Let me guide you out of the tech wilderness
I don’t think it’s much of an exaggeration to say that the majority of global society is lost in a chaotic tech wilderness at the moment.
Flattened screen reality is more real to many people than the living, breathing, three-dimensional world outside their doors. I get it. I’ve lived in that flat reality on and off throughout my life.
Fortunately I had enough meaningful experiences with Nature to know that is a shallow, meaningless existence.
When I had the chance to reset my life and realign my priorities around Nature I jumped at the chance and moved out of the Detroit metropolitan area to the mountains of western North Carolina. I’ve never looked back.
Tech is woven through our lives
Despite the forests around me, the tech pull is strong. You’re reading this on a screen. This is how we communicate. This is how I work.
How do we not only navigate, but survive and thrive?
When I read Cal Newport’s books Digital Minimalism and Deep Work in 2020 the picture began to become clear. First, understand that your attention - and your phone and screens - have essentially been hacked by the big tech companies and platforms for corporate greed.
Just saying “No” or trying productivity hacks doesn’t always cut it. The answer is simple but not always easy.
You have to fiercely protect and replenish your depleted attention
It’s the replenishing part that everyone seems to miss, when to me it’s totally intuitive, and now, backed by evidence.
Two studies crystallized the answer for me.
The Attention Restoration Theory: Attention Restoration Theory (ART) (Kaplan, 1989, 1995) says that mental fatigue and concentration can be improved by time spent in or looking at Nature with specific criteria.
The University of Oxford in 2019 published a study in which they said that two hours or 120 minutes is the suggested amount of time people should spend in Nature weekly to significantly boost health, well-being and life satisfaction.
When we put them together we get what I call The Nature Response.
The Nature Response is intuitive
Since environmental psychologists Stephen and Rachel Kaplan published ART and Richard Louv named nature deficit disorder in his ground-breaking 2008 book, hundreds of studies worldwide have documented the profound restorative effect of time in Nature on all levels: physical, mental, emotional, psychological, sleep, stress, anxiety, cancer recovery, dementia and on and on.
Besides restoring our attention it’s no exaggeration to say Nature can help treat and alleviate many modern maladies.
But why is Nature the solution?
Let’s get into the technical weeds for a moment. According to ART, the brain has limited capacity to focus on a specific task. It becomes fatigued while concentrating on one task, called Directed Attention Fatigue, because it is simultaneously inhibiting other distractions.
Our brains are caught in hard fascination during screen work and online distractions like social media. Hard fascination is when our attention is held by a highly stimulating activity that doesn’t offer the opportunity for reflection and introspection because you are completely absorbed.
When we’re in Nature, the tunnel focus and hard fascination falls away. Our gaze softens and shifts to a wider angle in what’s called soft fascination, when our attention is held by a less active or stimulating activity that offers the opportunity for reflection and introspection.
In common language: You replenish our attention by letting your mind wander in Nature.
Intentional wandering is healthy
Numerous studies have focused on the components of Attention Restoration Theory since it was introduced. Soft fascination in a natural environment is considered the most important element to reducing mental fatigue and restoring attention.
I hate to break it to you, but watching YouTube or Netflix videos doesn’t do the job after a stressful day on screens. In fact, that continues siphoning away your attention.
You may relax but your attention is still being drained by the hard fascination of one focus, especially a screen. The same for listening to podcasts or reading, unfortunately. Even highly focused non-screen activities can continue to drain your attention.
The Oxford study listed above was the first to quantify the amount of time – 2 hours per week – to get a significant overall boost from Nature.
Here’s the quick breakdown of how it works:
Unplug: Don’t default. Decide.
Simply put, we need a plan to manage our Personal Tech Stack, the Supportive AND Addictive Tech that are part of our lives ON OUR TERMS. You decide what supports your personal goals, values and interests. You decide how, when and where you use specific tech tools. You decide to designate devices and set limits.
If you understand starting out that you’ll need to test and refine your plan, you won’t be surprised when some things don’t work as expected and you backslide.
Give yourself the permission, grace and space to make mistakes and changes.
Reconnect: Learn to say “Hello” again
It may feel weird and awkward at first to rekindle an active relationship with Nature, the most powerful, global force on Earth.
Relax. This is not about forcing you to take up outdoor sports you’re not interested in or garden if you hate getting dirty.
We’re talking about spending 17 intentional minutes in Nature a day with soft fascination, 7 days a week, (17/7) or a minimum of 120 minutes (2 hours) a week to significantly boost your health, well-being and life satisfaction. I call it your Nature120 Baseline.
You can sit on your porch, deck or a park bench. You can gaze at your neighbor’s garden or a tree. This is not about “doing” things outside. It’s about “being” outdoors with gentle intention.
This is how you start to fill the void with something greater and more meaningful than the superficial social media or email time you’re cutting back to get your 17/7 time.
And yes, for the mathematically inclined, 17 x 7 = 119. There’s a fudge factor involved.
The studies recommend between 20-30 minutes outside daily, but I opted for 17 because it sticks in your brain. You get the point.
Reset: Nature is always ready to reset your NaturalOS
We’re wired to Nature, whether we’re consciously aware of it or not.
What I call our NaturalOS is coded into our DNA.
It’s no surprise to anyone that our original programming has been overridden by modern indoor lifestyles and device addiction. That’s why the 2-hour minimum from the Oxford study is so ground-breaking: It sets the baseline to reset your NaturalOS.
When we start to rely on Nature again, to lean into the natural support systems that surround us, we reset our NaturalOS to a healthier, calmer, slower state.
This first reset opens the door to resetting other out-of-balance cycles in our lives.
Here’s the Nature Response formula:
Unplug: Reduce screen and device time by at least 17 minutes a day.
Reconnect: Spend 17 minutes of intentional time in Nature every day to start.
Reset: Re-establish your Nature120 Baseline with Nature as your partner.
Why you need all three
Vision quests typically follow a three-part process: Severance, Threshold and Integration.
Questers identify what they need to sever before they enter the wilderness, consciously cross the threshold of change to release the old limits and come back to their “normal” life to integrate the change they experienced.
The concept is familiar from myth, religion and literature: Death, Rebirth and New life.
In order to change we have to die to the thing that’s holding us back - sever the ties - so we can cross the threshold - be reborn - and bring our new self - integrate - into our new life.
You’ve likely encountered different ways of naming this timeless human cycle.
Unplug, Reconnect and Reset is another way of naming this powerful cycle of change for the profound challenges our digitally connected world presents for humanity.
It’s the reason I’m writing: To help us all come home again.
If you’d like support with this process sign up for my free email course, Phone-Jacked: 7 Days to Retake Control of Your Phone.
