by Cloudgazer Emily
Well, we’re aren’t going to give away all our secrets just yet, but a few of them are easily accessible, well documented and super sharable. Today we will look at the most often called upon and well researched of them: go outside. Preferably somewhere with green space, but that isn’t totally essential. A view of water, rocks, the sky, or a heathered mountain or tundra will achieve the same effect.
Creatives living in urban areas can get the benefits of the outdoors even in built up areas. Cloud Gazer Jess frequently takes a walk to Sugar Beach in her home of Toronto, Ontario. This industrial area has a great view of the water of Lake Ontario and a sculpted beach area for city dwellers to relax. Another place she often goes is the Brewery District, a brick and cobble complex of historical importance to the city, but hardly rife with green things! But the connection of building material to sky and to the artistic elements that have been placed there give a boost to the creative juices nonetheless. Cloud Gazer Emily lives within walking distance of a World Heritage site, the Rideau Canal in Eastern Ontario. Her most frequent excursion for exercise, fresh air and to free up the mind is to walk down to the basin and walk alongside the water under acacia trees and willows. No matter where you are, you can seek and find a small piece of nature for yourself.
Being outdoors with nature, sky and animal life is a proven block remover. But why? What is going on in our odd little brain boxes that being outside a home or work place is a way to overcome creative stuckness!?
We can look to Indigenous peoples to understand some of what is happening to us in terms of learning and growing in connection with the land. In Canada there is a growing movement to both introduce and integrate land based teachings into the curriculum for students. In her paper “The Land is Healer” researching land based healing practices, Jennifer Redvers says of land based teachings:
“Land-based practices are centered in Indigenous pedagogy and recognize that cultural identity is interwoven with and connected to ‘land.’ Directly cultivating this fundamental relationship, as assessed through a culturally relevant lens, increases positive mental health and wellness outcomes in Indigenous populations.”
Not only Indigenous peoples have that connection. Every human has genetic material influenced by the embedded memory of the outdoors and the ways of living we used to share. We have evolved into urban dwellers yes, but we have not changed so much that we cannot yearn for the connection to the world that existed before our creativity turned it into a technological marvel. If being outside improves mental health ( which it does), then it will improve our ability to solve problems. A study by a sports medicine journal in British Columbia found that just 25 minutes in a green space gives your brain enough relaxation to support improved creative function in the brain.
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/49/4/272?sid=56b97a4c-0e75-46d0-a6ba-41c7f41a089c. Richard Louv, writer of Last Child in the Woods, is a vocal proponent of ‘Vitamin N’, the aspect of nature that fuels our bodies in ways we can’t quite document. His work on being in nature noted that being outdoors improves attention, hence the ability to problem solve more efficiently.
http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/
We need to give our brains that time to relax, to be away from the screens and the artificial noises and the man made world for it to recharge itself, and it doesn’t have to be for long!
Today, give yourself a break from the world and find a nature space. A fountain in a courtyard, a patch of weeds on a building site, a square of sky and clouds, a windswept moor or rain soaked jungle; it doesn’t matter. Take 10 minutes today. Tomorrow, make it 20 minutes. When you are stuck at that incredibly frustrating wall and can’t find your way over; take two 20 minute outdoor breaks, Then let us know what happened?! How did you feel? Did you get any further in your project? What were your results?
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