I Quit the Noise—and Found My Mind Again: Learning to Be a Calm Woman in an Anxious Age - BLOG

 

If you’ve been feeling stressed, weighed down, worried, or just quietly unsettled lately… this is for you.

I’ve walked through cycles of this myself over the past few years. Since 2020 especially, it has felt like a constant hum beneath everything, an undercurrent of tension that never quite goes away, especially when one is chronically online. And somewhere along the way, I realized I didn’t want to live like that anymore.

So I stepped off the hamster wheel.

I’ve been largely off social media since early January. I still check in occasionally as needed, messages, customer needs, anything urgent. I try to keep it under five minutes. But even in those few minutes, the pattern is unmistakable.

My feed fills with women, thoughtful, intelligent, faithful women, carrying visible stress. Concern about the world, politics, health, toxins, culture, the future. Some of it is valid. Much of it is important. These are not trivial things.

And yet… the weight of it all is constant.

Then I open Substack, my one remaining online space, and I find it there too. In essays, reflections, and commentary. Even among voices I deeply respect, the same thread runs through: concern, urgency, pressure. Although not nearly at the rate and intensity on other social media.

I don’t say this to dismiss any of it. There is much in our world worth wrestling with and thinking through. But I’ve started to notice something else.

By almost every historical measure, our lives are easier than they have ever been. Running a household, let alone a business, has never been more accessible. We have tools, conveniences, and resources that previous generations could not have imagined.

And yet, for all that ease, we are carrying unprecedented levels of stress. Not because we are under constant physical threat, but because we are under constant informational pressure. We are exposed to everything. All the time.

A disaster across the world reaches us instantly. A new study contradicts what we believed yesterday. A food we carefully researched is suddenly labeled harmful. A conversation spirals online, and we feel pulled into it—emotionally, mentally, even spiritually.

Our bodies don’t distinguish between proximity and distance. Between real danger and perceived urgency. So we live in a near-constant stress response. And it’s exhausting.

We were not made to carry the weight of the entire world every single day. And yet, that’s exactly what modern life quietly asks of us.

So if you’re feeling overwhelmed… it might not be because you’re doing something wrong. It might be because you’re taking in far more than you were ever meant to hold.

So what do we do?

How do we step out of this cycle and return to something steadier, more grounded, more human? These are the things I’ve been practicing over the past six months (and really the past few years) that make such a difference.

Get off social media

Yes. I said it.

I know it’s not popular. I know it makes people upset (the few times I've even mentioned my own personal desire to step back from social media on IG have been met with some very offended responses). There’s a real resistance when we start talking about stepping away from the constant stream of input.

But it’s worth asking: what is that resistance revealing? For years, I believed social media had a meaningful place in my life, and for a time, I think it did. It connected me to others. It allowed me to share, to learn, to build something good. It was a huge vehicle in our online business and I'll be forever grateful for the connections made.

I’m grateful for that season and for the high point of social media.  But seasons change. And I also personally think we are past the peak of usefulness of social media.

What once offered connection now often delivers noise. What once inspired now frequently overwhelms. You go looking for something helpful - and instead find yourself sifting through celebrity gossip, unrealistic expectations, endless products, and a steady drip of comparison and fear...amidst trash world.

And the reels: the endless, fast, fragmented reels, are shaping us more than we realize. Training our minds to expect constant stimulation. Shortening our attention. Flattening our ability to think deeply.

I’ve come to believe this is not neutral. It is forming us.

So if you are feeling stressed, anxious, out of sorts, and listless. Get off social media. Delete it for a week and see how you feel. Jump off the doomscrolling and realize you don't need input every second of every day. It's been almost five months since I've been completely off of social media and guess what? I'm not actually missing out on anything at all!

I want to meditate on the good, the true, and the beautiful. Instagram might have once helped facilitate that, but I feel like it no longer does.

Take a break. It'll be good for your brain.

Read real things again

One of the downfalls of the past 10 years is that almost no one has an attention span longer than 7 seconds. Now, congrats! You are one of the exceptions since you are reading my admittedly long-winded article right now. You've stuck the course, you've banked on this long-winded article actually having a payoff at the end, or at least a little something to pull out along the way!

Partly why I took so long to exit social media (and no, I'm not 100% completely gone from it as I'll hopefully share soon), is that there can be some redeeming qualities to it. I've met fellow bloggers, podcasters, and authors online who I've then come to meet in person, attend conferences with, share hotel rooms and meals, and even eat dinner in their homes. I've formed beautiful, lovely, God-honoring connections and friendships.

I've gained valuable knowledge. I've picked up fantastic tips and saved more than one stellar recipe. I've learned, laughed, and grown.

But social media has now moved beyond the tipping point of usefulness for me, and I've found myself drawn back to what I call "the old school blogging days". As a bit of a dinosaur in the blogging world (my first blog, Young Wife's Guide, was born in 2009), I've found myself longing for those simple days.

Reading long articles, coming across tutorials I can actually follow, save, and come back to, friendships formed out of words and loveliness not fake Instagram set-ups and dancing reels.

So this year marks my entrance back into blogging. And a mighty surprise: I found the one place I actually do want to spend 20-30 minutes a day online: Substack. But that's also a convo for another day.

If you’re stepping away from social media but still crave connection, learning, or inspiration: seek out voices that invite you to slow down. Sit with a cup of coffee. Read something that requires your attention. Let your mind stretch again.

Fill your mind with what is good

Stress rarely arrives all at once. It begins quietly, a thought, a concern, a question, and then grows.

Left unchecked, it expands until it fills the entire space. And much of what we consume online accelerates that process.

So we have to be intentional about what we replace it with. Not just removing the noise, but actively choosing something better to fill our minds with.

Take a walk with your kids outside and focus on laughing and enjoying one another.

Take a 20-minute break, without your phone in hand, and sit in the warm spring sunshine and soak it up (Vitamin D works wonders for anxiety).

Start your day with your Bible open. Make it an absolute anchor point in your day. Coffee in hand, Bible on my lap and praying through the Psalms is how I start every single morning, and it's life-changing. God and His Word is the #1 way to combat stress and anxiety.

Start a book club and work your way through the classics. I'm part of a monthly book club with women at church, and it has quickly become one of my very favorite things! I've trained my affections so that I now spend my time reading good, beautiful, and highly engaging books instead of scrolling. There is no way around it: Reading for 20 minutes a day is way better for your brain, heart, and soul than 20 minutes of scrolling. I choose mental health over 20 more minutes of quick dopamine. You CAN retrain your habits and thought processes.

Do something tangible.

Habits can be retrained. Attention can be rebuilt. But it takes intention.

Do something real with your hands

There is something deeply stabilizing about physical, tangible work. Something our modern lives often lack and our bodies surely miss.

We say we’re overwhelmed by managing a home, but in many cases, it’s not because life is physically harder.

It’s because we’ve lost familiarity with the work itself. We’ve drifted away from the skills that once grounded daily life.

So start small.

Learn to cook from scratch. Plant something. Fix something. Build something. Engage your body, not just your mind.

There’s a reason kneading dough feels calming. Why working in the garden quiets anxious thoughts. It roots you in something real. Something immediate. Something within your control.

It’s hard to remain in a spiral of anxiety when your hands are busy creating something good.

Learn something for the joy of it

Not everything needs to be productive. Some things can simply be… beautiful.

But get creative! We need to bring back the so called "Grandma hobbies" because staying busy with our hands, creating something good and beautiful, is one of the more surefire ways to combat anxiety.

Learn to knit, sew crochet, watercolor, quilt, punch needle, or any number of fun hobbies. You can tell what things excite me, can't you?

Put the phone down.

Step away from the constant input.

And begin building a life that feels full: not because of what you’re consuming, but because of what you’re creating.

Final Thought

We don’t need more information. We need more formation.

A return to what is steady, grounded, and true.

A life shaped not by urgency, but a life shaped by intention.