My phone and I, usually joined at the hip, were recently separated on a forest safari where mobile phones were not permitted. Sans a camera, I had to experience Satpura Tiger Reserve without capturing it through a lens. Freed from digital distractions, I gradually found my attention sharpening. I noticed flutters, rustling, chirps, whistles, pink flecks on glowing ghost trees, even the delicate pattern on a teak tree’s infected leaves, their paper-thin surfaces translucent, riddled with holes through which sunlight streamed. I saw animals and birds, but also finer details: the gaur’s white-socked legs and orange, blue and white horns; the arresting green eyes of a jungle cat peering through a fence, and thick cotton candy like funnel spider webs fringing the path.
The effect lingered beyond the jungle. Back at the wilderness lodge, with erratic Wi-Fi to keep me from picking up my phone, I wandered through grounds dotted with trees, tall burnished grass, organic gardens, and the occasional group of snuffling wild boar. A quivering line of weaver ants caught my attention as they climbed a branch to their nest—braided leaves stitched together with larval silk. Gazing at a murky pond, I initially noticed bubbles. Minutes later I realised they were a frog’s eyes peering above the water. My continued gaze revealed more pairs of beady eyes. Without my phone, I stayed longer, and saw more.
My experience was of “slow looking,” a practice of sustained observation often associated with art. Museums worldwide encourage visitors to spend extended time with a single artwork, going beyond first impressions and allowing for deeper attention to detail and nuanced understanding. Colours, shapes, hidden figures, expressions and brush strokes reveal themselves—all the finer elements that make up the bigger picture.
“The apt psychological term for this conscious focus on a single stimulus over time is ‘perceptual learning’—the process by which prolonged, attentive observation changes what the brain is capable of seeing,” says Lalpeki Ralte, psychotherapist and assistant professor of psychology at MS Ramaiah University, Bengaluru. “The longer you look, the more discriminating you become.”
A WORTHY PAUSE
Our attention spans—now averaging 8.25 seconds, according to a Microsoft study; lower than that of a goldfish—are fragmented by constant digital distractions. Yet slow looking is a pause worthy of consideration. It can be applied to everyday life, honing deeper focus, attention to detail, patience, and anxiety relief.
For Gurugram-based artist Vinita Chawla, 62, slow looking has enhanced how she creates art. On a trip to Madrid, she spent time examining Picasso’s Guernica. “I began to see carefully concealed figures—a dismembered soldier, a dead baby, a gored horse, flames—all symbols of the Spanish civil war, which were not instantly apparent to me. I would have missed the finer details and the depth of the anti-war statement that Picasso was making had I not stopped to stare.”
To refine her skills, she participates in slow-looking sessions at museums. The approach also informs her own work. “I sometimes spend days re-examining my art. This often leads me to make changes, experiment with new themes, techniques, and media, or even abandon the effort altogether.”
Beyond art, others are embracing similar mindful practices. Chennai-based Prernna Gupta, 44, has always enjoyed jigsaw puzzles, but took to “slow puzzling” during the pandemic. She spends 20-30 minutes daily assembling puzzles of 100-150 pieces, occasionally spreading larger ones over several days. “There is also competitive or speed puzzling, but I prefer slower puzzling where I usually get into a meditative flow.” Puzzling offers Gupta, who is director of revenue operations at a SAAS company, a breather between meetings or after work. “I tend to forget everything else that is going on,” says Gupta, who collects puzzles from around the world and has also founded The Puzzlist, her own brand featuring artwork by Indian artists. The process—observing brushstrokes, colours and details piece by piece—deepens her appreciation of the artwork and artist.
A SHIFT IN THE BRAIN
Deliberate observation reshapes how we process information. Our views are often shaped by hasty and brief interactions with our environment. “When we first encounter something like a painting—the brain pattern-matches. It labels the category (tree, face, building) and moves on,” says Ralte. “This is called top-down processing, which means we are seeing our assumptions rather than the thing itself.”
But staying longer changes this phenomenon. The brain shifts, she adds, to what is called bottom-up processing, where we begin noticing light, texture and relationship between shapes. We experience a perceptual shift. Yet, modern life conditions us for speed, even in our leisure time. Travel is often reduced to capturing and sharing vignettes on social media, flitting quickly over things, never truly engaging with or absorbing experiences.
Responding to this phenomenon, Gurugram-based Vikas Bhasin, 55, founded his travel company Boring Holidays in 2025. His stays—primarily at scenic locations within India that offer acoustic stillness—focus on “the art of doing nothing spectacular,” with no itineraries or sightseeing tours, just time and space to be present. “When you look at the same landscape for days, you stop seeing ‘scenery’ and start seeing a living, breathing ecosystem,” says Bhasin. “One of my clients began to notice beautiful things in their own neighbourhood back in the city, something they had walked past for a decade but never truly seen.”
This quietness also explains why slow looking can relieve anxiety. When childhood anxiety led to teachers and doctors advising Bengaluru-based leadership and relationship coach Kavya Shankar, 35, to “keep up”, she instinctively chose otherwise. “I would find a single point—the brown mark on a desk or the black board—and just stay there,” she recalls. The practice calmed her and continues to shape her life. “So often, what we call a ‘crisis’ in leadership or a ‘dead end’ in a relationship is a failure of perception,” she says. Her approach emphasises pausing, reflecting, and working patiently without forcing a fix. “This practice has become my ultimate filter in dating, friendships, or professional collaborations. It stops us from being seduced by a shiny first impression, and encourages us to wait patiently for insight.”
THE SOCIAL DIMENSION
While slow looking in isolation has its benefits, practising it collectively can have surprising results. Gupta organises small group (6-7 people) slow puzzling sessions. Solo puzzling helps her focus, but group sessions bring connection. “Mostly women attend my group sessions, and these provide an open space for all sorts of conversations and meaningful connections,” she says. This sense of openness is likely related to another aspect of slow looking that Ralte highlights: when done collectively, slow looking can hone our ability to read the emotional states of others.
Despite its benefits, many perceive stillness as unproductive. But, like any habit, it can be built over time. “Start with 15-20 minutes of any analogue activity you enjoy—journaling, art, reading—as part of your evening or morning routine. Once you get into the flow, this time limit often extends,” says Gupta. Focusing on the mundane can make us more comfortable with the ordinary. “I recommend a micro-dose of boredom in our everyday life. Pick one object or task in your home—a house plant, a fridge magnet, clearing the clutter in your wardrobe, a tree on your morning walk, or even looking out of your balcony,” says Bhasin. “This helps build attention span.” Shankar suggests starting even smaller, setting an alarm for a short duration—three minutes is a good start—to observe something. “Don’t try to control the outcome. Let the information come to you.”
Slow looking can make us more mindful, patient, empathetic, even open to alternative viewpoints. “The biggest learning for me has been to not expect quick results. You understand that it takes time and patience to build something meaningful,” says Gupta.
In interactions with others, slowing down by observing and listening more helps us pick up on non-verbal cues and move beyond first impressions. “Even a few minutes spent in quiet examination of an idea, object, piece of art, or aspect of everyday life can help one appreciate what is not so overtly visible and make more informed assessments and decisions,” says Chawla.
The modern environment, Ralte adds, is engineered to reward novelty and discourage stillness. “But a life lived at speed, skimming from one stimulus to the next, produces a weak relationship with experience because the attention is not deep enough to process it into memory and meaning,” she says. “Slow looking isn’t just about art. It is about the quality of life as it’s actually lived.”
Reem Khokhar is an independent journalist based in Delhi.