start the next to-do list just after completing their last to-do list or those people who tend to be perfectionists when completing tasks that would otherwise only require a minimal investment of time.
Sometimes Slower Is Faster March 9, 2008 As CEO Coach, Poet and author of a leadership book that helps leaders unleash their genius, the genius of teams and the genius of corporations, I have learned to slow down my thoughts and live a more peaceful life. My mentor told me once that slower is faster. This book helped me realize the truth of that statement. I now help CEO's find a slower, peaceful place to lead from and their businesses seem to move faster. Read this one now. Paul David Walker Unleashing Genius: Leading Yourself, Teams and Corporations
Buddism? Zen? February 5, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Many of the reviews say that the principles are taken from Buddism and Zen. As I read it I kept thinking that's exactly what the bible teaches. With different names for free thinking and thought attacks etc.
I thought it was excellent and explained in clinical terms what the bible describes in spiritual terms. The ideas are ones that I have found to be true as a christian and was delighted to find that science had discovered the truth about mental health.
focusing on thoughts will lead to anxiety, frustration and a host of other mental illnesses. Trusting in Truth is the road to peace, happiness and love.
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