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What is the soft evening concept from TikTok?
Thanks for asking.
Do you ever feel frustrated about work dominating your life?
Maybe in your free time you try to make up for that by enjoying yourself and having a busy social life.
You go to the cinema, meet up with old friends and squeeze in an evening workout.
But these activities sometimes end up putting more pressure on you than the pleasure you get out of them.
What if I told you you could have a thoroughly satisfying evening without it needing to be productive at all?
Over on TikTok.
A concept called soft evenings has emerged to combat society's obsession with hyperproductivity and hustle culture.
What does it involve?
It's all about self-care and relaxation.
The soft evening is also sometimes called the slow evening or gentle evening.
It's inspired by slow living, which we've discussed in the past on Do You Really Know?
The philosophy is about doing less in order to enjoy things more, being able to really savour the moment, rather than doing something just for the sake of it and then only half enjoying it.
Over on TikTok, creators posting about their soft evenings tend to share videos of activities like reading and gardening.
You can also see people lighting candles, drinking tea, or doing their skincare routine.
Here's an example from wellness influencer Kat Volsi, posted with the caption Spend a soft evening with me.
According to insidercom, soft evenings are a kind of compromise for some workers who are forced to hustle during the day but choose to make up for it by relaxing in the evening.
If anything, it's a good way to unwind after a day's work.
How do I get started?
After getting home, get changed and put on comfortable clothing.
To get the ambiance right, turn on your lamps rather than ceiling lights.
If you have candles, even better.
Choose something to listen to in the background that makes you feel good, whether that be relaxing music or your favourite podcast.
Then choose an activity like drawing, reading a book or engaging in crafts like making beaded jewellery, embroidery or knitting.
If you enjoy gardening, why not focus on repotting your plants?
Cooking is also a highly contemplative activity, which is well suited to a soft evening.
If you don't really feel like doing an activity, you could simply meditate or try journaling, which we also discussed in a recent episode of Do You Really Know?
You could list things that made you happy or just write freely to let out your emotions from the day.
The most important thing about a soft evening is to get cognitive rest.
Even if we sleep well at night, we need other forms of rest too.
Social rest involves being alone or with people we can socialize with effortlessly.
So you may be able to try a soft evening for two if you're lucky enough to have someone you're completely at ease with, and vice versa.
Other forms of rest include emotional rest, which means disconnecting from intense emotions, and sensory rest.
So give yourself some time away from noise conversations and phone messages during your soft evening with a mini-digital detox of at least an hour.
There you have it.
Now you know what the soft evening concept is.
In under three minutes, we answer your questions and help you understand the true meaning behind the trends, concepts and acronyms that are making headlines.
Listen along and you will really know for sure.
