Too Busy to Be Human?

Busy is a nervous system on overdrive.

Let’s be honest. If mindfulness required an hour a day and a perfectly quiet room, most of us would scroll right past it. We live in a culture where productivity wins, urgency rules, and being overwhelmed is worn like a badge of honor.

Even a girl like me, who grew up in the wild countryside gets swept up in it. I’d say I want horseback riding, trees, and quiet and long walks. Then I’d still open my laptop at 6 a.m. and tell myself I’d rest later. Later rarely comes.

After more than 20 years living and working in Silicon Valley, I’ve seen how easily ambition turns into constant activation. Full calendars. Back-to-back meetings. Notifications that never end. And somewhere in the middle of all that, we start calling exhaustion “normal.”

Here, ambition is oxygen and pace is a point of pride. Busy isn’t accidental. It’s admired. It’s expected. It’s often how we measure ourselves. It’s also often a crutch….

Full calendars. Back-to-back meetings. Constant input. We call it driven. Responsible. Successful. But beneath that surface, something else happens.

When the nervous system stays activated for too long, it forgets how to settle. Cortisol remains elevated. The amygdala becomes more reactive. The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that helps us pause and choose wisely, gets overridden.

Research from neuroscientists like Dr. Richard Davidson shows that even brief mindfulness practices strengthen the circuits that regulate emotion and build resilience. Making a conscious effort to do something small can change so much.

Small moments of awareness literally reshape how we respond.
The problem is not ambition. The problem is never recovering.
nd sometimes, if we’re honest, busyness becomes something else.
A distraction.
A buffer.
A way of avoiding the harder conversations.

Is it possible that if we are always moving, then we don’t have to sit with uncertainty? We don’t have to feel grief or doubt. We don’t have to listen deeply to someone who needs more time than we think we have. We don’t have to ask whether this pace is sustainable.

But what if instead of buying into the trend of constant urgency, we experimented with something quieter?

What if we practiced simply arriving?

Not quitting our jobs. Not abandoning responsibility. Just inserting moments of awareness into the day.

Because science knows something we don’t always admit to ourselves.

The nervous system needs rhythm and natural attunement, just like any other instrument.
Attunement to our environment.
Activation and rest.
Effort and settling.

Without settling, performance drops. Creativity narrows. Compassion thins out. We become more reactive and less available to the people we care about.

Recovery doesn’t require a retreat. It requires repetition.

A pause in the car before stepping out. Just one breath to let the body catch up.

A moment when your hand touches a doorknob. Why am I walking into this space? Am I rushing in with tension? Can I choose open awareness instead?

A conscious drop of the shoulders while waiting in line. A softening of the jaw in the middle of a meeting.

These are not huge gestures. They are simple nervous system hygiene, and they add up.

When we sit down to eat and take even five seconds to consider where that meal came from, whose hands planted it, transported it, prepared it, gratitude becomes tangible. There are countless people holding this world together. We may never meet them all, but we can still appreciate them.

When we walk down the sidewalk without our phone for distraction and actually look, tulips are pushing through. A bird sings slightly out of season. Spring announces itself in subtle ways.

Joy doesn’t have to be fireworks. Sometimes it’s simply noticing. Awe. Awareness.

None of this removes stress. Deadlines still exist. Responsibilities remain. But awareness changes how we meet them.

We snap less quickly.
We listen more fully.
We recover faster.
We become more human inside the pace.

Take a moment to reflect on your response to these questions:
-Where are we rushing right now, and is it necessary?

-What happens in the body when we pause for five seconds?

-What are we carrying from the last moment into this one?

-What small thing in front of us deserves appreciation?

-What would a tiny act of compassion look like today?

Here are a few small micro-experiments to play with. See how they land for you. Explore what sparks your interest.

-The next time you get in the car, sit for one breath to arrive in place before turning the key.

-The next time your hand lands on a doorknob, choose what mindset or intention you want to enter that room with.

-What if you let your shoulders drop down from around your ears, just for a moment right now? How does it feel?

Mindfulness in a busy world isn’t about stepping away from life. It’s about stepping into it with awareness.

We don’t have to abandon ambition. We don’t have to move to the forest. We don’t even have to meditate for an hour.

We just have to practice arriving. Ten seconds at a time.