Monty's Wire

Understanding the Power of Nature.

I didn’t catch any Pokémon tonight but this was my view and I felt inspired to write.

How many times have you got to the end of a long day and just wanted to eat some food, watch something mindless on television and just basically do nothing? Rhetorical question, and I think I know the answer for most people. Tonight I got inspired to touch on an interesting theory that I learned about last week for the first time and one that I wanted to share with the world as I think it can be of positive benefit to us all.

Much has been written in the past few weeks about how Pokémon Go has got people out of their seats and out to the streets and parks looking for the rarest Pokémon. (That’s a sentence I never thought I’d write). I absolutely commend the clever people behind this idea as it encourages people to get up and move. However, what I find challenging in this is that people are still head down in their screen, not taking in the beautiful world we live in whether that be in a park, forest, lake or ocean..

Here’s where the science comes in. Attention Restoration Theory (ART) suggests that your ability to concentrate can increase spending more time in nature. Put simply, nature can rejuvenate your mind. Marc Berman studied how a 50-minute walk in a park can have a 20% improvement in short term memory tests taken shortly afterwards. Conversely walking in an urban environment showed very little improvement in memory capacity & concentration.

Professor Stephen Kaplan pioneered this work in back the 70’s, but in a world of increased urbanization & mobile phone / laptop consumption this work seems so important today. Science is somehow telling us that natural environments slowly, subtly asks for our attention, maybe better described as ‘fascination’, giving the part of our brain required for direct focus and attention time to recover. Interestingly, Kaplan also argued that people’s overall mood improved and quality of life became better as a result of time in nature.

So to summarize, it’s a great thing to get off your ‘backside’ and go for a walk in the park. The benefits may be wider than you realized. If you are out there catching Pokémon, I won’t knock you, for sure that’s a good start. But, try to lift up your head and take in the beautiful nature around you, it might help as it did with me this evening to write this article.

As always, let me know your thoughts & comments!

#movenow

For more information on ART;

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/marc-berman/attention-restoration-theory-nature_b_1242261.html

What is preventing us from being more physically active? The findings:

Before we get started, I wanted to acknowledge that it was the first time I’d put a question out there for feedback and was overwhelmed with the positive responses. So I wanted to say a MASSIVE thank you to everyone who shared their valuable thoughts and insights on this topic. Below is a compilation of the key themes that were shared in order to capture the insights in order for us to some way get closer to understanding the opportunity.

1. Trust & Safety, a belief that adult sensitivity around letting kids out of their site is only increasing as we hear more and more awful stories in the media.
2. Importance of pro-active parents. Kids model what they see from such an early age, so if the parents are not providing an active environment or backdrop, then children are less likely to adopt this in to their life. Many parents go to the gym during lunch break at work, of course children don’t have visibility to this.
3. Having a motivator. We all see empty courts and playgrounds all around us. Facilities are there, but where is the external or internal motivation to get out and use these spaces?
4. Structure and quality around children’s sport doesn’t exist for everyone, and low pay for coaches at this level is a reality. In turn, this doesn’t attract the best coaches or mentors and therefore create the best positive experience of sport and physical activity at a young age.
5. Putting people in groups early in their life. You’re either sporty or not. This is a huge mistake! It discourages such a large group of people from feeling confident or feeling like they ever could be good at a sport.
6. Huge opportunity to nurture and reward the action of getting active. This seems to happen within formal sports clubs, but not broadly.
7. Trend towards ‘convenient’ fitness. 5 a side, or quick fix workouts. Don’t get me wrong, in this instance it is great that people are moving at all, but I’m wondering if it is like putting a plaster on a cut rather than going to the issue.
8. People’s consumption of sport is happening through watching on TV more and more as opposed to participating themselves. The role of sport in their lives is essentially through sitting and watching versus participation.

One interesting analogy to think about to try and make sense of this, is that idea of when you learn to drive a car for the first time. It feels uncomfortable; you need someone (the driving instructor) there to help give you the confidence to get started and coach you through those first steps. You’re not even sure where the key goes and you start to worry about what comes next. Eventually, through some coaching, you get the car up and running and you sit in neutral for a minute to calm the nerves. Then you go. Once you’re up and running you’re confidence builds, and despite some speed bumps and emergency stops on the way you’re all but good. Once you pass the test, you get a pat on the back and give everyone a high five. Your reward is freedom and independence in the world!

Based on what I’ve learned so far, it seems to me that you can draw many comparisons between learning to drive and with the barriers to sport and being physically active. Having someone there modeling, coaching you from the start is key. Giving you that confidence to start something new. Getting started is the toughest part, but you need someone there to keep you going, helping and guiding you through new challenges. At the end of countless tough sessions, but numerous obstacles, having a reward, someone to tell you well done, that the effort was worth it is a huge motivator for us all. Without internal or external reinforcement or positive feedback after we succeed, I think it is tough for most people to justify the struggle.

Please share your thoughts on this, we can all make positive change and can impact the world we live from tomorrow!

#movenow

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