Embracing Slow Living: A Guide for Highly Sensitive People

Slow living for highly sensitive people.

Hey, ma cozy, lovely friend! 🤗

What would Sunday Journals be without some good ol‘ post all around sloooow and simple living for the highly sensitive souls here among us?

As you all know by now, this little cozy corner on the internet is all about a simple lifestyle and self-care for sensitive souls. In fact, we are here and now at the ESSENCE of ME-TIME and prioritizing ourselves over pretty much everything.

And why do we do that? It’s pretty simple as well.

We do it to protect our energy levels in order to show up as our highest self whenever we are „out in the world“ and to finally live to our fullest potential.

Because as a HSP, we get overwhelmed easily and we prefer our peace and calm over everything. A slow lifestyle is therefore the way to go for us, if we want to achieve our goals. 💫

So, let’s dive into it, shall we? 😍

Let’s explore the principles of slow living and how adopting this lifestyle can be especially beneficial for those with heightened sensitivities.

Understanding Slow Living

At its core, slow living is a mindful and intentional approach to life. 🧘

It encourages you to appreciate each moment to the fullest, be present in your experiences and prioritize what actually matters. 🙏 For us HSPs, who possess a heightened awareness of our surroundings and process information deeply, the principles of slow living align seamlessly with our nature.

The connection between slow living and mental well-being is deep. By embracing a slower pace, you can reduce stress, cultivate a sense of inner calm and foster overall emotional well-being. Incorporating mindfulness into daily routines becomes a powerful tool for HSPs to navigate a world that often feels overwhelming.

Are you a Highly Sensitive Soul ❓

Before delving into the benefits of slow living for HSPs, let’s first get clear on what actually defines a highly sensitive person.

Sound familiar? HSP’s…

• … are extremely empathetic
• … are very perceptive and notice the tiniest changes in an environment
• … are more susceptible to stimuli
• … experience emotions intensely
• … often feel overwhelmed in busy or chaotic environments

Of course, there are many more personality traits, but for now and to understand, why a slow lifestyle is incredibly valuable for us, let’s stick to the above.

The Benefits of Slow Living for Highly Sensitive People

1. Reduced stress and anxiety: Slow living allows HSPs to step back from the constant hustle and bustle culture 🤯, providing a break from the overstimulation we often experience in high-speed environments. This intentional slowing down can significantly reduce our stress and anxiety levels.
2. Improved emotional well-being: If you’re anything like me, you might also struggle quite a bit with taking care of your emotions when in constant stress. This ends up in being all over the place, acting cranky in front of the partner (poor them!) and lacking energy for the things we’d actually like to get done. 🥱 In short: NOT the place we want to be.
   Luckily, these moments are getting less and less, the more I focus on mindfulness in slow living. This act of pure self-love enables me to better understand and actually regulate my emotions, which in turn massively enhances my well-being (and my BF’s as well, lol).
3. Enhanced creativity and productivity: Contrary to the belief that a slower pace hinders productivity, many HSPs find that they thrive in environments that allow for thoughtful, focused work. 🖌️ AMEN to that! It’s actually quite simple, if you think about it. By living that slow lifestyle and making sure to be on top of our emotions, thoughts and health, we are simultaneously making mental space for things like creativity and productivity.

Now, before we head into the really interesting part about HOW we actually bring slow living into our life, I’d love for you to join our ME-TIME community and get a FREE action guide on how to gain mental clarity when life gets too overwhelming. Check it out and let me know which action steps you determined for yourself! ✅

So, how does slow living for highly sensitive people actually work?

Enough about the theory, let’s get into the juicy details already!! 😍 How can we incorporate and embrace this slow living lifestyle into our daily life?

#1 Mindful practices for daily life

Try to incorporate mindfulness exercises into your daily routine. This could be simple things such as deep breathing or meditation, or maybe a little Yoga session.🧘‍♀️

You might also start establishing a calming morning routine that sets a positive tone for the entire day. I recommend setting aside at least 10 minutes a day to practice an act of mindfulness.

📖 I’d also love to share a little book recommendation with you. One of my favorite authors, Thich Nhat Hanh, has a little book series of „How To’s“ that I really like. It’s a quick read with simple and valuable content on how to live, eat, love, sit, walk mindfully. Each verb depicts one little book.

#2 Noni’s Favorite – Simplifying the environment

One of my ABSOLUTE favorites. It might be close to an addiction at this point, lol.

I’m talking about DECLUTTERING and organizing both, your living AND mental spaces. Trust me when I say that there is not much on this earth that can create this beautiful sense of order and tranquility and most importantly, a peace of mind, than decluttering your surroundings.

A peaceful home environment is THE BEST sanctuary for HSPs seeking refuge from external stimuli. If you also manage to declutter your mind, I guarantee you there will be so much more calm and peace in your life that you will never want to miss again.

You might also want to experiment with decluttering your social media and digital surroundings. Check out my post about „Digital Detox and Sensitivity: Finding peace in the digital age“.

#3 Nurturing meaningful connections

Now, as a HSP, we tend to be what people like to call „people-pleasers“. Nodding right now? It’s one of our most characteristic personality traits and one that steals our energy to the max.

It is here, where we MUST learn to set boundaries. And we gotta learn and internalize, that „NO“ is a sentence and we are most certainly allowed to use it more often. Much more often, in fact!

Not every person on this planet is a highly sensitive person. Obvisouly. And that’s good. Because if we were all the same, this would be a weird one, I guess.

But, we do have to understand that probably the majority of people we have around us (at work, within the family, at school, etc.) do not identify as a HSP. That in turn means, they have absolutely NO idea how we are „working“. They are not as empathetic as we are, they don’t take things as personal as we do and, well, at the core, they are just not as sensitive as we are.

I want you to take two things out of this chapter:

1. Stop people-pleasing. If you say no to another person, that person most likely can deal with your „rejection“. If this person is not a HSP as well, chances are pretty high that he/she might accept the „no“ without interpreting much into it.
2. Cultivate relationships with like-minded people who appreciate and understand what it means being a HSP.

Both of these action steps will benefit your well-being in the long run. Trust me on this one. 🤗

Sign up for my newsletter and join our beautiful Slow Living & Self-Care community today!

Wrap up – Slow living for highly sensitive people

So, my loves, to wrap it up for today, I’m pretty sure that slow living is THE lifestyle created for us. There are just so many beautiful benefits that, if we allow for it to enter our life, can massively enhance our well-being as a HSP. I’m talking balance and harmony. And isn’t this the essence of what we want? A calm, balanced and abundant life in harmony?

I really hope this article was helpful and valuable for you!

Let me know in the comments how incorporating these tips in your daily life is working out for you!

Talk to you soon!

Lots of love,

Noni 💕