Natural Steps Toward Restoration
While sleep is the basis of restoration, there are also activities that
you can do while awake that have been proven restorative.
The most striking of these are walking and playing in nature.
Who would have thought that something so simple could have such a profound impact.
Even as little as a 20 minute walk, three times a week can make a big difference. Dr. Cimprich found that this was enough to help her cancer patients cope better with their diagnosis, make better decisions, and participate more effectively in their care. (Cimprich, B.)
A view of nature out a window was in itself enough to be restorative for office workers and other prisoners. (Kaplan. R.)
Playing in nature not only helped children with Attention Fatigue, it even helped children with ADHD, once thought to be quite resistant to non-drug interventions. (Kuo. F.)
Walking or playing in nature—any activity which is supported by the natural environment, rather than at odds with it, has a number of ways of reducing Directed Attention.
1. Save
It for a Rainy Day
First, such
activities immediately reduce the rate at which you use Directed
Attention.
You usually don’t have to concentrate in the usual sense during a walk in the park.
Instead, when you do pay attention, you typically use other attention systems, such as involuntary attention—such as when you hear noises, see wildlife, climb over obstructions, or explore new areas. Or you play hide and seek, roll down hills, chase each other, throw a stick for your dog.
Even if there’s danger—a bear jumps out of the fishpond, for example, your old fashioned built-in involuntary attention is ready and willing and extremely capable of giving you all the attention you need to deal with the situation. In fact, it is finely tuned for just such occurrences.
While walking in nature in less exciting circumstances, you also use soft fascination—watching water, listening to the sound of wind in the branches, skipping, singing, experience the rhythm of your stride.
2. Dances
with Trees
Second,
we are built to think online in nature, to interact smoothly with the
environment. Something is in your way, you go around it. Something
is strange, you investigate or avoid it. Once you know which berries
are
good to eat, you automatically know how to find and pick them. You might
use a stick to scratch away something on the ground, or climb a rock
or a tree to see in the distance. It may not be easy, it may take work,
but
these are things we have gotten very good at over bazillions of years.
As contrasted to this picky tricky concentration stuff.
3.
The Joys of Muscle Fatigue
Third,
walking and playing in nature makes us physically tired, and that promotes
sleep. In fact, one cause of our epidemic of Directed Attention
Fatigue may arise because many of our modern activities lead us to
mental tiredness before we get physically tired. If we could not keep
our
eyes open
and just fell
asleep when we got mentally fatigued, that would take care of a lot
of the problem, but that’s not the case.
Walking in nature helps restore that balance.
References
Cimprich
B. (1993) Development of an intervention to restore attention in cancer
patients. Cancer Nurs. 1993 Apr;16(2):83-92.
Kaplan,
Rachel, Kaplan, Stephen, Ryan, Robert, (1998) With
People in Mind: Design And Management Of Everyday Nature
Kaplan,
Rachel; Kaplan, Stephen;(1989) The
Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective