No Point in Reading About Slow Living While Your Life Is on Fire

Are you like me - consuming one book or video about calm life, Nordic hygge, and whatnot - with no results?

In fact, even while reading those books or watching those videos, you feel constant guilt of not already doing something they teach, or feeling the calm you are looking for.

Books about hygge, zen, slow living, calm homes… they were written for a world where the background noise was lower.

When your nervous system is being hit all day by social media, notifications, outrage cycles, and algorithm-fed anxiety, those books start to feel almost decorative. Like putting a candle on a table while the house is on fire.

The core issue isn’t that hygge or zen are useless.

It’s that they’re downstream solutions. They assume the basics are already in place: attention, silence, boredom, space to feel. Social media and information overload actively destroy those prerequisites. So reading another gentle book about coziness becomes a kind of emotional bypass. It feels nice for an hour, but nothing really changes.

There’s also something quietly toxic about the “calm aesthetic” industry.

It sells serenity as a vibe, not as a structural choice. Soft photos, beige covers, reassuring words - while completely ignoring the fact that modern life is engineered to fragment your mind. You can’t out-hygge an attention economy.

Remove inputs first

What actually works is subtraction before inspiration.

Removing inputs first. Silence before philosophy. Boredom before insight.

That’s why people who truly change often don’t start with books at all - they start by deleting apps, shrinking their world, repeating the same simple days until their nervous system settles. Only then do older wisdom traditions suddenly make sense again.

Zen texts, for example, were written in environments where people already lived with very little stimulation.

I am feeling this so clearly now. I’ve already reduced social media, I am questioning YouTube, Netflix, Duolingo, Fable - and my mind is starting to notice the mismatch. I can feel my clarity returning.

How to live in the moment?

Living “in the moment” isn’t something you add.

It reappears once the noise drops below a certain threshold. That’s why advice about presence feels fake until it suddenly… doesn’t.

Let me frame this in a way that’s practical and not mystical.

First: presence is a physiological state, not a mindset.

When your nervous system is constantly stimulated, your brain stays in prediction mode: scanning, comparing, anticipating. In that state, the present moment is basically inaccessible. So the goal isn’t “be mindful,” it’s “make presence possible.”

What actually helps is creating islands of low stimulation, repeatedly, until your system trusts them.

Here’s how people who do live in the moment actually get there - without trying.

You start by shrinking time, not changing beliefs.

Don’t aim for “a present-focused life.” Aim for:
– this cup of tea
– this walk
– these 20 minutes

Presence happens in small containers

Long, abstract goals push you back into thinking mode.

Then: one channel at a time.

The modern brain is trained to layer inputs: music + scrolling + thinking + planning. To feel the moment, you deliberately choose single-channel experiences:

– walking without audio

– eating without reading

– making coffee without content

At first, it feels empty. Then slightly uncomfortable. Then suddenly… rich. That’s the moment widening.

Your body has to lead

Presence doesn’t start in the head; it starts in sensation:
– temperature
– weight
– texture
– rhythm

This is why slow coffee, handwriting, cooking, cleaning, and even folding laundry work so well. They give your body something repetitive and real to anchor to. Thoughts are quiet on their own.

You also need predictability, not novelty.

This is counterintuitive, but novelty keeps you in seeking mode. Repeating the same morning routine, the same walk, the same chair, the same cup - this trains your system to stop scanning for “what’s next.” Only then do moments deepen.

About the books

Hygge, zen, and slow living books only become useful after two shifts:

1. You’re no longer constantly consuming digital input

2. You already experience moments of quiet satisfaction without needing them

Then the books stop being instruction manuals and become mirrors. You recognize what they describe because you’ve felt it.

A very practical approach you might like:

For a few weeks, don’t read those books.
Keep one nearby, unopened.
Live first. Read later.

When presence starts showing up - even briefly - open a page and see if it resonates. If it doesn’t, close it again. No forcing.

That’s how these traditions were meant to be used.

Conclusion

In the end, the problem was never that we didn’t know how to live slowly or appreciate the moment.

The problem was that our days became too crowded with noise for those abilities to surface. Hygge, zen, and slow living are not techniques to apply on top of an overloaded life; they are what naturally emerge when we begin to subtract what constantly pulls us away from ourselves.

I am glad my severe burnout experience forced me to step out of the information overload madness.

When the screens quiet down, when information stops rushing in, even ordinary moments - a cup of coffee, a walk, a conversation - start to feel complete again.

And only then do the gentle lessons from those books stop being ideas and become something we can actually live.

FAQ

Why don’t slow-living or hygge books work when I try to apply them?

Because most modern lives are overloaded with stimulation. When attention is constantly fragmented by social media, notifications, and information streams, the mental conditions needed for calm rituals simply don’t exist yet. Reducing inputs often needs to come before adopting slow-living practices.

Do I need to quit all screens to live more in the moment?

No. The goal is not total elimination but intentional use. Even small “screen-light” periods each day - meals without devices, walks without audio, mornings without scrolling - can begin restoring the ability to experience the present moment more fully.

Why does being present sometimes feel uncomfortable at first?

When stimulation drops, the nervous system goes through an adjustment period. What feels like boredom or restlessness is often the mind recalibrating after constant input. With repetition, this discomfort usually turns into a deeper sense of ease and clarity.

When should I start reading slow-living or mindfulness books again?

They become far more useful once you already experienced occasional moments of quiet presence in daily life. At that point, the books act less as instructions and more as reflections of experiences you are beginning to recognize yourself.

What is the simplest way to begin?

Start with one small daily ritual done without distraction - drinking coffee, cooking, journaling, or walking. Consistency matters more than duration. Presence grows not from dramatic lifestyle changes but from repeated moments of undivided attention.