Olivia Wilde on Making Sustainability Sexy, Freeing the Nipple, and the Importance of a Social Media Cleanse

What are your most cherished “me time” activities and how do you make room for them?

Hiking, swimming, reading, meditating, taking baths, being quiet… the opportunity to be quiet. I do consider exercise to be a me-time ritual too. It’s impossible to get all of those things in a day, let alone a week. But I aim to incorporate them into my day. I also think ridding yourself of social media. I know it’s hard when you work in an industry that relies heavily on it. But on a personal level, I really have found that to be something that has brought a lot of peace into my life. It’s interesting…that recent The Daily podcast episode about the Facebook whistleblower was really startling. The clinical studies that have gone into the way Instagram makes our lives worse, and obviously Twitter being its own hellscape, but I think that mental health is something we have to focus more on, especially coming out of this wild year. So as we talk about beauty, self-care tools, and trying to find peace, we have to think about what we’re ingesting through our skin, through our gut, and through our eyes. What we’re reading, what we’re listening to…it makes a huge difference.

How do set boundaries for “unplugging”? It really is such a mountain to climb in our modern landscape.

It’s hard and yet, it’s like any sort of detox that initially is difficult and then you realize the benefits and it’s not so bad. I think we have to stop having everything at our fingertips, so I think getting rid of apps that promote unhealthy behavior in yourself is important. We have control over these things…recognizing what you have control over and understanding that everything you bring into your life is a choice…We have choices in the way we spend our money, our votes, and the ways that we fill our lives with media is a choice in how we want to feel. Rituals that allow you to regain some sense of balance and connection to your inner voice, it really has a lot to do with our health.