We live in some crazy times. Through the internet we have access to almost infinite information. We can know what is happening anywhere in the world with just a few clicks. Everyday there are new podcasts, TV series, and MUST READ NEWS. Not to mention the seemingly endless stream of emails, text messages, snapchats, tweets, IG notifications, and Facebook messages. We have access to more information than any other time in human history, but we are also some of the most burnt out, anxious, and depressed people. There has to be a better way of being human.

In The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry John Mark Comer states, “What you give your attention to is the person you become. Put another way: the mind is the portal to the soul, and what you fill your mind with will shape the trajectory of your character. In the end, your life is no more than the sum of what you gave your attention to . . . for better or worse.”

What follows are seven simple habits that have helped me emotionally, mentally, and spiritually the past couple years. Five of the seven take no time to implement. They are small ways to push against the narratives of consumerism, performance based identity, and entertainment addiction that dominate our cultural moment. I’ll list all seven habits here for those who don’t like to read full articles, then explain each in more detail below.

1. Commute in Silence
2. Pray at Transition Points
3. Take Cold Showers
4. Track your Income and Spending
5. Quit Social Media/Limit the Time you Spend on it
6. Don’t Sleep with your Phone in your Bedroom/ Put it on Airplane Mode when you Sleep
7. Keep the Sabbath

Disclaimer: As a Christian, I believe that nobody is strong enough on their own to live a life pleasing to God, or to live the perfect life that they imagine. Every person is made in the image of God, which gives everyone great worth, value, dignity, and potential. We are also finite, limited, and sinful. We can’t do all the things. We can’t go to all the places. We can’t know all the things. And when we try to do all the things it is often motivated by some kind of self interest. I believe our hope is in Jesus. He died to pay the penalty for our sin, rose from the dead in glory and power, and gave his Holy Spirit to empower those who trust in him. That is the foundation upon which these habits stand for me. They are a means to an end, namely experiencing more of Jesus and letting his story shape my life. However, I hope that you find these habits helpful even if you don’t identify with the Christian faith.

1. Commute in Silence

The car has always been a noisy place for me. I would flip through radio stations, blast music, change the station when commercials came on. When I was younger, my family had a sweet van with a VHS player where we’d watch movies even on 20 minute rides. Now that I can connect a smart phone to my car speakers, I can listen to any music, podcast, sermon, or audiobook through the various apps I’ve downloaded. With the infinite options of good things to listen to, why would I recommend going in silence?

I recommend going in silence because many people constantly have noise on in the background to try to drown out what is happening inside themselves. When was the last time you were alone with your thoughts? How did it feel? Was it uncomfortable? The band 21 Pilots has a song called “Car Radio” that illustrates the existential angst one feels when there is nothing distract from deep thoughts. The context of the song is that their car radio was stolen and they are dealing with driving in silence:

Sometimes quiet is violent
I find it hard to hide it
My pride is no longer inside
It’s on my sleeve
My skin will scream reminding me of
Who I killed inside my dream
I hate this car that I’m driving
There’s no hiding for me
I’m forced to deal with what I feel
There is no distraction to mask what is real
I could pull the steering wheel

“Sometimes quiet is violent . . . There’s no hiding . . . Forced to deal with what I feel . . . no distraction . . .” These are all hard things. Silence and meditation aren’t as peaceful as people portray them to be. It is often a mental and spiritual battle. But one that is well worth fighting. So, if I don’t listen to anything, what do I do instead?

Sometimes I pray. I think about the things I have scheduled for the day and ask God to give me what I need to do them for his glory. Sometimes I try to make observations: How many stoplights did I pass on my way to work? What did that graffiti say? Why would someone put that bumper sticker on their car? How many homeless people did I drive by? Other times I just breathe and let my mind wonder. Sometimes it’s on deep things. Sometimes I think about nonsense. Either way, it is a good time for my imagination and creative juices to run wild.

By driving in silence I have found that I am often less distracted and more present when I get to where I’m going. I am learning that I don’t always have to be entertained and my primary identity is not a passive consumer of information. Also, driving in silence literally takes no time to do. All it takes is a little intentionality. Try it for a couple days and examine what happens.

2. Pray at Transition Points

It is so easy to go from one task to another. One meeting to another. One place to another without giving it much thought. And that kinda makes sense. Most people pack their calendars and task managers so full that it feels like there is not enough time to do everything that must get done. However, in all that activity we can forget God– the one who is supposed to be our greatest love. The habit that I’m suggesting is taking a couple seconds in between activities to reorient your heart and mind on God. Here are some ways it can work:

You park your car at the office. You turn off the car, close your eyes, and say “Father, help me work diligently for you and not for man today.” Then you get out of your car and go to work.

You get done with a meeting or phone call and go back to your desk. Maybe you take a deep breath and thank God for what you experienced, then ask for a focused mind as you move to the next agenda item.

After lunch I like to take a walk around the block. Walking slowly and examining the trees, listening to the birds, and reminding myself that God is the creator of all.

When I get home from work, I sit in my car and ask that God help me switch gears to leave work stuff at work and give me the love, grace, and patience to be the husband I need to be.

This habit is easier to implement if you also implement habit one. When there is nothing playing in the car there are no steps to take before praying. From my observations, it seems like most people at transition points check their phone. Who texted me? What did I miss? What did she post? I’m not saying phones are bad, I just think it’s a problem when we go through our day and miss Jesus when we didn’t miss checking social media.

Think about all of the things you do and places you go in a given day and consider how you can intentionally bring Christ into those transitions.

3. Take Cold Showers

On first glance, this habit is probably the one that you think you are least likely to do. You might think, “Yeah right, that sounds like torturing myself, and I’m not one who enjoys torturing myself.” Fair enough. My hope in the next few paragraphs is that you would hold that position less strongly. I’ll start by listing some of the areas that might improve by taking cold showers:

• Environmentally– you will use less water and electricity, thus less natural resources are consumed.
• Financially– See point above. Because you are using less, you pay for less. One article estimated you can save about $86/yr by switching to cold showers.
• Chronically– You will likely spend less time in the shower and more time doing things you are passionate about.
• Mentally– Studies have shown that cold showers can decrease the symptoms of anxiety and depression.
• Cosmetically– Cold water is good for your hair and skin as hot water strips away natural oils and dries hair and skin out quicker.
• Physically– Quickens metabolism, improves circulation, boosts your immune system, improves male fertility, and helps muscle recovery.

The final benefit that I see is more spiritual/emotional in nature. By taking a cold shower I am rewriting the narrative that tells me I should be comfortable at all times. Comfort is not my god. A cold shower is an intentional step out of my comfort zone. I look fear and discomfort in the face and I step into it. The hope is that by intentionally stepping into the discomfort of a cold shower, I will then have more courage to step into other uncomfortable situations in life when they arise.

There are many ways to start your cold shower practice. You can take a normal shower and then finish with cold. You can start cold and then finish warm. You can do a minute of cold in the middle. Or you can jump right in and do the whole thing cold.

4. Track Your Income and Spending

This habit is pretty straightforward, but something I didn’t learn until about three years after I graduated college. I usually had a rough idea of how much was in the bank and was pretty good about not overdrafting myself. But my general thoughts were, “I don’t really know how much money I have, but I know it’s not that much. Therefore, I will spend as little money as I can.” As you can imagine, I didn’t feel much freedom or peace about that. Two things that changed how I manage finances is that I read a book titled How to Manage Your Money When You Don’t Have Any , and started using Mint.

How to Manage Your Money When You Don’t Have Any lists 9 steps of a financial roadmap (these are very similar to Dave Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps:

• Step 0: On a monthly basis, make sure you are not spending more than you earn.
• Step 1: Secure your basic needs: food, clothing, and shelter.
• Step 2: Create a $1000 emergency fund.
• Step 3: Pay off all debts as fast as possible, other than your home.
• Step 4: Increase your emergency fund until it reaches 6-10 months of your basic needs.
• Step 5: Begin saving 15% of your income for retirement.
• Step 6: If you desire, save for your child’s college education.
• Step 7: Pay off your mortgage early.
• Step 8: Express your values with your money.

From my perspective, I would switch I would put Step 8 at Step 1. Jesus teaches, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). Where we spend our money shows what is truly most important to us. For example, when I shop at Amazon and go to McDonalds, I might be communicating that I value ease and convenience more than local business and healthy eating, which isn’t inherently wrong, but is useful to know. In order to know where our heart is, we have to have a sense of where our money is spent. Thus, Mint.

Mint.com is a free app/website where you can have all of your financial info in one place (loans, checking accounts, savings accounts, credit cards, etc.). It tracks the purchases you make and categorizes them. You can make your own monthly budget and track how much you have spent on a given category and how much is remaining. You can also make different goals (saving, paying off debts, investing, etc.) and track your progress. I then take the info from Mint and populate a spreadsheet (template here). When I get to the end of the month, whatever money I have leftover I either save, put towards debt, or give to a charity I believe in.

The bible teaches that everything in the world belongs to God and humans are his stewards (see Psalm 8). The money and possessions that we have aren’t really ours, they are God’s. And God created us to “be fruitful and multiply,” to be productive contributors. We were not created to merely consume. By tracking your income and spending you can become a wiser steward and push back against the narrative that says we were born to buy.

5. Quit Social Media/Limit the Time You Spend on it

I first deleted my Facebook account when I was a senior in college. This was before Fake News, misinformation, and privacy breaches caused outrage throughout the world. My reasoning was pretty simple: I wasted too much time on social media and used it to procrastinate doing homework. I would tell myself that I would just look at it for 5 minutes then get back to work then BOOM! 45 minutes went by without me realizing. I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to delete Facebook if my friend Jack hadn’t done it first. He deleted it because he wanted to invest in the people who mattered most in his life and decided that a superficial connection with a thousand people wasn’t as valuable as 100 genuine connections.

Since then, documentaries like the Social Dilemma (available on Netflix) have shown how social media is connected to a rise in anxiety, depression, and partisan echo-chambers. Social media platforms don’t care about what is true because they are designed to keep your attention as long as possible (and that is often done by things that stir strong emotions like anger or fear). Everything you see on social media is curated to look exactly how the poster wants it to look. You might be familiar with the people who spend 20 minutes to get ready for a “woke up like this” post. When we perceive the lives of others to be perfect, it can make us less content with our own lives, and if those feelings aren’t dealt with, it can lead to resentment and envy.

In an article titled “Social Media is a Public Health Crisis” the author noted some troubling stats. “Our research has shown that some 40% of social media users would give up their pet or car before they’d give up their accounts. And shockingly, more than 70% said they would not permanently scrap their social media for anything less than $10,000.” That is not normal. We were created to live in a physical world, with a physical body, and interact with 3-dimensional people. Delete your accounts with the confidence that you will be able to connect with those who matter most and your status doesn’t come from the number of likes you have but in your identity in God.

If you aren’t ready to delete your accounts, here are some steps to limit usage:

• Set your phone to Grayscale mode for part of the day.
• Decide what is a reasonable amount of time each day to spend on social media (1 hour is about 4% of your day), then tell a close friend.
• Set app timers on your phone to coincide with the time you decided above. There is an extension for laptops called “Stayfocused” which blocks websites after you reach your set daily limit.
• Delete social media from your phone, and only check it on your laptop at designated times. (I’d also encourage deleting email apps from your phone.)

Lastly, I’d encourage you to ask yourself if you really feel better after spending time on social media. My guess is that scrolling through social media is so ingrained in most of us that we do it without thinking or considering what it is doing to us. Life is short. Let’s invest our time in the best things because, “What you give your attention to is the person you become.”

6. Don’t Sleep with Your Phone in the Bedroom/Have it in Airplane Mode while You Sleep

What is your bedtime routine? For me, it used to take my contacts out, brush my teeth, lay in bed and scroll on my phone until I absolutely needed to go to bed. Sometimes it was Youtube videos. Sometimes it was email. Sometimes it was news articles. Sometimes I would play games on my phone. Eventually I would fall asleep until my phone alarm would go off. Then I’d snooze. Ten minutes later . . . Snooze . . . How long did this go on for? As long as I could. The bed was too cozy and the alarm so easy to snooze for me to get up right away. Here are some interesting stats I found:

If you want to get a good night’s sleep, being on your phone before bed is a terrible idea. Too much screen time reduces melatonin, making it more difficult to fall asleep. Also, phones are designed to stimulate your mind, which is not what you want when trying to fall asleep. What might be an alternative?

Before you go to bed, put your phone to bed. Maybe that is in the living room or kitchen, but make sure it is in an inconvenient place where you won’t be drawn to it. I would then recommend purchasing a physical alarm clock and putting it across the room so you actually have to get out of bed to turn it off. I have started placing my alarm clock on the floor so that I can start my day kneeling in prayer and stretching.

I acknowledge there might be legitimate reasons for having your phone in your bedroom at night. For example, my wife and I usually listen to an audiobook to fall asleep. Sometimes we have the phone in another room and connect to a bluetooth speaker. Other times we have the phone in the room. When the phone is in the room, I like to put it on airplane mode so I don’t have to think about incoming messages or be drawn to look things up. I then keep it on airplane mode until after spending time reading the bible and praying. This allows me to let the truth of Christ influence my thinking before anyone or anything else. Checking our phone right away in the morning makes us reactive to the day rather than proactively pursuing our mission and the things that truly bring us joy.

See also: “How to Use Your Phone So That It Doesn’t Use You“- 6 Minute video and “3 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Check Your Phone Within 1 Hour Of Waking Up“

7. Keep the Sabbath

What comes to mind when you hear “Sabbath?” Maybe a church service? Maybe you have a concept for a day of rest, but what does that mean? Is Sabbath one of those legalistic rules that Jesus freed us from? Remembering/observing the Sabbath is given in the 10 Commandments and interestingly is listed before murder, stealing, and adultery. It is also the commandment with the longest description. Moses declares the 10 commandments on two separate occasions: once after God freed the Israelites from Egypt, then 40 years later before they enter the promised land. Here are the Sabbath commands side by side:

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.- Exodus 20:8-11

“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.”-Deuteronomy 5:12-15

In the Exodus passage the reason for remembering the Sabbath was that God built the Sabbath into the fabric of the universe. As C.S. Lewis eloquently said, “You can’t go against the grain of the universe and not expect to get splinters.” When we don’t slow down and rest in God we go against how God created us. When we work for six days and rest for one, we enter into the rhythm of God himself.

In Deuteronomy, the reason for observing the Sabbath was that God rescued his people from slavery in Egypt. When the Israelites were in Egypt, they were never allowed a day off. In the eyes of Pharaoh, they were only as valuable as the bricks they produced. Pharaoh saw them as a commodity, not people made in the image of God. The Sabbath was a declaration of independence that they would submit to God’s rule and not Pharaoh’s. I think many of us today have a little Pharaoh inside of us that forbids us to stop working. Maybe you think you’re lazy or weak if you stop. Or maybe you just have too many things to get done. More things to buy. More people to impress Too much debt to pay off. How dare you stop! However, Christ as liberated into freedom (Galatians 5:1). We no longer have to submit to Pharaoh’s yoke. As Christians, we don’t have to keep the Sabbath, just like we don’t have to eat delicious food at Thanksgiving. The Sabbath is God’s gift to us (Mark 2:27), and something our soul desperately needs. So what exactly is Sabbath?

According to Pete Scazzero, the Sabbath is a weekly 24 hour period where you stop, rest, delight, and contemplate. You stop your paid and unpaid work. You stop performing, striving, and producing. You slow down and rest. Take a nap, sleep in, have some time to sit in silence. Do things that let you experience the goodness of God. Maybe it’s a nice meal, a walk in nature, playing games with loved ones, watching a movie that brings out your inner child. And contemplate by making space for prayer, worship, reading, and reflection. Here are some helpful questions that Pete Scazzero gives us to consider as we begin start our Sabbath practice:

1. What do I need to stop that relates to my work — paid and unpaid?
2. List the activities that create delight and rest for you?
3. How can you structure your day to cultivate a greater awareness of God in
   your life and in the world?
4. What might help you see God’s goodness and miracles all around you today?
   “Whatever we choose to do for Sabbath needs to give us rest and life over time. The challenge is discernment, experimenting to find what works for us and the people we love, what helps us catch our breath and remember who we are as God’s beloved.” Lynne Baab.

Here is what Sabbath looks like for my wife and me (this is descriptive not prescriptive. What works for us will be different for others who have different passions and wirings). We begin our Sabbath at 5PM on Saturday and conclude at 5PM on Sunday. This means that Saturday morning and afternoon is our “Preparation Day” in which we do the chores and errands that we need to do in order to make the Sabbath as restful as possible. For example, if the living room isn’t tidy it is harder to feel rest and peace. We often make a meal in the crockpot so that we won’t have to cook dinner in the evening or lunch the next day. On Preparation Day we ask what are the most important things we need to accomplish in order to enter into God’s rest? We won’t be able to do everything, but getting the biggest things done first is a huge benefit.

At 5PM an alarm goes off on my phone that plays our Sabbath song. We then light candles we set aside for the Sabbath and say a prayer together. Then we either read, talk, or go on a slow walk with our dog. We then have dinner and pick out a movie to watch. We try to pick a movie that is high quality, captures our imagination in a positive way, or points us back to the joys of childhood. We then go to sleep, go to church in the morning, maybe pick up a donut after, then we do things that make us feel rest and delight. We do things like reading novels, doing puzzles, playing cribbage, talking and laughing, going to the dog park or walking around a lake, taking naps, shooting hoops, coloring, journaling, etc. We tend to refrain from email, social media, checking our phones, and we try to limit the amount of TV we watch outside the Saturday night movie.

The Sabbath gives rest for our weary souls. It also expresses our dependence on God. We declare that we can stop working for one day knowing that God is still at work. He is in control and we are not. I have also found that setting aside one day a week has actually made me more productive during the other six days of the week. Knowing that a day of rest and delight is coming, I can work more diligently on the things God has entrusted me to do. One thing to keep in mind about the Sabbath, it is “not to recharge our batteries so we can work harder, but to recharge our souls so that we can live better.”

Lastly, your season of life might make keeping a weekly 24 hour Sabbath near impossible. I think of student-athletes, people who have to work some weekend shifts, and people with young children. There are some legitimate barriers to Sabbath keeping, but what might it look like to take a step toward Sabbath? Could you do 6PM Saturday to noon Sunday? Seven PM to 7AM? Sabbath keeping will take some planning and experimenting, and you might not be good at it at the beginning. But anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. Examine where you are in life, and take one step closer to the Sabbath rest our Heavenly Father offers.

Concluding Thoughts

I understand that I may have given more or less information that you might’ve liked, and that thinking of doing all of these things might feel overwhelming. I would suggest picking 1-3 of these habits to focus on for one month. If you try to immediately start all seven habits at once, you will likely end up doing none of them. Start small and let these habits grow. These habits in and of themselves aren’t anything special. They are not a silver bullet that will solve all of the problems in your life. But I hope that they make you feel a little more at peace. A little more well rested. A little more mindful. A little more resilient. A little more free.