Sit outside

October 6th, 2025

There's something different about the thoughts you have when you're sitting outside. They're clearer. They connect in ways that don't happen when you're indoors staring at a screen. It's not magic. It's biology.

For most of human existence, "outside" was just called "where you live." There was no inside. Your ancestors spent their entire lives under open sky. They woke up outside. They solved problems outside. They thought, planned, and dreamed outside. Your brain evolved to do its best work in natural environments because that's the only environment it knew.

When you're inside, especially in modern buildings, you're in a sensory deprivation chamber compared to what your brain expects. Flat walls. Artificial light. Recycled air. No wind. No birdsong. No rustling leaves. No shifting clouds. Your brain registers all of this as "wrong" on a subconscious level. You might not consciously notice it, but your body does. Cortisol stays slightly elevated. Your nervous system stays slightly on guard. You're never fully relaxed.

Outside reverses this. Natural light tells your brain it's daytime. Wind on your skin confirms you're in a safe, open space. Birdsong signals there are no predators nearby (birds go quiet when there's danger). The variability of natural sounds (wind, insects, distant traffic) is processed by your brain as background noise, which actually helps focus. Contrast this with the silence of a room or the constant hum of air conditioning. Those aren't natural. Your brain finds them either too quiet (hypervigilance) or too monotonous (mental fatigue).

Why thinking matters:

Thinking is the most underrated activity of modern life. We've confused being busy with being productive. We've confused consuming information with understanding it. Most people go days without actually sitting down and thinking through a problem, a decision, or even just their own life.

We're drowning in consumption. Podcasts on the commute. Articles during lunch. Videos in the evening. Social media in every spare moment. We're taking in information constantly, but we never stop to process any of it. There's always more content waiting. Another thread to read. Another video to watch. Another podcast episode queued up. The consumption never ends, so the reflection never begins.

This is the real cost of infinite content. It's not just that we're wasting time. It's that we're filling every gap in our day, every moment of potential silence, with more input. And when your brain is always in input mode, it never switches to processing mode. You're stuffing information in but never digesting it. You know things but you haven't thought about them. You've consumed ideas but you haven't made them yours.

Think about how learning actually works. You read something. Then you sit with it. You turn it over in your mind. You connect it to what you already know. You question it. You apply it to your own life. That's how information becomes understanding. But if you read something and immediately scroll to the next thing, that process never happens. The information just sits there, unprocessed, forgotten by tomorrow.

The same goes for your own life. When do you actually think about what you're doing, where you're going, whether you're happy? Most people don't. They're too busy consuming other people's thoughts, other people's lives, other people's problems. They watch videos about productivity instead of thinking about their own priorities. They read threads about finding purpose instead of sitting with the question themselves. The consumption becomes a substitute for the thinking, and it's a very poor substitute.

But thinking is how you solve problems. It's how you figure out what you want. It's how you make sense of the world. And it requires space. Not physical space (though that helps). Mental space. Silence. Time. You can't think deeply when you're scrolling, when notifications are pinging, when your brain is in reactive mode. You need to step away from the noise.

Your ancestors didn't have this problem. They had hours of enforced thinking time built into their lives. Walking to the next camp. Sitting by a fire. Watching the horizon for game. Waiting. Observing. Processing. These weren't distractions from life. They were integral to survival. You can't hunt effectively without understanding animal behaviour. You can't navigate without studying the land. You can't cooperate with your tribe without thinking through social dynamics.

Modern life has eliminated these forcing functions. You can go from bed to phone to car to desk to screen to bed without a single moment of unstructured thought. Your brain never gets a chance to consolidate information, connect ideas, or process emotions. You accumulate mental clutter the same way a room accumulates physical clutter when you never clean it. Except the clutter in your head is worse because you can't see it, so you don't realise how much it's weighing you down.

Sitting outside is the reset. It's not that nature magically makes you smarter. It's that nature removes the barriers that prevent you from thinking clearly. Your nervous system calms down. Your attention isn't being pulled in twelve directions. You're not being advertised to. You're not being stimulated. You're just... there. And in that space, your brain can finally do what it does best: think.

What happens when you sit outside:

You notice things. A bird lands on a branch. A cloud moves. A breeze picks up. These aren't distractions. They're what your brain is designed to process. Pattern recognition. Movement. Change. These are the inputs that kept your ancestors alive, and your brain still craves them.

But here's the key: because these inputs are gentle and non-threatening, they don't hijack your attention. They just give your brain something to anchor to while your deeper thoughts unfold in the background. It's the cognitive equivalent of a screensaver. Your brain is active but not overwhelmed.

You'll find yourself thinking about things you've been avoiding. A decision you need to make. A conversation you need to have. A problem at work that's been nagging you. These thoughts surface because you've finally created the conditions for them to emerge. They were always there. You just couldn't access them through the noise.

You'll also notice ideas start connecting. Something you read last week links up with something you experienced yesterday. A solution to a problem appears out of nowhere. This is your brain doing what psychologists call "diffuse mode thinking." When you're focused on a task, your brain uses a narrow, concentrated spotlight. When you're relaxed and your mind is wandering, that spotlight becomes a floodlight. You see connections you missed before. You notice patterns. You have insights.

This is why people have their best ideas in the shower, on walks, or lying in bed. Those are the rare moments when modern people allow their brains to wander. Sitting outside is the same thing, but better, because you're in the environment your brain evolved to think in.

The attention restoration theory:

There's actual research on this. Psychologists call it "attention restoration theory." The idea is that modern life exhausts your directed attention (the focus you use for work, screens, conversations). Natural environments restore it. Looking at a tree doesn't require effort. Your brain processes it automatically. This gives your prefrontal cortex (the part that does conscious thinking) a break. When you return to a task after spending time in nature, you perform better. You think more clearly. You're less mentally fatigued.

Studies have shown that even short periods outside (20 minutes) measurably improve cognitive function, memory, and mood. People who spend more time in natural environments report lower stress, better sleep, and higher overall life satisfaction. This isn't just correlation. It's a direct biological response to being in the environment your body expects.

You don't need a forest:

You don't need to go to a mountain or a beach. A backyard works. A park works. A bench on a street with some trees works. The point isn't to be in pristine wilderness. The point is to be outside, away from screens, under open sky, with natural light and air.

Even five minutes helps. Seriously. Go outside right now. Sit on a step. Look at the sky. Notice how you feel. You don't need to meditate. You don't need to do breathing exercises. Just sit. Let your brain adjust. Let your thoughts come. Don't force anything. Just be there.

You'll notice the difference immediately. Your shoulders will drop. Your breathing will deepen. Your mind will start to wander. And in that wandering, you'll find clarity.

Make it a habit:

The problem is that nobody does this consistently. We know it helps. We know it feels good. But we don't prioritise it because it doesn't feel productive. There's no immediate output. You're not checking a box. You're not completing a task. You're just... sitting.

But that's the point. Thinking is the task. Clarity is the output. And you can't get either if you never create the space for them. So make it a habit. Every morning. Every evening. Whenever you feel stuck. Go outside. Sit. Think. Or don't think. Just let your brain exist in the environment it was designed for.

You'll be amazed at how much better you think. How much calmer you feel. How many problems solve themselves when you stop trying to force solutions and just let your brain work the way it's meant to.

Sit outside. Your brain will thank you for it.

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