Journalist Carl Honoré believes the Western world’s emphasis on speed erodes health, productivity and quality of life. But there’s a backlash brewing, as everyday people start putting the brakes on their all-too-modern lives. “By slowing down at the right moments, people find that they do everything better: They eat better; they make love better; they exercise better; they work better; they live better.”

In his book In Praise of Slowness, Carl Honoré dissects our speed-obsessed society and celebrates those who have gotten in touch with their “inner tortoise.” Canadian-born journalist Carl Honoré has written for The Economist, the Houston Chronicle, the Observer, and the National Post, but he is best known for his advocacy of the Slow Movement. A loose and international effort by the harried and haggard to decelerate the pace of their lives, the Slow Movement spans everything from telecommunications (slow email) and health care (slow medicine) to diet (slow food) and public space (slow cities).

Honoré’s aforementioned bestselling book, In Praise of Slowness, plots the lineage of our speed-obsessed society; while it recognizes the difficulty of slowing down, it also highlights the successes of everyday people around the world who have found ways of doing it. Honoré traces his “Aha” moment to his son’s bedtime, when Honoré would race through storybooks — skipping pages, reading portions of paragraphs — to move things along. (He’s since reformed.) His more recent book, Under Pressure: Rescuing Our Children from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting, is about how we are raising a generation of overprogrammed, overachieving and exhausted children. His latest book, The Slow Fix: Solve Problems, Work Smarter, and Live Better in a World Addicted to Speed, was published by Harper One (2013).

Here’s a direct link to his TEDTalk during which Carl praises the unique benefits of slowness.

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