Get outdoors
- Vicky Lord
- Feb 14, 2019
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 22, 2019
Why? Because when you take time to be in nature, to breathe in fresh air and to move your body, great things can happen in your mind. And I’m not talking about a bush walk, snapping selfies on your smartphone for social media as you go. Get outdoors and look around. It’s a well-known and increasingly talked about topic – being in nature breads creativity. Increased creativity can lead to increased well-being and better productivity.
You don’t have to be a brain scientist to know this. Humans have known this for hundreds of years. We all feel it. A walk in the park, a swim in the ocean, or stepping outside the office to eat lunch – open space feels good. Thanks to technology and research programs, neuroscientists can now tell us why.
The prefrontal cortex is less active when people are out in nature. This is the part of our brain responsible for critical thought, problem solving and moderating social behaviour.
When we take the time to be in a natural environment, we drop many of the repeated stressors that have impact on our prefrontal cortex – unrelenting email and notifications, interpreting reality (is everything you see online real?) and emotions like guilt. As little as 25 minutes spent in a green space without the constant distraction of technology is enough to rest our brain.
"The human mind is heavily influenced by the environment we're in… It's not useful to become a slave to technology." says David Strayer, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Utah.
We’re also hearing more and more to let our kids be bored and to give ourselves permission to be idle. When your prefrontal cortex slows and settles, the brain’s imaginative workings can kick in. We can access our memory stores, our ideas bank, and express emotions more authentically. And this my friends, is where the magic happens. At this point, our brain activity isn’t isolated to a particular hemisphere or a single point in time. It is a waking up of the many networks within our brains, allowing us to draw on memories from our past, imagine future scenarios, understand others and new perspectives. We’re better placed to create meaning from the things we experience and ultimately to know ourselves better. This explains why your ‘aha’ moment comes when you are slowing walking along a beach, and not when you’re racing for a deadline or rushing for the third stressful meeting in your day. Being lost in thought or day dreaming, call it what you will, it is important to allow space and time in our lives for soft focus and a slower pace.
Standing on top of a mountain, or perhaps taking in the breath-taking vista from the look-out on your way up, has the power to transform us. Awe – a sense of wonder and amazement in that moment when you witness something far greater than yourself, is a moment that opens your mind and allows for expansive thinking. It’s a feeling that we have more frequently as children when so much is new and exciting (the more the better as far as development and growing minds are concerned), but as we age, we tend to put blinkers on and become harder to impress. Our lifestyles and daily habits leave little room for truly awe-inspiring experiences. Allowing yourself to take in that view, to look out at vastness or to examine the intricacy of geometric form in minute ferns in the undergrowth, allows us to move beyond monotony, for the mind to think outwardly and break away from habitual thinking patterns.
Not only will heading outdoors fill your body with sensory signals and the benefits of physical activity. It is the opportunities for wonder and gentle fascination that has the potential to broaden your perspective, allow you to discover new ideas and to grow your mind, ultimately improving your creative thinking capacity. All good stuff.
Walking shoes on, I’m off.
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IMAGE CREDIT: Photo by Tyler Lastovich on Unsplash
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