Got 5 minutes?
Isn’t it amazing how many of us say we do, but yet so many of us get impatient within a mere 1-2 minutes after telling someone, “Yes, I do have 5 minutes for you”?
In the Information Age, we demand what we want when we want it, with a simple and effortless “click”……….or expect a voice from the other side of the continent, after pushing a small button with our thumbs.
It’s no wonder.
The fact is that most all of us in mainstream American society today, especially those of us working and/or parenting, the pace we live at has accelerated more in the last 10 years than it has it the last 1,000 years combined.
Many of us feel we barely have time to do something as elemental and sacred as eating – since we are so busy being “productive”.
So we hit the fast food drive-through window….gotta keep moving.
What’s the price of this radical speed in our lives?
One huge price is that is the despite the hyper-connectivity associated with communication technology, we have become disconnected with the dramatically slower natural pace of the natural world….the same natural world that formed us a species over hundreds of thousands of year.
That “old” pace has become completely foreign to most of us.
And as a result of this disconnection, we are suffering not just physically, which has been fairly well documented to date, but also mentally and emotionally.
Recently, science has begun to document that a mere 5 minute walk in a “green” natural setting, or even 5 minutes of simply being stationary in a natural setting yet interacting with Nature, has scientifically measurable positive effects on human attention span, memory, lucidity, and creativity.
This brief experience also stimulates elevated levels of dopamine and other “feel-good” endorphins in the mind and body…actually leading to feelings of higher “self-esteem”.
Furthermore, this “Nature break” measurably reduces the level of cortisol in your body…a hormone you really don’t want coursing through your system unless you are being chased by a lion.
Are you being chased by a lion called “technology”….almost every day……almost all day…..in the year 2010?
So … just for 5 minutes, “reject the pace” and go outside, and listen to the primal voice inside you.
Or are you too busy?http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100502080414.htm
