By design, Norway is one peaceful country that allows you to enjoy the beautiful scenery and nature’s richness. However, our fast-paced life, can make us forget to live and have fun at the same time. Interestingly, slow living helps us live life slowly and detach ourselves from too much busyness.

Slow living is the process of taking a slower approach to everyday living while enjoying relaxing and leisurely activities. Like breathing, it lets you take deeper and more calming breaths while living in the present. When you put the quality of your actions before quantity, you will find out that there are different ways to enjoy life. To put it in a more practicable way, slow living is not overcommitting yourself with appointments and stacking yourself full of chores. If you have to do ten tasks at the same time, in slowly living you will choose only two and do those tasks to satisfaction. Slow living allows you to focus on what’s really important for your happiness. Hence, the slow-paced way of living will guide you to connect with your true self and intrinsic values. In addition, slow living in Norway, will help you carry out your purpose in life, surrounded by beautiful environment. It starts by appreciating nature and the many natural sights and scenery it offers. Slow-paced activities includes connecting with yourself, the people around you, hiking and other true to nature activities. These acts lets you build intentional relations that matter, with yourself, people, and with nature.

Slow living is a simple life approach that lets you disconnect from a stressful and busy city life, and achieve inner peace instead. It is synonymous with living a slow-paced life devoid of rush-hour frenzy and routines. Instead, it focuses on spending time with things you enjoy doing. More importantly, slow living in raw nature in Norway lets you soak in everything the place has to offer and give off the result in bursts of life enjoyment and activities. 

5 helpful tips for slow living in Norway 

1. Start by finding yourself

Who are you? What’s your dream?

In the fast pace of our society today, it’s easy to just forget who we are and what we wish for. This is because we’re use to run everything by routines. We’re like automatic robots sometimes. The way most of us a brought up is that we’re told to get an education, get a full-time job, find a partner, and then have kids. On top of that, we’re also told that by having a big house and several cars are a must too, otherwise, you’re not successful.

By all means, some people love this kind of life. And that is absolutely fantastic, but that is exactly what I’m talking about. They truly love it! If you go through life stressed, unhappy and just feeling stuck, you need to evaluate some other options.

Whether you live in Norway or not, or whether you want to just visit, this specific principle of slow living is essential either way. You need to find out who you are, your purpose and dreams. This principle takes time. I’ll suggest you go and start different hobbies, activities, etc., so you can figure out what you really like doing. If possible, and you can afford it, change your job to something else that you think you’ll actually enjoy. At this stage, it’s all about finding those things in life that makes you want to get out of bed each morning.

2. Appreciate nature and those little things in life

Norway is lined with stunning scenery and natural sights that stretch for miles and miles. From majestic mountains, green hillsides, glaciers, and waterfalls, you cannot but marvel at the majesty of some of the sites the country has to offer.

Although the weather here is a bit of a mixed pot, our nature will impress you either way. Spending time appreciating the atmosphere outside reminds you of the beautiful moments that bring happiness and simple joy. Apart from this, it broadens your perspective about the world and makes stress more manageable. Try spending a few hours outside, and you will be surprised at how rejuvenated you will feel. 

The secret is to find pleasure in anything and everything. By implication, whatever you are doing, involve yourself so much that you appreciate every aspect of it. For example, imagine washing the dishes on one of your local visits. Don’t do it quickly to get through the task. Instead, wash the dishes slowly and enjoy the feel of the water rushing through your hands and fingers. The same applies to chores. When you carry out any task, make it such that the task is enjoyable. It doesn’t look much; however, simple habits like this make life much more enjoyable. 

3. Focus on your inner circle 

Our tech-built world has turned us into visitors around friends and families. You will often find out that sometimes when you’re with them, you are just not there. Not really there. Although we spend time around people, we are often distracted by devices, and our mind wanders. This will make our relationships with out kids, family and friends too superficial. What are the people around you really telling you. You should make conscious efforts to shut down the outside world when you are together with someone. Go out of your home and spend time with people, without any devices.

Another thing to consider is to declutter you relationships. Get to really know your true feeling when you are around family and friends. Are the people around you giving you energy and happiness, or are they simply just draining you? If you constant have a negative related feeling around calling them or just to be around them, you should reevaluate your relationship. Your relations are not worth your unhappiness.

If you don’t live in Norway, and are only visiting, this principle of slow living might look a little different to you. One significant advantage of Norway is that it is an English-speaking country. Hence, at every turn, you will see Norwegians that will love to communicate with you. Some might say that Norwegians are reserved people, but as a Norwegian myself, I disagree.

When you visit Norway, I will argue that it is quite easy to get in touch with people around you. Seek out places where the locals hang, either in group sessions as a guest at a fitness center, on a hiking trip, cafes or in parks. Thanks to the allemannsretten law, you have the right to set up a tent anywhere you want in Norway, with a few exceptions. Nonetheless, you can camp, hike, and make a local area into your paradise. Unlike staying in hotels and expensive hostels, it allows you to enjoy spending time near locals and learning the Norweigian way of life.  

4. Eat with intent and explore flexibility

Slow living, whether in Norway or not, are close connected to its relative intuitive eating. Intuitive eating is an approach to food that has nothing to do with dieting, meal plans or discipline. Much like slow living, the intuitive eating moving promotes the feeling of trusting yourself, in this case specifically the body, in order to feel its hunger signs. The body will tell you when you feel hungry, what you want, and when you’re full and satisfied. Food itself has no moral, hence you are allowed to eat anything you want without guilt. Once you do that, you automatically feel the sensation of satisfaction of any food, and are also more likely to feed yourself the nourishing food both your soul and your body deserve. We welcome both the chocolate and leafy greens to our lives.

By connecting intuitive eating with your slow living lifestyle, you’re able to enjoy food even more. Simply start by listening the cues your body is telling you, enjoy the food by eating slowly, and experience the diverse feeling it creates for you.

Since there is no shortage of food and cuisines in Norway, you won’t have much problem enjoying a sumptuous meal from anywhere. However, when you eat, eat slowly, appreciating the textures and flavor. Local markets are crammed full of fresh fruits and delicious vegetables that let you connect to nature realistically. On any of your outdoor tours, take a pit stop at the farmer’s market and try out the many tasty recipes and traditional dishes Norway has to offer. Allow yourself the flexibility.

5. Make slow-paced activities a part of your heart

Slow living, not just in Norway, but in all parts of our world, lets us enjoy several different activities during the lifetime. The art of practising slow living emphasise the importance of doing things more slowly so that you’d actually have a change to experience the feelings that are happening. Therefore to be in alignment with this, you can choose do include several different slow-paced activities into your life. These activities will be gentle with your body, nourishing for your soul, and optimal for a stress free life:

• Hiking – Enjoy the raw Nature of Norway, or wherever you are. It will both nourish your soul and exercise your body that quickly fills up with endorphins.
• Start practicing meditation – I know it sounds scary and mainstream, but seriously it doesn’t require much, and it’s fantastic for stress relief. Simply find a peaceful play to sit, close your eyes for 10-20 minutes if you can. Then start to be aware of your senses around you, one at a time, what to you hear, what do you smell, how do you feel. Be aware of you breathing. Once you start thinking about something else, simply accept the though, and go back to the awareness of your senses and feelings.
• Start practising gentle movement – This is also called intuitive movement. This could be walking in nature, in the park, cross-country skiing, cycling, swimming, yoga, and so much more. As long as you move your body everyday, there’s no need for fast-paced and stressful CrossFit/HIIT workouts.
• Invite a hobby into your life – Find an activity that you really love doing every day, preferably by your self, because this continues to build up your relationship with your own feelings. Once you’ve gotten ahead of things, you can start to share the joy with others as well. Then the feelings gets multiplied.

Conclusion

Slow living in Norway is like slow living in any part of the world. However, Norway offers exclusive outdoor scenery and sights that you won’t find in some parts of the world. Left to nature, nothing should stop you from relaxing and drifting into bliss. T

he earth allows us to find our very own place of where we belong and what our purpose in life is. As to so many other things in life, it’s for you to figure out by yourself. I’d say that slow living is a way to start that journey.