3 Powerful Ways the Summer Solstice Supports Productivity for Business Owners
On the 21st of June (at least in the northern hemisphere) our planet is tilted the most towards the sun, making it the longest day of the year. By contrast, the winter solstice is the longest night of the year. (That’s right, axial tilt is the reason for the season!)
But in the modern world, who even pays attention to the solstice? As a business owner, you’re mostly tethered to technology, spending a lot of time staring at man-made screens. What’s the solstice got to do with it?
We’ve got 21st century AD technology but 40,000 BC brains
While it’s true that not-so-modern brains have created modern technology, the technological world we live in is maybe 50 years old. For our species, that’s not even a blink of time!
The structures of the human brain didn’t develop in response to bosses demanding highly skilled work in front of screens, or people driving like maniacs on highways. (There were no such things as highways, bosses, screens, or even chairs. Never mind work or cars.)
They developed in response to what human beings were doing roughly 40,000 years ago. Avoiding predators who could potentially eat us, the relatively small communities we developed to feed ourselves and survive. As well as the new environments humans adapted to as we began leaving the African continent.
Do you get nervous or anxious when you’re about to give a presentation in front of a big audience? Your fight-or-flight (or tend-and-befriend) reflex kicks in. Your pounding heart and rapid breathing isn’t serving you in front of a modern audience, because your brain is still preparing to run away from a hungry predator.
If you want to be productive (as opposed to busy), then it’s crucial to recognize that no human brain, including yours, did not develop in anything that resembles the modern world. Your brain doesn’t want to be dealing with technology all day. The human brain spent most of those 40,000 years playing around outside, more or less.
Dealing with the modern world is actually pretty difficult and stressful for the brain. What we’re asked to do at work very often runs counter to the way that our brains work best. Let’s face it, computer coders and most of those who develop the technology we use don’t have the faintest clue how the human brain works.
Nature reduces stress, especially for entrepreneurs
As you might imagine, given that the human brain “grew up” amid lots of nature, that’s what brains like. Study after study shows that spending even a small amount of time even in a city park is relaxing and helps you destress. The more time you spend in the wilderness, the better, but a little nature is better for you than none at all.
Ever read biographies of the great thinkers of the past two centuries or so? They mostly worked half the day, typically in the morning, and then spent a lot of time walking around gardens or discovering things in the Galapagos Islands. Being outside, not in their rooms. They believed that time helped them think better.
To be clear, there is some amount of stress that’s good for you. It can help you focus on what you’re doing, so that you get a performance boost out of it - sometimes. Chronic stress, however, leads you only down the path to bad health, both physically and mentally.
Think about your own business. When you’re stressed or worried or anxious, do you think you perform better or worse? Neuroscience can tell you the answer, though I suspect you already know: you perform worse. The problem takes up brain space that you can’t use on other things in your business until you resolve the issue.
Using stress once in a while as a performance enhancer is great, but being stressed all the time only degrades your performance and productivity. Want to work effectively? You need a brain that’s reasonably relaxed. That doesn’t mean it’s asleep. Just that you’re not flooding your brain with stress chemicals like cortisol that you won’t easily be able to shake off later.
Rituals, not robots
When anthropologists look at the history of humankind, they see a lot of rituals. Some of them were meant to coax the sky god into providing some rain, but others were used for practical matters too.
There are plenty of structures that our ancestors built, like Stonehenge, that are designed to highlight certain aspects during the solstice. For our farming and agrarian predecessors, knowing when daylight would start to decrease again was important for keeping the tribe fed.
Rituals can be extremely helpful for business owners too. Most of your brain’s activity takes place without you being conscious of it. The subconscious regulates a lot of body processes like breathing, temperature, digestion, and the like. During sleep, the brain does a lot of repair work and flushes out cellular waste matter, in the brain and in the rest of the body.
Ensuring that your subconscious is lined up with your goals is important to success as an entrepreneur. That way it knows what to look for, and what to filter out. Having a ritual can help your subconscious be in the right “state of mind” for you to do things like make important calls to prospects, speak on stages to boost your credibility, and so on.
Having rituals where you pay attention to what you’re doing in the moment can help you avoid anxiety and stress. You’re not ruminating about the past nor projecting into the future. Rituals that include nature are great for your nature-loving brain. Which is why the solstice is a great time for business owners!
Although your community may already have a solstice ritual, you can do whatever type of celebration you like. (Or you can ask your Wiccan or Druid friend if they celebrate.) The important thing is that you do it outside in some kind of natural environment with no screen in sight.
There are lots of rituals you can borrow, especially as an entrepreneur. You might choose to let go of something that’s bothering you or holding you back. Write it on a piece of paper and burn it (be careful if you’re in a dry area!), write it on a stone and toss it into the pond, or on a leaf that you then set sailing down the stream.
Conversely, you might have a ritual where you try to bring something into your life, like friendship or a sense of balance, or love. (Keep the capitalist stuff for some other ritual you do in front of your computer screen.)
And if you don’t think your business buddies are doing the same thing (unless they’ve also read this incredibly wise and insightful post *ahem*, they probably haven’t). But that doesn’t mean you have to deny yourself this pleasure. If you don’t want to talk about it at your BNI or chamber of commerce meeting, then don’t. But that doesn't mean you can’t do it at all.
If it’s good for the brain, it’s good for productivity
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Probably lots of times.You will get the biggest bang for your productivity buck not from a new app, not from listening to some podcast, and not from fiddling around with your screen. Tech doesn’t have rituals. Code can run 24/7 365 days a year, but the human brain can’t.
Just work the way that your brain wants you to work. If something is good for your brain, it’s good for productivity.
What’s good for your brain? Well, nature, as noted above; physical movement (you can call it exercise if you like), hobbies that you enjoy, playtime (I promise), being with family and friends, good nutrition, and good sleep.
What’s bad for your brain? Notifications always being on. Your phone at night. Your phone 1st thing in the morning. Your phone going off when you’re trying to focus on work. Cramming through 14-hour days.
More bad things: not taking breaks. Sitting down all the time. Only moving for ½ hour a day at the gym. Passively absorbing content, like social media feeds and streaming services.
The less you do these things, the happier your brain will be. And the more productive and effective you’ll be at work.
Recap:
Get off your tuchus, put away your screen, and perform a fun ritual over the solstice. It’ll make you more productive when you get back to work.