The Health and Climate Benefits of Slow Living

In a fast-paced world, it can be hard to find the time to slow down. But doing and consuming less—whether that be avoiding driving or refraining from shopping—can lower your carbon footprint. It’s also good for your health—embracing slow living has been linked to health benefits, such as lowering stress levels and blood pressure.

“Having this slower pace of life both displaces other potentially high carbon activities and is restorative and positive,” says Kimberly Nicholas, professor in sustainability science at Lund University in Sweden.

Why Should You Do It?

Making a change just once a week might not seem like much, but it can add up, especially when it comes to driving and flying—two major sources of personal emissions. For city dwellers, ditching your car for a bike or walking just once a week makes a significant impact on personal carbon emissions. 

“If you're having a slow day, you automatically reduce those [impacts] and that goes quite a long way,” Nicholas says—for the planet, and by adding in a bit more physical exercise to your routine. “I think both the direct effect of that and figuring out how to use public transit around where you live, or going for a bike ride or a walk and realizing that you like that way of commuting, opening up those kinds of possibilities would be quite powerful.”

Making that decision to have a day of rest can also have indirect effects, like making you more mindful of other ways to reduce your carbon footprint, says Nicholas. “[You start] thinking ‘Oh, maybe I should take a staycation instead of a flying vacation that's really carbon intensive this year,’ ‘Maybe I'm building more relationships with my friends and neighbors and community in a way that feels really meaningful.’ There's a lot of possibilities there that might be hard to measure or model quantitatively, but I think have a lot of potential in shifting norms and relationships in ways that are important.”

How Can You Do It?

Pick one day of the week to slow down. Maybe that’s a Sunday, when you have fewer commitments, or, if you’re able to, a day you typically work from home. 

If you’re going somewhere, consider biking, walking, or taking public transport. If you need to buy food, consider visiting your local farmers market—buying local, in season produce instead of food hauled in from a far distance contributes to lower greenhouse gas emissions. 

Throughout the day, be mindful about the ways you fill your time. Rather than turning on the television, maybe take the evening to mend a torn item of clothing—it might take time, but it extends the life of your belongings and, since many items of clothing are not designed to last, extending the lifespan of clothing by just nine months could reduce carbon, water, and waste footprints by up to 20%.

You can also use the opportunity to learn a new recipe—focusing on plant-based meals. The “meatless Monday” movement, started in 2003, encourages people to reduce meat in their diet for one day a week—for their own health and for the health of the planet. Swapping out beef for a more climate-friendly alternative for just one meal can reduce your carbon footprint for the day by almost half, according to a 2022 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Cutting down on the amount of meat you eat also comes with a slew of health benefits, including reducing the risk of heart disease and supporting kidney health.

Overall, slowing down allows you to consider the habits you want to support in your life—and the impact you're having on your community. “Maybe you're trying every bakery in a three mile radius of your house, or trying to see 100 birds in your backyard, or going to your local library and reading 100 books this year,” she says. “Whatever the thing could be that is connecting you with the place where you live and people live there, think of how to use that time in a way that is adding value to your life.”