Why a Half Hour of Quiet Might Save Your Day (Episode 338)

Why a Half Hour of Quiet Might Save Your Day (Episode 338)

What if the rarest luxury isn’t time or money—it’s attention you actually control? We open with gratitude and a bold claim: libraries might be the most underrated mental health resource in your neighborhood. Not just for books, but for quiet rooms, borrowed instruments, community tables, and the gentle permission to slow down. When school arts programs get cut, libraries hold the line for creativity and belonging. When your mind won’t stop racing, a library’s calm can make room for focus to return.

We share a personal story about putting the phone in a hotel safe and the surprising “third‑day effect”—how long it took for the nervous system to arrive on vacation. That delay exposes how deeply our devices shape anxiety, attention, and mood. The conversation digs into attention economics: why Netflix once called sleep a competitor, how platforms are designed to keep us scrolling, and why even Apple’s CEO has warned about social media’s impact on kids. None of this is about tech shaming; it’s about design and how we can reclaim space for presence.

You’ll walk away with simple, compassionate tactics: schedule a 15‑minute phone break, try a weekly 30‑minute library session, bring one book or notebook, notice the restlessness without judgment, and build toward a calmer baseline. We connect arts access, civic spaces, and device-free habits into a practical framework for better mental health and daily clarity. If you’ve been craving fewer tabs in your head and more life in your moments, this conversation offers a way back to yourself—one quiet half hour at a time.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review with your favorite unplug ritual. Your voice helps others find their way to calmer, clearer days.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Gratitude and Episode Framing

1:00 Libraries as Community Lifelines

6:30 The Arts Under Threat in Schools

11:20 Libraries as Creative Safe Spaces

13:50 Quiet Time and Mental Health

17:00 Vacation Detox and Digital Dependence

24:00 Presence Over FOMO

27:30 Practice Small Tech Breaks

30:00 Sleep, Tech, and Addictive Design

#QuietTime #MentalHealthBreak #MindfulnessMoments #StressReliefTips #SelfCareRoutine #DailyMeditation #FocusAndCalm #ProductivityHacks #InspirationDaily #WellnessJourney #InnerPeacePractice #RechargeYourMind #MindfulLivingTips #FindYourCenter #HalfHourOfPeace #justiceforsurvivors #justice4survivors #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion #TikTok #Instagram #truth #factoverfictionmatters #transparency #VoiceForChange #HealingTogether #VoicesForVoices338

Chapters

• 0:00 Gratitude and Episode Framing
• 1:00 Libraries as Community Lifelines
• 6:30 The Arts Under Threat in Schools
• 11:20 Libraries as Creative Safe Spaces
• 13:50 Quiet Time and Mental Health
• 17:00 Vacation Detox and Digital Dependence
• 24:00 Presence Over FOMO
• 27:30 Practice Small Tech Breaks
• 30:00 Sleep, Tech, and Addictive Design

Transcript

JustinAlanHayes,VoicesforVoices: 0:02

Hey everyone, it's Justin. Thank you so much for joining us on another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. Whether you're near or far, watching and listening, thank you so much for being with us for episode 338. It's uh it's just each episode, it it's just uh something that uh we're very grateful to be able to do. Uh what I wanted to to share here at the outset is uh for those of you who are able to, uh whether you uh are filming a show, uh whether you're just looking for some quiet time. Um I just want to share the importance of your local library and libraries across the country, here in the United States, the state of Ohio, and then also across the world. I don't know much about libraries across the world. I am just making a uh making a thought, thinking that uh libraries act in the same way that they do here in the United States. And not only that, uh libraries offer a rich amount of content. So fiction, non-fiction, children's, uh, some even have different uh different instruments, different uh different things you can you can rent for a week or two, uh, which is really a neat thing because as I was as I was going through my say my first 12 years of school, one of the things that was happening, uh, and I'm not sure the exact state of affairs right now, but uh at that time, you know, the arts, uh whether that's you know, drama, uh, whether that is you know playing an instrument in a band in the band, the school band, or others, uh, or even just having a class uh included, uh, that it was, you know, whether it's art, whether you're drawing or painting, uh, or again, playing an instrument, or maybe being part of a choir, if you're able to uh a lot of those programs had been and were on the the chopping block, meaning that when schools were looking at areas to cut, they looked at the arts, and I think that's a mistake if that is still happening. I do have an understanding that tough decisions have to be made, but as someone who has benefited from the art, uh how much that I'm realizing is a part of my life that's art, and so filming and all that uh TV shows, uh podcasts, I don't know, those are all forms of art, and when those get taken away, I think I think it's a shame. And and so the fact that there are different avenues, one being this is this is in our community, uh, having a library that offers so many different so many different ways to connect, so many different ways to let our minds just be creative. And so I just want to say thank you to all the all the libraries, all the locations, no matter near or far, uh, because because of you, it keeps a lot of us connected to be able to bring content, bring uh safe spaces, quiet spaces, uh book CDs, movies, DVDs, instruments for some. It's just an important, important piece that I think that children uh let me missing out on if those were taken away and weren't available. So sometimes it's not until we ourselves use something where we use a service or whatever it may be that we don't we that we kind of take things for granted. I know it's easy to you know look at something that maybe we don't do or doesn't impact us and say, oh yeah, we can cut that program or this this over here, yeah, we can cut that. And I and I think that would be a great great this service for that to occur or to continue occurring. So when I see and hear stories about the arts in school being expanded, when I hear and see stories about students and individuals who are excelling. And even if they're not excelling, just being a part of a group, being a part of a community that that says with open arms, if you wanna you want to come join us, if you wanna, if you want to come study here, if you wanna you want to come have a business meeting, uh, depending on locations, that to have those spaces available for the community is really is really big. I mean, I like to think of so there's a movie being you know it the Cleveland Indians. I'm gonna and I'm gonna get a lot of pushback on well, it's they're the guardians. Well, to me, they're the Cleveland Indians. And the Cleveland Indians weren't a very good baseball team for a long, long, long, long, long, long time, especially growing up for the most part. And so there was a movie that was put together called Major League, and it was showing how players coming from all different areas that might not have played college baseball or anything, and they're they're they're polled in and saying, Okay, you're gonna play for the Cleveland Indians in this movie. Well, so they end up making two movies. The first was called Major League, and the second was called Major League Two. In Major League Two, the one catcher, uh not Jay Taylor, um, I think his last name was Baker in the movie, was talking about there was an internal struggle going on within within the team. Like, well, you know, if there's a doubleheader, meaning you play one game in the morning, there you play it doesn't have to be in the morning, but you play two games in one one day, and the part of the movie I'm thinking about is one of the uh this catcher, last name, I think Rue Baker. Uh so he had got injured in the first game, the double header. So in the second game, in between the first and the second, uh, the catcher was up on the training table getting ice and trying to, I think it was a twisted ankle or an injury to Leg. And one of the players came in and said, Hey, at least you know, you're lucky you don't have to play in the second game. And the catcher found a uh problem with that and said, Hey, among other things, that he had met he had met a fan and said that the most grass, the most green grass, most grass in general, that anybody in the city, that this person living in the city limits downtown, that the most grass they've seen is the grass that the ball players get to play on every day, or however many games they you know they they play, uh, whether they're playing a home game or whether they're playing an opposing team's ballpark. And he got up and said that, what I just mentioned. And so I like to think of that as a correlation to libraries and different different resources that instead of looking at it as well, hey, it's easy to cut because I don't go there, I don't have any children, or I don't have any guardian uh people that I'm a guardian for. Uh and it doesn't, it's not even just for students. There's newspapers, there's magazines, uh it's for everybody, adults, children, and so it's a big thing to have a library, it's a big thing to have resources available. And again, I get it that there's there's things that you know, there's only so much money. That's why I think having from a government perspective, having some form of fiscal responsibility is a good thing. Why? Because that's less programs or less things that have to go reaching out for extra money for tax increases or levies or whatever the buzzword of the day is. Um, just switching my my position here sitting if you're wondering why. Okay. So don't underestimate the library, and I think in the another big thing tied into the library is what I said was quiet. I don't want to say all of us, but a lot of us have a phone that we're able to have the internet and social media on, and text messages, and emails, and calls, and all you know, all the bells and whistles. And so to have an alternative to that for even just a little bit, again, we're paying through taxes for these programs. So, unless it's a private library, all are welcome. And having a little bit of quiet time, regardless if you're like I am, and have that, you know, like that busy mind, ADD, ADHD, the generalized anxiety, and even the the major depression. To have just a few minutes, half hour, 20 minutes, whatever that may be, to put the phone down, turn it off, turn the ringer off, maybe see if one if there's a uh where the quiet space is, and just maybe close your eyes for a minute or two. And you'll be able to tell, like me, maybe that wow, my mind's my mind's really racing. And so I'm gonna tie this into a vacation. So a few years ago, that's probably when I started to notice the most when we talk about the mental health and and how connected we are and whether that's necessary all hours of all days. I forget where where we went, but what I do remember is putting my phone in the safe of the hotel and not looking at it. I don't know if it was not looking at it until the end of the trip or if it was you know once a day at the end of the day, you know, looking at it once and then putting it back in. But what I vaguely remember, and it's still true to this day, but I vaguely remember is how long it took my mind to get to the present time being on vacation and not having my phone with me, whether I'm hearing it's buzzing, or if I'm just looking, and I'm like, oh, let me look at whatever, let me look at social media, let me look at news, and that's a big deal. It took, if I'm not mistaken, until that third, third day for my mind to truly be in the moment as best as it could, as best as it can, and that is really troubling to me because we don't always get a chance to go on vacation, and sometimes if we do, the vacation's only for a couple a couple days. If we're lucky, we're able to go on a little bit of a longer vacation, whether it's every year, every other year, every five years, whatever that time may be. And so, what I remember so clearly was that it took pretty sure well into that third day for my mind to slowly lower the intensity of the thoughts racing in my mind in my head. So just think about that. We've been honestly given, but we we've been sold a bill of goods, like these phones, that they're going to um, you know, the you know, they're gonna keep us connected and all that. Well, that was the first time that I was realizing like I'm I'm not really connected with what I'm doing in the moment. And what I would find out years later was I wasn't being present as much as I thought I was, you know. I thought it like, well, okay, well, I can see you right now, or I can hear you. So yeah, you're present right now, but that that's not what it means. It means when at what point, if there is a point, can I close my eyes or not even close my eyes? Can I just think and not be concerned with what's happening on my phone? That guess what? There's probably not a whole lot that's gonna change from the morning to the afternoon or evening or over a course of time. And you know what? That I started to realize after that point that there were people who were doing the same thing. So they would go on vacation and they would not be available. So if I was trying to reach them, they're on vacation, they weren't picking their phone up, they weren't responding, and so it got me thinking even more like, well, why why don't why can't I do that? What what what makes you know these other individuals be able to do that? And I and I can't. Uh and that's when I started to realize how how the anxiety was to an extent uh being driven by you know that you know you don't want to miss out on what could happen, and then take a step forward, then there was a trip where I think it was five or six days or four or five days, and it was the first time that I ever put my phone in the safe, and I didn't I didn't look at it until we were getting ready to go to the airport to leave to come come back home, and I went through at that point all the messages, all the things that you know I thought I was missing out on. And you know what happened? I didn't miss out on a whole lot. There wasn't a whole lot from the day that I turned my phone off, put it in the safe, till the day that I took it out to head to the airport to fly home, and that got me thinking if I can do that, I should be able to do that at any given time, and so this is bringing us back to the library. So the library is a place where innately it's it's a quiet place where we can again we can go and we can look up books, we can look at magazines, we look at newspapers, uh we can use computers if we don't have our own uh to view email. Um but a lot of it's done in in quiet. And so we're not gonna the moral of this story is we're not gonna miss out on as much as we think we're gonna miss out on. There's not gonna be some huge breakthrough that we're gonna miss out on by taking a half hour a day or half hour every other day or half hour a week and just put the phone down and just think what happens at sometimes is that we get into this group think of oh, so-and-so's doing that, my roommate's doing this, this person, that person, yeah, that sounds good to me. But is that truly how we feel, or are we just doing it because our friends are doing it? And so the more time we can just be a human being and be present in the moment, it's easy to say, but it's really darn hard to do. So the next time you get that opportunity to be on your phone or not, be off your phone for a little bit. Not telling you to abandon your phone at all, no, I'm telling you as somebody with mental illnesses that I can do a heck of a lot better myself, and even if it's just 10 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever that time may be, then it can be like, oh, I'm tasting this food because I'm not scrolling and I'm not just eating and doing all you know six, seven things at one time. Again, easier said than done. I'm not perfect, I don't claim to be perfect, I just know it's an area that has helped my mental health when I do it. Now, there's a lot of times I don't do it and I need to get better, and so it's that continuous learning and improving. So give it a try, see how see how it works, see if it works again. If it's 30 minutes a week versus 30 minutes every day or 10 minutes every day, the more you practice it, the more benefits you're gonna have. That are our brain's gonna be less stimulated by scrolling and scrolling and posting and posting and photo pictures and and uh tick tock videos and all those things that are just stimulating. And I'll leave you with this. I've mentioned before, I mentioned again, talk about competitors in business. Reed Hastings from Netflix, and I know there's a there's a lot going on around Netflix, right? Now I'm not gonna get into that. What I am gonna get into is we talk about competitors, right? So if let's say Nike's competitor is under armor, well, Netflix views one of its competitors asleep because if you're asleep, you're not watching Netflix, and so just let that sink in. Netflix as well as iPhone, droids, they're made to be addictive. They're made to be as easy as possible to look and find what you want and and to do it. So Reed Hastings said they one of the competitors of Netflix is sleep because when we're asleep, we're not able to be watching Netflix. And I'll leave you with this last that last thought. Tim Cook from Apple. Tim Cook from Apple. Okay, so I have this thing right here. Um it's called a phone, and Apple makes the phone. He's not against people owning iPhones, buying iPhones, having them, the wearables. But what he said is he won't let his, it's either his nephews and nieces, or it's nephews or nieces. I'm not sure, but he won't let them on social media. So let that sink in as we close out this episode. You have the leader of one of the largest, whatever call it, smartphones. I think it makes us dumber because it's like, wait, what? What's going on? We're not looking at our phone, be the leader of one of the biggest tech organizations, and they're saying publicly that they don't want their nieces and nephews, niece or nephew. I can't remember the exact breakdown of the the his family makeup, but he said that he wouldn't want them to be on social media because he knows some of the detriments of it and how perfect, somewhat perfect it makes people look, and how it can be addictive, and how it can make people feel bad and compare and judge, and all those things. So just think about that from a mental health standpoint. You have the head of Apple saying that why can't we take a half hour here or there or more at times, and just be present in the moment. So until next time, this is Justin Alan Hayes with Voices for Voices. Thank you for joining us. We ask that you subscribe, give us a big thumbs up, follow, share, like. Uh we just can't thank you enough. Near or far, watching, listening. We uh we're grateful and humbled to have you with us. So go ahead and check out the other uh 337 episodes of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast catalog. Until next time, let's celebrate all the voices of the world. And we also ask you, as well as I ask myself, to be a voice not just for me, but for somebody else in need. So be a voice for you or somebody else in need. Thank you so much, and we'll see you next time.