Alarm. Wake up. Get ready. Work or school. Social life. Netflix. Social Media. Text. Phone call. Run errand. Walk dog. Finish project. Read or watch news.

Has your heart rate gone up?

All the things I just listed are only a fraction of what we do each day, a fraction. Somehow, we all still wonder why we are so tired or have no time to ourselves. Can I offer a piece of advice? STOP. SLOW DOWN.

Believe me, I have always been the "way-too-busy" busy type of person. You definitely can get a busy "high". We get stuck in this mindset that we cannot be unproductive. It becomes almost like a game to see how much we can cram into 24 hours.

I have a new challenge for you, find one, only one, day this week where your biggest accomplishment is being unproductive. You are probably thinking to yourself, what does that even look like? I have been exploring this idea the past month and realized that can look differently for everyone, but I also believe that it should include long periods of silence.

Silence is actually something that can seem intimidating, but if you take even five minutes of pure silence (no distractions, period) you will find that you can allow your heart rate to slow down, your stress to be pushed away, and you can simply be.

This concept of breathing and not allowing anything but silence in is so incongruent with culture, but it is the way we best handle culture. Think of fire, adding more to the flame does nothing but create a larger fire, you have to tame it with water. Noise is our fire and silence is our water.

So be unproductive. Sit and do absolutely nothing, don't even let your mind wander to your commitments. After you have embraced that soul-freeing silence, just be. Just be creative. Just be musical. Just be funny. Just be calm. Just read. Just listen. Just be unproductive and slow down.