Downshifting

Downshifting is a concept that spread in the United States during the 1990s, starting with the Amy Salzman's book Down-Shifting: Reinventing Success on a Slower Track. Downshifting involves focusing less on paid work in order to have time to do more of the things one wants to do while cutting out unnecessary expenditure. But it does not mean going to the extremes and deviating too far from common behavior or attempting self-sufficiency. The concept is also used in England, Australia, and other industrialized countries, for example, in Sweden, where it quickly won acceptance in 2008.

The term is derived from the process of changing gears in a car to drive more slowly. It can be defined as making a voluntary, long-term change in one's lifestyle that ...