Simple Ways To Spend More Time Outdoors

Karishma Sen | May 25, 2023

Nature is considered the ultimate healer, but we humans are spending less time outdoors in our up-to-the-minute, fast-paced way of life. Did you know, we spend 90-95 per cent of our day, indoors? Think about it, apart from the few minutes it takes us to get to our cars or the preferred mode of transport we are always indoors – at home, the office, restaurants, the gym, and the movie theatre, everything we do for recreation is also indoors.

Numerous studies have revealed the positive effects of nature and the surrounding environment on mental and physical well-being. It also helps relieve stress and anxiety; boosts our immune system, creativity, and focus; and teaches us to live more in the present. Paediatric Behavioural Psychologist, Parul Ketkar highlight that three decades of being a practising psychologist has shown connecting with nature provides children as well as adults opportunities for recreation, mindfulness, personal development, social relations, and shared experiences. “There’s a reason why opening a window and taking a big, deep breath of fresh air brings you a sense of relief on a bad day. Oxygen fills your lungs, natural light hits your face, and your body relaxes,” said Ketkar. “Venturing outside can encourage you to live in the moment- notice the little wonders of life and appreciate the environment around you,” she added.

According to Ketkar, in today’s day and age, if you want to spend more time in the outdoors, you need to make a conscious effort to go back to living a simple tech-free life for a minimum of 120 minutes a week.

Here are tried and tested strategies that can serve as inspiration and incentive, or at least a little nudge in the right direction, hopefully, that’s outside:

Integrate Nature Indoors That Can Help As A Motivator

Switching up your indoor decor helps serve as a motivation. If you spend majority of your day in the office, you might want to try:

• Adding indoor plants

• Using furniture made of natural materials, such as wood

• Letting in as much sunlight as possible

• Hanging pictures and artwork of natural places

Start Early Morning

Try spending some time outside first thing in the morning. As a woman, 24 hours is not enough and you may have negligible moments for yourself throughout the day. However, try and squeeze in 10-15 minutes of outdoor time in the wee hours of the day – start your morning with sunshine. Take a walk, do stretches or simply sit in the balcony taking in nature’s love.

Make Spending Time Outdoors A Part Of Your Schedule

As yourself, what are some of the things you do every day that can be avoided? Netflix? doom scrolling on your phone? If you’re doing these, but you can’t find few minutes to get outside and spend time with yourself and nature, that means you’re not prioritising it.

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