Field Notes
Short, research-backed notes on walking, attention and urban nature.
If Saturday goes to the sofa just to get you back to zero, move some of that rest into the week. One Stride on your hardest workday is a good place to start.
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Bare trees and dark by five make it tempting to stay in. A 15-minute winter walk still lifts mood, and morning daylight does more for you in winter than in any other season.
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People who feel part of nature tend to be happier, and that feeling can be grown in two weeks with one small daily habit. The habit is noticing. A walk simply gives you the most to notice.
Stuck on a problem? Time outside helps most when you stop working on it. Here is why a quiet walk somewhere green gets ideas moving, and what kills the effect.
You are going out anyway. A short instruction in your ear, like finding the oldest thing on the block, makes the same walk do more for your attention and mood. That is the whole idea behind Strides. Here is the research, and where it stops.
Take the open questions on foot and keep the decisions at the table. Walking makes people about 60 percent more inventive, and a little worse at narrowing things down. Here is how I run mine.
A 15-minute walk in a park at lunch leaves you sharper and less tired through the afternoon. No calls, no work talk. Here is the version that was tested on office workers, and how to copy it.
Street trees, a pocket park and a river path all lower stress in ways you can measure. No wilderness required. Here is how much green counts, and where in New York to find it.
When a thought will not finish, a long walk somewhere green can break the loop. Here is what that looks like in the brain, how long it takes, and the one way to do it wrong.
One 15-minute walk a week with a single instruction, look for what surprises you, lifted people's mood over two months. It costs nothing, and a city delivers it as well as a forest.
20 minutes outside, sitting or walking, is enough to bring your stress hormones down. Here is why that number, what walking adds on top, and how to fit it into a bad day.
Two hours a week in nature is where health and wellbeing start to lift, and it can be four short visits or one long one. Here is how to reach it without changing your life.
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