Stillness: your greatest weapon in an overstimulated era

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Twenty years ago, finding ‘stillness’ was a pleasant triviality.

A ‘nice to have.’

Today, in a noisy, AI-fuelled information slurry Internet world, stillness is back on the agenda.

It’s a ‘need to have.’

I am more effective when I am still , and my thoughts are not swirling . More creative. More at ease.

The world has remained as uncertain as it always has, but change is accelerating. Heavy digital stimulation is almost inescapable.

People have never been more psychologically taxed.

As the world spins into a form of mass-hysteria, your most significant skill must be cultivating and nurturing stillness within you.

Mental stillness gives you a tremendous edge.

Here’s why stillness matters and how to cultivate it in your daily life:

1. Modern life is engineered to keep you distracted and reactive.

Every time you engage with low-quality stimulation, like mindless scrolling, you lose a little more of your ability to focus, think deeply, and make intelligent decisions.

Action: Start your day without input.

• No phone, no screens for the first 30 minutes.

• Instead, sit with your own thoughts. Write, stretch, walk, or just do nothing.

• Protect this space like your life depends on it because your mental well-being and psychological edge do.

2. Without stillness, you are easily manipulated.

The more reactive you are, the easier you are to control.

Companies profit from your outrage. Governments depend on your fear. Social media thrives on your addiction.

When you lack emotional control, all self-agency goes out the window, and people find ways to take advantage of you.

Action: Train yourself to pause.

• Understand the mind. Thoughts determine how you feel, not your environment.

• Cultivate the gap between trigger and response. Never act when angry.

• Before reacting, take a deep breath and wait 10 seconds.

• Slow your movements.

3. Stillness prevents mental atrophy.

I’m seeing increasing numbers of people struggling to think, remember things and even form coherent sentences.

Google searches and now AI are doing the thinking for you.

So you use your brain less, and your creative faculties suffer.

This is why so many people feel like their mental sharpness is fading.

Stillness is how you fight back.

Action: Daily mental fasting.

• Spend one hour a day with zero digital stimulation. This seems easy, but many are glued to the screen every waking hour.

• Read a physical book, leave the house, solve a problem on paper, or write longhand instead of typing.

• Whenever you forget a word, pause and let your brain recall it naturally instead of Googling it.

The goal here is to rebuild your mind’s ability to think without crutches.

4. Creativity comes from stillness, not more thinking.

For a long time, I believed I’d find more answers by thinking harder. Thinking can be helpful, but often, we think too much.

The biggest insights don’t come from mental force.

They come from mental space, when you’re plugged into a deeper Intelligence. When you aren’t trying so hard to focus.

Action: Develop a creative habit.

• Write or make art daily, and be biased toward action.

• Allow doing the work to give you insights, rather than trying to pre-plan everything.

• The best ideas will find you when you stop chasing them.

5. Stillness builds resilience.

The world will get more chaotic, volatile, and unpredictable.

Those who rely on external stability will suffer. Because you are always at the mercy of external events and what others do.

You’ll fare better when you cultivate inner stability. This means minimising worry and letting go of things you know you cannot change.

Action: Practice 60 seconds of stillness in the chaos.

• When life feels overwhelming, stop everything for one full minute.

• Breathe deeply, relax your body, and observe instead of reacting.

• This teaches your nervous system that you are in control even when things feel a bit sucky.

6. Stillness gives you a psychological edge over everyone else.

Most people can’t sit still for five minutes without reaching for their phone.

Your discomfort with stillness isn’t helping you. You give your mind no respite from distraction and miss things that still minds see.

Stillness helps you notice the fine details. It helps you find solutions that others may never see. It keeps you connected to the real world in all its lucid beauty.

A still mind doesn’t make you slow. It gives you an edge.

Action: Meditate (simply).

• No need for complex techniques. Just sit and breathe for 5 minutes daily.

• Focus on slow breathing and feeling the present moment.

• The goal is to train your mind to remain non-reactive and accepting of what is.

7. Stillness helps you reclaim your mind.

Right now, your attention is the most valuable commodity on the planet.

Everyone is trying to hijack it. Don’t lose your attention to things that don’t deserve it.

Stillness is your way to take back your wandering mind. You need to rein it in like a lost horse.

Exert control again by bringing your mind back to things worth focusing on.

Action: Write for five minutes every morning.

• This isn’t about writing something brilliant or being ‘productive.’ This exercise simply empties your thoughts and builds creative momentum through writing.

• Write freely, with no agenda.

• Over time, you’ll notice a more profound sense of inner clarity and well-being.

Most people are addicted to stimulation, incapable of deep thought, and controlled by others and their environment.

But you don’t have to be.

Make stillness habits daily non-negotiables. It’s like the gym. You don’t notice the changes in real time, but they accumulate.

Cultivating stillness makes you rare. It makes you powerful.

It puts you ahead.

If you enjoyed this, and you’d like an effective way to detach from unhelpful thinking so you develop a still, creative mind, you’ll love Untethered Mind course.

It's a step-by-step program that helps you break free from limited thinking and reduce stress.

Learn more about Untethered Mind here.

Later,

Alex

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