Level Up Your Rest: Unlocking the Power of “Advanced Leisure”!

We live in a world obsessed with productivity. But what about rest? Are you just scrolling through social media, passively consuming entertainment, and calling it a day? Think again! It’s time to upgrade your downtime with “advanced leisure.”

Beyond Netflix and Chill:

Many of us mistake rest for mere relaxation. We think unwinding means zoning out in front of a screen. But true rest goes deeper. It’s about recharging your mind, body, and soul in a way that leaves you feeling refreshed, energized, and fulfilled. That’s where “advanced leisure” comes in.

What is Advanced Leisure?

Advanced leisure isn’t about escaping reality; it’s about engaging with it in a meaningful way. It’s about activities that provide a sense of accomplishment, a sense of purpose, and a deep sense of relaxation.

The Power of Nature:

One of the most powerful ways to achieve advanced leisure is to connect with nature. A hike in the woods, a walk on the beach, or even just sitting in a park can be incredibly restorative. Nature has an innate ability to calm the mind and rejuvenate the spirit.

The Joy of Creation:

Another key element of advanced leisure is creation. This could be anything from painting a picture to writing a song, building something with your hands, or even cooking a delicious meal. The act of creation is inherently satisfying, providing a sense of accomplishment and boosting your self-esteem.

Long-Term Vision:

Finally, advanced leisure is about cultivating a long-term perspective. It’s about setting goals, pursuing passions, and creating a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling. This sense of purpose can provide a powerful sense of calm and direction, even amidst the chaos of daily life.

Level Up Your Rest:

Ready to transform your downtime? Here’s how:

• Embrace Nature: Spend time outdoors, connecting with the natural world.
• Unleash Your Creativity: Engage in activities that allow you to express yourself and create something new.
• Set Meaningful Goals: Focus on long-term goals that align with your values and passions.

Advanced leisure isn’t just about taking a break; it’s about investing in yourself. It’s about creating a life that is both productive and fulfilling, a life where rest is not just an escape but a source of strength and inspiration. So, ditch the mindless scrolling and start leveling up your rest!

Many people think that rest means having dinner together, playing mahjong, watching movies, etc. But in fact, whenever someone asks you: “What is the most important thing in your life”, you will not say “watching short videos”, “consumption”, “playing mahjong”, etc., but definitely “family”, ” Work”, “career”, etc.

But we just put down these important things and spend a lot of time on unimportant things. Isn’t this the most important thing and the least important thing?

Some people will definitely ask: I just want to relax my body, switch my brain, watch some light entertainment, and secrete some dopamine. Isn’t this okay?

If you are willing to accept the status quo and can tolerate mediocrity, then I respect your choice.
But if you are not satisfied with the status quo, want to escape mediocrity, get rid of the state of “not very painful, not very happy”, and don’t want to be jealous of those colleagues who have resigned and live a more comfortable life through your own efforts, then I I hope you have more advanced leisure time.
Whether it is leisure or entertainment, it is another name for our rest time.

And what is advanced? What is low-level?

Samuel Hayakawa mentioned in “An Invitation to Linguistics”: There are two types of magazines in the United States. Low-level magazines provide conclusions, and high-level magazines provide reasons. “Low-level” magazines are afraid that you won’t understand and put it down, so they try their best to help you make a judgment and tell you “what the conclusion is.” However, “high-end” magazines are not like this. They are less judgmental and more about putting facts and reasons together, relying on readers to figure out the conclusions themselves.

Low-level entertainment only provides dopamine, high-level leisure also provides endorphins and serotonin.

Low-level entertainment only wants you to indulge in the moment and enjoy timely enjoyment, while high-level leisure also hopes that you can do more accumulated things and never forget your original intention.

So I think that high-end leisure should have a sense of relaxation, but also a sense of meaning, and preferably a sense of history. Let me ask you, who doesn’t love this kind of leisure?

First, the prerequisite for advanced leisure is relaxation.

The human brain is actually running all the time and will not stop for rest or sleep. When you think you are “doing nothing”, your brain is actually working all the time; when you think you are relaxing by playing cards, you are actually forcing your brain to remember the cards played by the other party.
A person’s energy state is actually determined by many neurotransmitters in the brain.

A lack of dopamine can cause us to lose motivation and lose interest in doing anything.

A lack of serotonin can cause us to feel low and prone to anxiety and depression.

A lack of oxytocin can cause us to feel uncomfortable in social interactions and have difficulty forming close relationships with others.

A lack of endorphins makes us more sensitive to pain and less able to experience feelings of pleasure and relaxation.

Excessive accumulation of cortisol reduces our body’s immunity, making us emotionally unstable, sleep disturbed, and unable to concentrate.

Therefore, effective rest should regulate your own neurotransmitters, manage your energy well, and restore your energy.

How to do it specifically?

There is a “20-minute park effect”, which means that staying in the park for 20 minutes can have a very strong healing effect.

The specific reason is that people in the natural environment will reduce stress, relieve fatigue, and make the whole person in a better state. Stress is the main culprit of cortisol secretion.

You can also take notes. I have always been a staunch knowledge manager. Knowledge managers record life, record beauty, and accumulate happiness. Of course, they also record failures and pain. There is a theory called “narrative psychology”. The core idea is that telling your own story can improve your happiness.

If you can use a good story to summarize your life experience, you will have a stronger sense of identity, feel that life has meaning, direction, and purpose, and your life satisfaction will be very high.

Second, do more meaningful things in your high-level leisure time.

I often emphasize that creation is far more pleasurable than consumption and is far more advanced than entertainment.

Because creation requires effort on your part, your happiness comes from action;
Consumption and entertainment do not require using your brain. Your happiness comes from the object of consumption itself.

On the one hand, the process of action, in addition to the pleasure of short-term feedback, you can also reap the sense of accomplishment of completing something, which has an aftertaste and will make you happy when you recall it; but consumption will not. Consumption is like a drink with added sugar. It tastes good when you drink it, but it is gone after you drink it, without any aftertaste or feeling.

On the other hand, relying on consumption to bring happiness is unstable and short-lasting. Because consumption will continue to raise your happiness threshold, those things that once made you interesting will slowly become boring, and you will need to ” Increase the dose” and over time, you’ll eventually get bored of everything.

Take short videos as an example. The vast majority of short videos on the market are for entertainment purposes and lack substantial content. The process of watching is a pure consumption process. In addition to adding some immediate jokes and fun, after a while I also forgot what I had seen. At the same time, this consumption behavior of watching videos becomes more boring the longer it lasts.

Simply put, consuming produces dopamine, while creating produces endorphins.

More importantly, the happiness of the former has a diminishing marginal effect, while the happiness of the latter can achieve a power function increase.

What actions are creations?

If you like reading novels and have always wanted to create a world filled with products of your own imagination, then you might as well try writing to create a world in your mind.

If you like traveling, you can try to share your experiences and strategies to convey your happiness.
When you do things, you don’t just “play” or “relax”, but you really get involved, using your brain and hands, from conception to implementation, from disorder to order.

Third, it is best to add a sense of history to high-end leisure time.

The so-called sense of history, in my opinion, means that to judge whether something is good or not, it must be investigated at the historical scene at that time. Some things that seem obviously wrong to us now were right under the historical conditions at that time; some things that seem unworkable now may be good things in the future.

Robert Sapolsky has a book called “Behavior”, which is the latest conclusion of current science on human behavior. Sapolsky proposed in the book that human behavior is greatly affected by the environment at that time.

With a sense of history, you can judge which behaviors are more consistent with your long-termism and can better plant seeds that will bear fruit in the future. You won’t feel empty and lonely because no one around you understands you, nor will you be confused about the future. You won’t be too anxious, have trouble thinking, and won’t be easily depressed.

When you watch a documentary, you don’t double the speed or pull up the progress bar. Instead, you immerse yourself in it to observe and judge what the world is like.

When you read a book, you won’t just read the table of contents or listen to the interpretation. Instead, you will make note cards to repeatedly confirm your own knowledge system, falsify yourself, and prove your conclusions.

Herbert Marcuse wrote in “One-Faced Man”: “A comfortable, smooth, reasonable and democratic unfreedom prevails in developed industrial civilization.” The so-called One-Faced Man, They are people who live in the cycle of “work-production-consumption” and are trapped in a single life pattern of “making money-consumption-making money”. People living under this system are not three-dimensional, rich and comprehensive people, but one-sided people who have lost their true freedom.