Five hours a day? Two? How much will make you happy, is it worth doing something useful during this time, and is it possible to overdo it with rest and make things worse?
HOW MUCH FREE TIME PER DAY WE NEED
Your work tasks are piling up like a snowball, there’s no time to breathe, and five new ones immediately appear in place of one completed task – just like the heads of a mystical monster? In such a situation, it’s not unusual to feel extremely stressed and wish you had more free time – ideally, the more the better. But, as it turns out, you need a measure in this too.
This is the conclusion reached by the authors of two studies, in total studied how 35 thousand respondents-Americans spend their free time. They found that having this time does help us feel better, but only if it is limited to two hours a day.
Those with five or more hours of free time feel even worse than the rest of us
Based on this information, the researchers determined that the optimal amount of free time in a day is between two and three hours: ‘Yes, a lack of time for yourself is bad, but, as it turns out, its excess is not better. This is especially true for people who have recently retired: the lack of things to do and the usual workload has a detrimental effect on their mental state.
WHAT TO SPEND YOUR FREE TIME ON
What we spend this free time on is also important. In addition to analysing the data from the studies, the scientists organised several small online experiments. In one of them, they asked the subjects to imagine that they have between three and a half and seven free hours a day at their disposal, and how they spend this time – on ‘useful’ activities (for example, sports) and ‘not useful’ (watching series and TV shows).
The participants of the experiment admitted that they would hardly feel happy if they spent their free time unproductively. ‘It would seem that it is possible to enjoy an unexpected freedom, but it seems that even in theory it does not bring people the expected pleasure,’ commented the authors of the study.
Another question is that each of us is free to decide for himself what is ‘useful’ for him and what is not
If binge watching your favourite TV series makes you happy – please don’t limit yourself to it. Although, most likely, you will spend less time in front of the TV or laptop than you planned. Or, at the very least, you won’t spend all your free time on it.
In addition, you can always at least try to make ‘useful’ activities also enjoyable. For example, knowing that physical activity is useful, choose those forms of it that really give you pleasure, and combine them with listening to music, podcasts or audiobooks. And, of course, do not neglect the opportunity to get into a state of ‘flow’, about which psychologist Mihai Csikszentmihaii has written a lot: it is especially often noted by those who are fond of knitting, reading or cooking.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAVE TOO MUCH FREE TIME AT YOUR DISPOSAL
So if you happen to have more free time than usual – for example, because you are out of work, retired or ill and have to stay at home – try to be smart about it. Spend it on activities that you find rewarding and enjoyable. And, of course, do not try to keep yourself ‘busy’ all the time – behind this need may lie anxiety. But that’s another story.