Not everything has to be productive. Striving for a successful, efficient, and effective life can cause us to forget that. We live in an age of maximized productivity. We’ve created an entire culture around streamlining our lives in order to make time last as long as it can, to get the most done, and create the most meaning. Sometimes, we just have to chill. We have to take a day or two of rest to be absolute couch potatoes and do a whole bunch of nothing. Filling our schedules to the point of being frantically busy, however well organized and productive that business may be, leads us to burnout. We likely experience burnout a couple of times a day when we take that much needed break and dive into mindless scrolling on our phones. Photos, videos, apps, stocks, emails, social media news feeds- whatever manifests across the blue light stimulates our brains in a sedative way.
Numbing Out
What if we spent our leisure time with our screens helping ourselves more than just numbing ourselves out? Scientific research has proven that being in, near, or even imaginably close by a green or blue space of nature has a long list of benefits. Screens and a connection to the internet give us access to explore the world. Travel and adventure are good for the mind, body, spirit, and soul. Thanks to ultra high quality video, we have the capacity to take a trip anywhere in the world, one video at a time. Research suggests that watching documentaries about nature, adventure, and travel, have some of the same benefits as the experiential immersions themselves. Additionally, they inspire more motivation, bigger ideas about the world, and foster a greater sense of empathy born from curiosity.
Try subscribing to channels of adventurers who are exploring new cultures around the world. Catch up on Planet Earth, Blue Planet and other fascinating documentaries about the earth. Watch Cosmos and series about space exploration. Dive deep into the ocean with oceanography. What is possible for you on your phone is possible for you in real life. Once you start creating the memory base for the images you could see in the world and the exhilaration you feel it would give you, your brain is already changing. Compare that to a mindless scroll through social media and it’s truly a no-brainer.
LEAD Recovery Center aims to inspire and equip each client to become explorers of their external world as well as their internal world. Our extended care programs are for men and women wishing to build a healthy and balanced lifestyle of recovery from addiction and dual diagnosis issues. For more information, call us today at 800-380-0012.
