6 Tips to Enrich Your Next Outdoor Excursion
While we might get out to enjoy the great outdoors, we might not fully benefit everything nature has to offer due to feeling rushed or being distracted by our phones. Maybe even due to a disability.
In this quick outdoor guide, I’m giving you 6 of my tips to hopefully enrich your next outdoor excursion.
Like exercise or taking time for ourselves, enjoying the outdoors might be one of those things that gets pushed to the bottom of the list on our busy days. Or even because we aren’t as comfortable with the outdoors as we would like. That’s ok!
Schedule a day & time
The first thing we need to do is to schedule a time to step outside. Whether for ½ hour, an hour, early morning or mid-afternoon. Whatever your schedule might allow. This is your time away to get away from it all to experience some down time.
Pick a place
When you choose a place, think about where you might feel most at peace. A forested trail? The beach? A park bench? A local garden?
Once you’ve thought about that, enter the date, time, and place into your phone and treat it as if it were an important meeting. Block off time in your calendar and leave the to-do’s for when you return.
Choose your experience
I prefer to venture outdoors alone with my dog because it’s where I get the most mental rest. I don’t have to converse with anyone and I can be with my own thoughts.
(A true introvert, I admit.)
However, this may cause anxiety for some which is perfectly ok. In this case, I would recommend choosing someone to go with that would equally enjoy the experience of being outdoors and ready to explore.
Enter “Do Not Disturb” mode
When the day & time rolls around, avoid disruption at all cost. Close your email and put your phone on silent. This time is sacred and strictly for you!
Don’t worry. Those to-do’s aren’t going anywhere! Nor is anything else. It will be there when you return.
The only time I would recommend touching your phone, is if you found something really cool you’d like to document and share…when you return home! Avoid sharing or posting to social media during this time as it will only lead to distraction. And leave the podcasts for another time.
Stop & use your senses
Stop as many times as you’d like along your journey and use your senses to absorb the things around you.
Look around to see what you can see.
Close your eyes and identify how many things you can hear and smell. Breathe deeply.
Smell the flowers and see what other scents you can pick up in the air. The ocean? The pine trees? Roses from afar? Closing your eyes helps here too.
Touch the grass, tree bark, leaves, moss, and anything you’re familiar with.
Never taste or eat anything you find, unless you’re an experienced forager.
Get down, look high
Most often when walking somewhere, we look where we want to go and anything that pops into our peripheral vision.
However, what can we see when we look up? How many birds are flying above us?
What can we see when we look down low? How many mushroom varieties, small flowers, or bugs can you find?
BONUS TIP: Repeat daily
Building this into our daily routines is a sure-fire way to switch the pace up in our busy lives and find some time to disconnect. It might even spark a new idea or help us process some heavy feelings we’ve been carrying around.
DOUBLE BONUS TIP: Leave it better than you found it
Sometimes I like to pick up things I know are not meant to be in nature; A soda can, a garbage bag, a poop bag. Just be sure to wash up when returning home or bring some sanitary wipes with you.
While it might not be “our” mess, we can do our part in leaving it better than we found it and feel great about it in the process. Hopefully it’ll inspire others to do the same.
The strategy behind being more mindful about our outdoor time, however often we can go, is to ensure we can fully reap all the benefits from it. Rather than plowing through a walk at lunch time, you’re slowing down your day, relieving some stress, and truly appreciating nature’s beauty along the way.