Your Brain Needs Nothing

 So last episode, we talked about the massive benefits of morning light. And before that, we talked about how walking can improve not only your metabolism, but also your brain function, your problem-solving ability. It can help with your relationships and connection, and do even more than that. And one of the big picture themes that I've been exploring this summer is that health isn't about overhauling our lives, but instead it's much more about noticing what the season and our current environment is making easier for us right now.

Because real change comes when things are easy, when they're fun. It comes when things are rewarding and pleasurable. So we often think that improving our health and improving our wellness needs to be some sort of struggle. It needs to be restrictive. It needs to be discipline in the face of pain and challenge.

We need to be gritting our teeth. But when we try to willpower our way to change, we're relying on a limited asset that waxes and wanes, and it really sets us up for failure anytime our willpower can't carry us through. Which is, honestly, it's quite often because our willpower is reduced during times when we're tired or when we're stressed or when we're multitasking.

And I don't know about you, but, um, I don't wanna sacrifice my health and wellness every time life gets a little bit difficult. So instead, why don't we leverage our human nature and make health and wellness about doing things that are fun, things that are motivating, things that are easy, and things that are simple?

These types of things are the things our brain naturally gravitates towards. So why not work with our brain instead of trying to fight against it? And that's what I wanna lean into a bit today. So we've talked recently about walking and about morning sunlight, and I wanna talk about another extremely simple, easy, and approachable way to fuel your brain and improve your life in our modern world.

And what I'm talking about today is doing absolutely nothing outside. Not hiking, not gardening, not exercising, not walking, not listening to a podcast, not answering emails Instead, just sit. Just be outside. Because we've got this go, go, go nature of our modern world, which has stripped us of these critical and restorative moments.

And I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling this, right? I'm sure most of you out there listening are sitting there thinking like, "Yeah, I know what you're talking about." But when I sit outside, I almost immediately feel this urge to make it productive, right? Maybe I should read something. Maybe I should catch up on my emails.

Maybe I should go out and pull weeds or do yard work. Maybe I should listen to that podcast that's been in my, in my library for forever. Maybe I should go for a walk. It's actually pretty uncomfortable just to sit. And yet that's exactly what our brains crave, because nature isn't, uh, another habit that we should be optimizing.

Um, it's one of the conditions that our brain evolved within. And when we stop trying to accomplish something externally, while we're outside especially, something really interesting starts happening internally. So today, I wanna talk about three things that your brain begins to do when you simply spend a few quiet minutes outside The first thing that your brain starts to do that starts to happen is that your attention starts to recover.

And one of the best established theories in, um, environmental psychology is called attention restoration theory. The basic idea is, is honestly, um, beautifully simple. It's, um, elegant. It's just lovely. Modern life asks our brains to direct attention almost constantly. We've got emails and texts and meetings and traffic and notification and projects to focus on.

Your brain spends all day deciding what deserves your attention and what doesn't, and focusing your attention in the face of distraction and challenge and alternative options. And like any system that works continuously, it gets tired. Of course it gets tired, and you feel it, right? Four o'clock and you're like, "How can I do this for another hour or two?"

And what's really interesting is there are some researchers. So, uh, this was all started by, uh, uh, Stephen and Rachel Kaplan. Um, they proposed that nature and being out in nature gives our directed attention, that kind of effortful attention that we put in day over day, a chance to rest and recover. And not because nature is boring or it's devoid of things to pay attention to, but because it captures our attention effortlessly.

Um, they called it, or they still call it, soft fascination. Watching leaves, um, move in the wind, listening to the birds chirping, watching clouds drift by in the sky, watching a campfire or a flowing creek. These things generally hold our attention without demanding, um, effort from us to put our attention there.

So think about grabbing attention versus having to force your attention outwards. And one of my favorite studies on this had participants take a walk either through, um, an arboretum, um, so a nice natural environment, um, that's curated in, in the city, or alternatively, through downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan, so an urban environment.

And after the nature walk, participants performed about 20% better on tests of working memory than after the urban walk, in which they showed no improvement Think about that. Simply spending time in nature restored these individuals' attention. And it wasn't because the participants were trying harder or because their moods changed.

The researchers assessed that, and they didn't. But it was because their brains finally had a chance to take a break. They allowed their directed attention to relax for a moment during a period of soft fascination so that when it came back to work, it had its rest, and it was better able to get back to work.

Amazing. The second, uh, thing that is happening when you get outside and do absolutely nothing is your mind starts to reflect. So one of the biggest misconceptions about ourselves and about our brains is that when you're doing nothing, your brain isn't doing anything either. And in reality, what's amazing is almost the opposite of this is true.

When your attention isn't focused on the outside world, your brain has this, uh, uh, rare opportunity to turn itself inwards. And this process of, uh, self-reflection and inward thought is managed by a group of distributed brain regions called the default mode network, or DMN. And this network of brain regions that talks to each other and works together is active during times when you are, uh, staring out the window or sitting quietly by a lake or watching a sunset.

And so what's happening in your brain when this default mode network is active? Your brain is reflecting. It's making sense of the experiences of your day, of the week, of the year, of your life. It's thinking about relationships. It's imagining what your future might look like. It's starting to connect different ideas that have been floating around in your head.

It's helping you find meaning. And so we've been, uh, we've, we've not only been recently, but, but in-increasingly, we've become very good at eliminating these types of quiet moments. Every spare minute that we have in this day and age is dedicated to a podcast, listening to music, scrolling, getting back to emails or checking them.

We so rarely allow our minds to simply wander anymore But mind wandering isn't wasted time. I think a lot of us feel like that. We feel like, "Oh, my mind's wandering. I'm daydreaming. I just wasted 20 minutes where I could have been doing something productive." It's exactly the opposite. Mind wandering is one of the ways that we understand ourselves.

It's when we synthesize and extrapolate our ideas. It's when we come to important conclusions. And while the modern world has taken this away from us, uh, through constant stimulation, you could so easily get this back by rediscovering a few minutes of doing nothing outside each day. And the summer is an especially good time to do this So the third truly beneficial thing that happens when you get outside and do nothing for a few minutes is you start seeing more of your creativity return.

And one of the fascinating things about this default mode network that is responsible for, you know, kind of that mind-wandering period, that reflection period, is that it's also deeply connected to the process of creativity. So when your brain has space to reflect inwardly, it also has space to connect ideas that didn't seem connected before.

And researchers have found, um, consistently across multiple studies that periods of mind wandering and even periods of explicit boredom are associated with more creative thinking, which is super cool. In one study, participants who, uh, completed a, um... It was like an intentionally boring task, ended up performing better on a creative problem-solving exercise afterwards than those who didn't.

And when I say, uh, creativity, I don't just mean painting a picture, writing a novel, um, learning how to play a new song on an instrument. Creativity is one of the most practical skills that all of us use day to day. When I think of creativity and when the, the, the, the research gets into creativity, the type of creativity that we're talking about is figuring out a better way to approach a problem at work.

It's planning a fun weekend with the family. It's finding a way to, um, explain something to your child without them fully understanding the concept. It's navigating a difficult conversation with your spouse or, um, really at the end of the day, it's about being able to see possibilities in the face of challenges instead of just roadblocks in front of you.

In other words, creativity is really the ability to generate new ideas and new solutions, and that's something that all of us use every single day. Which makes me wonder, have we become so good at filling every empty moment that we've stopped giving our brains the space they need to make those types of creative connections?

Because so many of us recognize, and I'm sure this will resonate, that your best ideas don't happen in the shower because showers have magical powers, and we do tend to have a lot of good ideas in the shower or while driving quietly on roads that we know where our mind can wander. But instead they're happening because for 10 minutes your brain is finally free to wander.

No stimulation, no TV, no phone. You get that moment. We've experienced this, and sitting outside does the exact same thing for us. It's just not quite as forced as not bringing your phone into the shower And this brings us back to the bigger idea that we've been exploring together all summer. Walking, morning light, and now, uh, doing nothing outside, notice that none of these requires any sort of extraordinary effort.

Summer simply makes these things easier. We have longer evenings, warmer mornings. We have more reasons to be outside, and that's really the secondary lesson here. The best time to build a behavior isn't when it's the hardest, even though we seem to think that we get more out of things when they're difficult.

Instead, it's when the world around you is making it easy, when the world around you helps you towards these. So something I'd love for you to try this week, take 10 minutes, just 10 minutes this week, outside. No phone, no podcast, no agenda, no one to talk to. Just sit. Watch the clouds. Listen to the birds.

Feel the breeze, and remember what your brain begins to do when you finally stop asking it to do something. You start feeling your attention recover. Your mind starts to reflect more. Your creativity returns. Because nature isn't valuable because of what we accomplished there, that we hiked there, or that we got out and did X.

It's valuable because it's one of the conditions our brains evolved within. It gives your brain what it needs and what the modern world has taken away from it. It won't always be easy or pleasant, especially early on. You'll feel the uncomfortableness. You'll wanna check your phone. You'll want to do something, catch up on your to-dos.

But push through that because on the other side, you will find outsized returns. So thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you next time on Next Door Neuro.