My daughter and I take to the river again on a hot afternoon stroll. We take off our shoes and wade into the currents. It’s amazing how much colder the water is if you stand in the fast moving flows compared with the wider, slower sections. Needless to say, we splash over toward burbling cascades by the rocks.
Here, tiny mayflies zip in and out of the shafts of sunlight. When you get your eye in you can trace their extraordinary collective flight-patterns. Like the river below them, they stream together, back and forth in formation. Whilst they are moving individually in a blur, relative to each other, they are virtually static.
It is only then that I notice that tentatively, as they hurtle about us, they inch ever closer to one another, pairing off into mating couples. I’m watching a dance. I’m watching little unions happening about me. And the sparks of new life that will kick off the cycle once again.
Tuning into the mayfly’s movement felt like tuning into a different radio frequency—a different strata of life that would normally be invisible to me. I wonder how many other parts of surrounding ecosystems we normally are unaware of?
Newsletter: About nature, mindfulness and happiness
Want to come for a walk? Join me as I explore the natural world and describe to you the fascinating things I find.
Slow down, escape your troubles, and let me whisk you away to somewhere calm…
I came upon this little patch of wilderness on my travels yesterday and was transfixed by the complexity of every level of life. In the distance, the fields and scrubland teemed with insects, wildflowers and birdsong. The air shimmered with the mid-afternoon heat.
Before me, the jutting trees, gnarled and grasping, created the ornate and chaotic structure of the in which I stood, supporting a soft penumbra of leaf and green light above my head. The bark was encrusted with lichen, and under this dry surface I imagined many litres of fluid and nutrient exchange, coursing to and from root and leaf, even in this dry weather.
Finally, amongst the undergrowth, a complex weave of grasses, buttercups, plantain and bogbean diffused the dappled sunlight and tree-shadows in mesmerising ways.
As I breathed in, the air felt heady with the scent of Queen Anne’s Lace herb and hawthorn blossom. I felt a deep sense of calm happiness.
Having recently learned about the benefits of practising the art of not rushing, I ambled onwards, excited at the thought of what other gifts today might bring.
Newsletter: About nature, mindfulness and happiness
Want to come for a walk? Join me as I explore the natural world and describe to you the fascinating things I find.
Slow down, escape your troubles, and let me whisk you away to somewhere calm…
How often do we sense that cold rise of stress wash over us when we feel hurried or late?
Maybe you’re trying to brush your teeth, tie your shoelaces and feed the dog all at the same time. Or frantically work through your to-do list, only for more tasks to fall into your lap at an impossible rate.
Stress arises when we’re faced with challenging situations. And time pressure is one of biggest culprits there is. A recent study revealed that 58% of adults feel they “don’t have enough time“—that they are constantly rushing around.
I think that’s the key—a perceived lack of time. If you feel pressed for time on a daily basis, then you’re probably experiencing time poverty, and it’s a huge problem in society.
I certainly feel the pressure. My own life is filled with an unending array of commitments and interdependent responsibilities that seem to arise from the very substrate of modern life and entangle like a devilish cat’s cradle. Wondering how much of our stress comes from genuine time poverty versus perceived time poverty, I decided to try an experiment:
Can I change my perception of time, so I don’t constantly feel like it’s running out?
I came across a study recently, in which two groups of volunteers were given the same tasks in the same amount of time. One group, however, was artificially made to feel more rushed. Unsurprisingly, those under greater perceived time pressure performed much worse and reported more stress.
In real life, we do this to ourselves without the aid of scientists. A cup of tea takes 3 minutes to make, but if I’m feeling hurried, I try to speed up the process until it feels like a Formula 1 pit-stop—and inevitably, I begin to cut corners.
When we feel rushed, we make mistakes. We take risks. Neurologically, we disengage our higher faculties and rely instead on ‘automatic thinking’—a kind of shortcut mechanism intended for emergencies. Humans become cognitively impaired in proportion to their stress. Which explains why I knock over the milk bottle and spill milk all over the counter, giving myself another ten minute chore.
Making a cup of tea is one thing, driving is something else altogether.
According to one survey, one in five of us admit to speeding at least once a week (it doesn’t say how many others looked sheepish). We’ve all felt the pressure of being late for work, praying to the traffic gods for green lights. But there’s also that other, constant background pressure—not to waste a single second, even on the way home.
My wife drives long distances for work, and has learned from experience that a 25-minute journey varies by no more than 2 minutes, despite how it feels when stuck behind a slow vehicle. She witnesses drivers overtaking on blind corners—only to be caught up minutes later along the road. This is because, over the long run, traffic defaults to the slowest common denominator. It’s why we’re much more likely to encounter a cyclist going uphill rather than downhill.
Our judgement becomes impaired when under time pressure, and cannot be trusted. So this past month, I tried to stop rushing, and see if it helped. To do this I made three simple changes:
Change One: I allowed more time before leaving the house. Actually mobilizing everyone five minutes earlier, to reduce that frantic, everything-needs-to-go-right pressure that makes driving miserable.
Change Two: I allowed myself more time per task. Like Scotty in Star Trek, I began doubling my time estimates. So much stress comes from underestimating how long things take. I made a concerted effort to manage expectations—my own and others’—more realistically.
Change Three: I deliberately slowed down. This was the hardest task of all. Sometimes, every fibre of my being wanted to rush on to the next thing. But since I knew that rushing doesn’t generally help, I kept telling myself: “it’s just perceived time pressure.“
The results? After a few weeks, my stress has dropped noticeably. I generally leave the house on time. When driving, I can enjoy the scenery, or have proper conversations with my girls. And if I get stuck behind a lorry? No problem.
Choosing not to rush feels liberating. Household chores stop feeling like wasted time. I’m more likely to see them as experiences in themselves—not just barriers to the “next thing.” And if plans don’t work out? Well, there’s always tomorrow.
That’s the keystone to this whole process: letting go of the myth that we must make every single second count. We can’t be 100% efficient. Trying to be is exhausting. Yes, we have complicated lives, but there is an upper ceiling to what we can do with our time.
Of course, some time pressure is unavoidable. But if you adopt this mindset, and manage expectations, you can reduce a big chunk of it—and I’m sure you’ll really feel the difference.
Give it a try and let me know what your experiences are—I love to hear back from my readers.
Newsletter: About nature, mindfulness and happiness
Want to come for a walk? Join me as I explore the natural world and describe to you the fascinating things I find.
Slow down, escape your troubles, and let me whisk you away to somewhere calm…
Here’s a photo I took yesterday, enjoying a gorgeous mid-May walk in the late afternoon sunshine
One of life’s simple joys is feeling the sun on your back and listening to the sound of gravel crunching underfoot as you wend your way along a country lane.
The blackthorn is in bloom. Milky- white bursts contrast pleasingly against the vigorous greens of fresh leaf. A robin hops along my path with such enthusiasm I’m convinced he must be using a pogo-stick.
Actually, this idyllic scenario is one of my lifelong fantasies: enjoying a summer afternoon along a leafy lane, warmed by a sense of utter contentment. The only difference is, in my daydream, I’ve reached that mythical destination in life, where all my woes have been vanquished, where I can breath a sigh of relief and finally enjoy life. That aspirational promised land of financial independence, personal growth and a CV of realised ambitions.
Silly, really, that I should put off feeling happy, when I can walk that gravel path whenever I choose.
There’s something magical about walking through a woodland glade. It doesn’t take much effort to still your mind and empty it of all your stresses and woes.
I could hear a chorus of early-evening birdsong, some of which I recognized – like old friends – and others that seemed mysterious and unfamiliar, piquing my interest. About me, everywhere, there was a criss-crossing of connections. Interactions on every level, not just the birdsong.
The air was suffused with message-carrying scents and instructions for making trees hidden inside invisible grains of pollen. Under my feet, I was aware there must be a knotted network of root and mycelium. And, breathing in this earthy air, I too felt a deep sense of peaceful connection.
Walk with me and experience another moment of my mindful journey – a temple of green.
Newsletter: About nature, mindfulness and happiness
Want to come for a walk? Join me as I explore the natural world and describe to you the fascinating things I find.
Slow down, escape your troubles, and let me whisk you away to somewhere calm…
We sit with our feet in the water, cooling down after a walk. The sound of the river, cascading over rocks, washes over us as well as the currents. Each leaf, an acoustic reflector. And the light, diffuse and green, bounces from leaf to ripple, to rock. It is a space alive with movement.
We stay, and chat, and replenish our spirits for nearly an hour. We’re not far from a medieval monastery, and we can easily imagine what it must have been like all those years ago, as the monks passed by. And when we leave, we take a part of this perfect place with us.
Newsletter: About nature, mindfulness and happiness
Want to come for a walk? Join me as I explore the natural world and describe to you the fascinating things I find.
Slow down, escape your troubles, and let me whisk you away to somewhere calm…
Why science says listening to the quieter half of your consciousness is so important.
Who are you, really? Who is the self that is currently reading these words (and hopefully thinking complimentary things about my informative newsletter!)? One way to answer this question is to look at the structure of the brain.
Our brains are split into two hemispheres—left and right—connected by only a few nerve bundles, the corpus callosum. The left hemisphere is language-driven, logical, and outward-facing. It forms the voice in your head, narrating your thoughts, putting intentions and concepts into words, and shaping your spoken self. If you’re like me, you might often see this voice as being the seat of your conscious self, but you’d be wrong. The right hemisphere—quieter, creative, more emotional—is just as vital, and just as conscious. It is the silent partner that’s often demoted to watching on from the sidelines as we stumble along through life.
The right side of the brain recognises faces, reads feelings in others, intuits, and visualises. It doesn’t use language the way the left does. It feels. It daydreams. It is the seat of imagination and emotional intelligence. And while it may not be verbose, it contributes just as much to who you are.
The trouble is, in a world that prioritises speech, writing, logic, computer coding and mathematics, the left hemisphere tends to dominate in many areas of our life. The verbal mind often speaks on behalf of the whole, even when it doesn’t fully understand the complexities of the situation that the other half can intuit. After all, the corpus callosum forms a kind of bottle-neck, throttling communication between the two halves. Sometimes, in stressful situations, we are required to reply or act before the right side of the brain has had a chance to contribute to the process.
In split-brain patients (those whose hemispheres have been surgically separated, to treat conditions such as extreme epilepsy), fascinating studies show that each hemisphere continues to function independently, with its own perceptions and goals. In essence, when the brain is split in half, two separate consciousnesses emerge, each with their own strengths, capabilities, and even political opinions.
In one such experiment, the right hemisphere was shown an image of an egg (by revealing the image to only one eye). The subjects—speaking from the left hemisphere—claimed to see nothing. Yet the hand controlled by their right hemisphere would quietly reach for an egg from an array of objects. When asked why, the verbal mind would fabricate a rationale that seemed to make sense—“it was a lucky guess”, or “I had an egg for breakfast”—when, in fact, it no idea where the impulse really came from. Which leads me to ask:
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I visited a rocky beach, and boulder after boulder was covered in barnacles, many of which were miniscule, baby barnacles. There must have been millions of them. I wondered, what is their experience of life? And how many of these tiny babies reach adulthood?
Barnacles are actually related to crabs and lobsters, and when they first hatch from their eggs, they swim around, shell-less, searching for a rock to call home.
Newsletter: About nature, mindfulness and happiness
Want to come for a walk? Join me as I explore the natural world and describe to you the fascinating things I find.
Slow down, escape your troubles, and let me whisk you away to somewhere calm…
My daily mindful postcard: This image was taken as I walked along the river path, listening to the pitter-patter of raindrops all about me, drumming every leaf.
I try to clear my thoughts and be fully present in the moment. The fresh, earthy scents percolate my awareness.
My gaze falls upon a single broom flower as it patiently waits for a bee to find it. There are no bees about today. And somehow, in the rain, this fragile, fleeting form seems so poignant.
Newsletter: About nature, mindfulness and happiness
Want to come for a walk? Join me as I explore the natural world and describe to you the fascinating things I find.
Slow down, escape your troubles, and let me whisk you away to somewhere calm…
I’m always being told that I’m a worrier. I spend an inordinate amount of time fretting about this and that. Rehashing old conversations, angsting over upcoming commitments. But then I heard about this fact and it put things into perspective. Hopefully, you’ll find this as useful as I did.
A study from Cornell University found that a whopping 85% of our worries never actually materialise. And of those that do come to pass, 79% of the time, people report that they handled the experience better than expected, or that it was not nearly as bad as they had feared.
In other words, only 3% of our worries ever materialise in the way that we fear.
That really hit home with me. How many pointless hours have I squandered, worrying about something that never happens? In fact, studies have shown that the average amount of time we spend worrying each week is about 13 hours.
Whilst it’s easy to suggest simply switching off the internal commentary of our worries, doing it is another matter. But just knowing that only 3% of our worries will actually transpire can be a powerful talisman to carry with you into your day.
It reminds me of when my daughters were little and I used to fret about the various ways they could hurt themselves. One day I decided to arm myself with the facts, and researched the actuarial data insurance companies use to assess risk. I found that the occurrence of various accidents, per 1000 infants was vanishingly small in many instances, and this drove home the point to me that I was guilty of blowing my worries out of all proportion.
So next time you find yourself fretting about the next disaster that will inevitably befall you, try reminding yourself that 97% of the time, things are going to turn out just fine.
And hopefully, we can all spend a little less time fretting, and a little more time enjoying the moment.
Let me know in the comments: What things do you worry about most? And how often do your worries comes true?
Newsletter: About nature, mindfulness and happiness
Want to come for a walk? Join me as I explore the natural world and describe to you the fascinating things I find.
Slow down, escape your troubles, and let me whisk you away to somewhere calm…
Most of us have been guilty of ‘doom-scrolling’ at one point or another, but consuming too much bad news can cause very real mental health issues. Psychologists recognize conditions such as ‘eco-anxiety’ as a very real and growing issue, because people everywhere are feeling overwhelmed, powerless or hopeless after consuming too much news about climate change, species extinction, pollution, and ecological collapse.
So we can be forgiven for thinking, like so many generations throughout history, that the state of the world has never been so dire, and that it is approaching an existential brink. But the underlying facts paint a very different picture—one that gives us plenty of reasons to be hopeful.
For example, humans are often described as the most violent species on earth. Our capacity for war and cruelty is undeniable, but the hard data tells a more nuanced story. For primates, the average number of individuals killed by their own species is around 2%—you might think of this as a genetically-endowed baseline. During the Middle Ages, this figure for humans was around 12% (a time of superstition and hostility to rationality and science)—but since the Renaissance, this number has decreased to a global average of 1.3%. And in the safest, most stable societies, this number can be as low as 0.01%.
Year on year, we find better, evidenced-based ways of cooperating, using centuries of painstaking learning to find alternatives to the zero-sum game of ‘might-is-right’.
In his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, psychologist Steven Pinker argues that we are living in the most peaceful era of human history. He attributes this decline in violence to factors such as the rise of centralized governments, increased literacy, and the spread of values that emphasize human rights and empathy. He says:
“The decline of violence may be the most significant and least appreciated development in the history of our species.”
Indeed, as a general trend, armies globally are shrinking. And nuclear weapons have de-escalated from their peak in the 1960’s from 60,000 warheads down to 10,000 today, and continue to fall.
And it’s not just in warfare that we see changes. In 1820, 43% of children, globally, died before the age of five. Today, that figure is 3.7% and continues to fall year on year. In 1983, 42% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. Today that figure is around 9% and falling.
In 1985, 37% of the world lived in a democracy. Now it’s over 50%. And with advances such as human rights, votes for women, better access to education, health and information, comes greater cooperation, tolerance and living standards. In other words:
Bad news sells because it is shocking and immediate. Good news is often incremental, nuanced, or goes unnoticed, but—over time—is the more powerful force.
But what about the natural world? If you’re like me, when asked about whale populations, the first thing that comes to mind are the shocking images of whaling ships and skinned carcasses that have been seared into my memory. Indeed, humpback whales were hunted to the point where they numbered less than 10,000. But following international cooperation of an unprecedented kind, humans, as a species, banned whaling. Now, slowly and quietly, humpbacks have recovered to pre-industrial numbers. Today, their population is estimated at around 135,000–that’s more than there were in the year 1500.
And there are thousands of other stories like these.
We’ve all seen the upsetting images of industrial deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. We are not, however, regularly shown footage of trees growing, quietly in other parts of the world. But the data shows that from 1982 to 2016, global tree cover has actually expanded, by around 6%, due to global tree-planting initiatives, and people continuing to relocate to cities, leaving large swathes of land to be reclaimed by natural forest. That doesn’t mean there isn’t lots of work to be done in terms of the environment, or that the felling of ancient rainforests isn’t a travesty, but we can be heartened from the fact that it isn’t all doom and gloom.
This image from Nature shows tree cover increased across many regions globally between 2000 and 2021
Every year there are more than 9000 international conferences. People everywhere are coming together—often out of the spotlight—combining their expertise to find solutions to our biggest problems. Politicians, scientists, engineers, activists, angel investors, business leaders. A new treaty is signed here, a new initiative started there. And after a brief mention on the news these gigantic worldwide efforts—such as a 7000-mile green corridor to stop Sahara desertification—largely go unnoticed. But under the surface, things generally are getting better, all the time.
We all know the problems society and the world at large faces. Environmental, societal, economic and civil liberties. And yes, the last few years have brought more conflict, and more uncertainty. But it’s important to balance that stream of bad news with knowledge about the good things that are happening, and that the overall trend is a positive one.
For those times when the state of the world is getting you down, two books I highly recommend reading are Beautiful News, by David McCandless, and Not the End of The World by Hannah Ritchie.
Habit change: If there’s one change you can make to boost your overall happiness, it might be to restrict your daily news intake to perhaps once a week. A Sunday paper, or equivalent, for example. Believe me, you can still be just as informed about the most important current events, without having to consume the oft-repetitive coverage as it unfolds.
Since we know that news skews generally towards the negative, and that news outlets and social media expertly tap into our sense of outrage and anxiety, perhaps we can redress this imbalance by dedicating much of the time we spend doom-scrolling and instead commit to reading books that collate those less sensational, but more positive stories that are unfolding constantly, behind the scenes.
Reasons to feel happy… Though it may not always feel like it, the fact is that for a human beings in general, we are living in the safest, most enlightened period of time so far. Women’s rights, life expectancy, medicine, education, living standards, knowledge, legislation to protect minorities, awareness of our impact on the environment—globally, these are at an all time high, and continue to improve as society progresses.
Yes, the current rise of anti-science populism may be causing schisms and uncertainty, but there are good people, all over the world, pulling together to continue to solve the problems that face us. It might not get always on the evening news, but be happy in the knowledge that it’s happening.
Science-backed ways to be happier…
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Modern life is a complicated mess. Sometimes it feels like we’re being asked to control a runaway train. We tackle one problem, only for two more to take its place. We look to our neighbours and colleagues and see them tearing their hair out too, and we begin to accept that constant stress is just an inevitable part of life. But not so.
Granted, there are some stresses that are simply unavoidable—illness, loss, unexpected hardship, putting food on the table, life-shaping events outside our control. But a surprising amount of our suffering comes from the choices we make; from things we willingly enter into. The job we accepted. The goals we set. The commitments we agreed to. The abstract standards we hold ourselves to. That judgemental person inside our head that never shuts up.
Each month, millions of people log online and ask, “How can I feel less stressed?” I think what they actually mean is, “How can I feel less stressed without changing anything?” But here’s the crux: if your life is stressful, then feeling less stressed may really require changing how you live.
Yes, there are many skills you can learn in order to cope with stressful situations—mindfulness, meditation, mental fortitude, etc (all of which I use myself)—but these will always, always have their limitations.
If you really want to start reducing the stress in your life, we need to take some advice from the world of marshal arts. When it comes to physical combat, the golden rule of self defence is:
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We often defer happiness—telling ourselves it’ll arrive after the next goal, the next purchase, the next promotion. But each time we get there, the feeling of satisfaction is often fleeting. And then the cycle begins again.
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Unwind and catch your breath as I take you with me on my walks and adventures into nature.
I also chat about mindfulness, well-being and finding meaning in modern life, if you’re looking for a quiet place to escape your day, then this is the place for you.
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About me
Hi! I’m James. I love taking walks in nature, and thinking about life’s big questions. I started this blog so I could share my adventures, and connect with like-minded people.
I’ve spent much of my life contemplating—about the universe, philosophy, spirituality and the meaning of life. It gives me great pleasure to put these thoughts into words, in the form of articles and essays; and it’s my hope that you too will gain some pleasure from reading them.
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Here are a few of the books I’ve have been reading recently that I’d recommend:
Life 3.0
Max Tegmark
A mind-opening book about the various philosophical possibilities that the advent of AI presents to our world in the coming years, including an investigation into what constitutes a mind.
The Book of Minds
By Philip Ball
A fascinating scientific and philosophical investigation into what it means to have a mind, and just how different that experience can be – whether it is the mind of an insect, a human or some alien or artificial intelligence.
The Old Ways
By Robert Macfarlane
A beautifully written account of what it’s like to follow the ancient walking paths and routes across the British countryside and coast.
The Hidden Life of Trees
By Peter Wohlleben
A beautifully insightful exploration into the complex and mysterious nature of trees. What they feel, how they communicate, and how they contribute to a forest’s Wood-Wide Web.
The Bells of Old Tokyo
By Anna Sherman
A travel book that describes Anna’s quest to understand Tokyo’s complex cultural tapestry by visiting the ancient ceremonial bells that lie hidden throughout he city.
The Book of Chuang Tzu
Translated by Martin Palmer and Elizabeth Breuilly
A book that gathers together the stories, tales and teachings of one of the great founders of Taoism, Chaung Tzu – one of the most fascinating of the Chinese philosophers.
For an exhaustive list of books relating to the topics covered here (including several free-to-download books), please visit the Member’s Library…
