Nature | Ascension Lifestyle

22 Jan 2025
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Walking This Many Minutes Per Day Could Add Years To Your Life, Recent Study Says

Walking has seen a surge in popularity over the past few years, thanks to a slew of research that’s found that it’s great for your overall health and longevity. Now, another study has found that you don’t need to log several miles to reap the benefits of walking. Instead, just a few minutes a day could provide a serious boost for your overall health.

So, what’s the deal with this study and why is walking so good for you? Here’s what we know.

What did the study find?

The meta-analysis, which was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, analyzed data from 196 peer-reviewed articles that involved more than 30 million people. The researchers specifically looked at the link between the participants’ physical activity and health.

After crunching the data, the researchers discovered that people who logged 75 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise (which includes brisk walking) per week had a 23 percent lower risk of early death.

When the study authors broke that down even more, they found that 75 minutes a week of moderate-intensity exercise lowered the risk of cardiovascular disease by 17 percent and cancer by seven percent.

Why is walking so good for you?

There are a few reasons why walking is beneficial. For one, it’s approachable.

“There’s no skill hurdle and people aren’t usually intimidated by it,” says Albert Matheny, R.D., C.S.C.S., co-founder of SoHo Strength Lab. You also don’t need extra equipment, meaning you can usually just walk out the door and go.

“Walking is great because it’s a cardiovascular exercise, but it’s also weight-bearing,” Matheny says. “That’s ultimately better for bone density and overall mobility.”

In addition to all of that, research has linked a walking habit with better moods, improvements in heart health, and a lowered risk of developing diabetes.

How much walking do you need to do per day to reap the benefits?

It really depends on your goals. This particularly study found that walking at a solid pace for just 11 minutes a day (a.k.a. 75 minutes spread out over the course of seven days) can give you all of those health perks mentioned above.

But that doesn’t mean you need to stop walking once you hit 11 minutes. “There’s no magic number,” Matheny says. “It’s not like if you walk less than 5,000 steps, you get no benefit.”

If you’re looking to take up a walking habit for fitness, he suggests aiming for 5,000+ steps a day. Ultimately, though, Matheny recommends just doing what you can.

How can I add more walking to my day?

There are so many ways to take up a walking habit, including making it a regular workout or finding ways to sneak it in, like walking to a friend’s house versus driving there. (You may need to upgrade your footwear to get a good walking shoe if you plan to ramp things up, though.)

“You can also just try to go outside and walk whenever you can,” Matheny says. “It’s good for your mind and body.”

Original article here

15 Nov 2024
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The Definitive Superfood Ranking

Food marketers know that if they call their product a superfood, it’s sure to sell. Take quinoa, for example. In the early aughts, when the ancient grain first became trendy, quinoa prices tripled in the span of five years. (Many Bolivians, who had relied on it as a food staple for centuries, were soon priced out of the market.) The moral here: it’s important to question anything knighted with the superlative.

From a health perspective, many dietitians would prefer we do away with the label completely. “There’s just not enough substantiated evidence that there are superfoods, that these foods solve the problems they say they’re going to solve,” says Suzanne Smith, a registered dietitian at the University of California, San Diego. Smith worries that since many of these so-called superfoods are expensive, they add financial stress to people already struggling to buy healthy food. Furthermore, no single food can undo an otherwise poor diet.

But here’s the thing: some really do stack up. A few have “near-medicinal-like qualities,” says Shawn Talbott, a biochemist, fellow at the American College of Sports Medicine, and author of The Secret Of Vigor. To him, a food is super if eating a normal quantity can deliver a research-backed benefit.

The trick is knowing how to separate the good stuff from the chaff. With that in mind, we asked a few dietitians and researchers to help us rank some of this decade’s buzziest ingredients. Consider this your license to stop choking down kimchi and gluten-free bread and start hitting the blueberries and red wine hard.

Gluten-Free Flours

If you thought eliminating gluten was your ticket to reducing inflammation, bloating, and losing weight, think again. Unless you have celiac disease or suffer from a true gluten intolerance (example: you are doubled over and running for the bathroom post-pizza), there are no proven physical benefits from going gluten-free. A 2012 paper in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics found that there was not a single study connecting gluten-free diets to weight loss in nonceliac populations. It also pointed to studies that showed limiting gluten negatively affected gut flora populations, while diets high in gluten resulted in a lowering of triglycerides and blood pressure. If you can firmly trace your stomach woes to eating gluten (preferably through doing a two-week elimination diet), then gluten-free flours may be a superfood for you. But for the vast majority of Americans, they’re nothing but expensive, unhealthy substitutions.

Orange Juice

“Have a glass of orange juice!” It’s the cry eternal of well-meaning friends and parents when you’re under the weather. They aren’t totally wrong: vitamin C may help immune systems. A 2014 study in the journal Nutrients found that men who were low in vitamin C caught fewer colds once they increased their vitamin C consumption, but the difference was deemed statistically marginal. Furthermore, another 2014 study published in Clinical Nutrition found that drinking orange juice didn’t lead to a strengthening of the immune system for healthy, well-nourished adults. So getting enough vitamin C is important, but slamming a gallon of orange juice won’t help—it contains too much sugar. Instead, try red peppers, broccoli, or kale, which all have more vitamin C per serving than orange juice. Plus, they have more fiber and other nutrients.

Coconut Oil

Coconut oil is the new snake oil. You’ll find it included in the ingredient list of nearly every “health” food, from packaged granola to energy bars to Bulletproof Coffee. The big hype behind coconut oil is that it contains medium-chain triglycerides (MCT), which could help our bodies burn more fat. However, at least for now, it’s best to view research on MCT with skepticism: a review of studies on MCT supplementation found that while most research did show some sort of weight loss, the studies were often flawed or commercial bias was present. The researchers concluded: “Further research is required by independent research groups using large, well-designed studies to confirm the efficacy of MCT and to determine the dosage needed for the management of a healthy body weight and composition.”

Chia Seeds

Many runners began incorporating these small seeds into their diet after Christopher McDougall’s 2009 bestseller, Born to Run, described them as nutritionally equivalent to a mix of “salmon, spinach, and human growth hormone.” But a few recent studies—like one in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research and one in the journal Nutrients—have found that the seeds offer runners no performance benefit. Talbott says these popular seeds are good from a “general nutrition” standpoint. That is, they provide macronutrients—including omega-3s—but there isn’t much super about chia seeds beyond that.

Kimchi

This pickled Korean dish has been recently hailed as a superfood due to its high probiotic content. However, Talbott says our understanding of how probiotics work is just too rudimentary to call kimchi—or any food whose main selling point is probiotics—a superfood. “Probiotics are like the Wild West; no one really knows what’s best,” he says. A review on probiotics published in the journal Current Sports Medicine Reports found that, at least for athletes, “scientific evidence for an ergogenic effect of probiotics is lacking.” Still, the super-funky condiment is made up of all healthy things, like cabbage, garlic, ginger, and daikon. If you love it, go ahead and eat it, but it’s too soon to start stocking up.

Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes have become the darling of endurance athletes looking for a natural fuel source, but the types of good carbohydrates that you can get from a sweet potato can be found in any number of other whole foods, like bananas, oatmeal, or dates. If you like sweet potatoes—and they are admittedly delicious—there’s no problem with eating them. Just know there’s nothing super about them.

Almonds

While almonds are great, Talbott takes issue with their designation as a superfood. Most nuts are created equal, he says. They’re healthy and full of good fats, and research shows that regular nut eaters tend to have healthier weights. Almonds are no more more super than their other nut relatives.

Beets

While most of us have heard that beet juice can help with oxygen uptake, Talbott thinks the ergogenic benefits of this plant have been largely overblown. Research on the topic is all over the place: in a recent study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, beet juice didn’t improve the performance of cyclists. But in a 2014 paper, beet juice did improve cycling performance in athletes at altitude. And another study found no benefits from beet juice for runners at altitude. So the jury’s still out on the exact performance benefits of this vegetable, but the bottom line is that many of the antioxidants in beets are available in other fruits and veggies like lettuce, spinach, and strawberries.

Acai

“It’s basically the Brazilian blueberry,” says Talbott. Like blueberries, acai berries are full of great antioxidants (and absolutely delicious). But they are expensive and hard to find. Because of this, research on acai’s benefits is still sparse. You’re better off just buying frozen blueberries for your smoothie.

Eggs

“This is where I draw the line between healthy foods and superfoods,” says Talbott. Eggs are great—they’re full of protein and vitamins and minerals, plus they’re cheap—but they’re not actively working to lower your blood pressure, fight cancer, or make you smarter. Eat them often, but if you don’t like their taste or the sulfur smell, don’t sweat it.

Tart Cherry Juice

There is good research showing that tart cherry juice can relieve post-exercise muscle soreness and may even help prevent post-race colds in endurance athletes. But it’s relatively low on our list of superfoods because it’s such a specialized use. Sure, some athletes may see benefits, but most people would be better off using turmeric for relieving daily aches and pains and post-exercise soreness. Plus, tart cherry juice is expensive, and if you get the real, no-sugar-added variety, it’s more sour than sweet.

Broccoli

If you’re surprised to see broccoli and not kale on our list, don’t be. Broccoli is cheap, full of fiber and vitamins, and contains sulforaphane, a compound that actually helps cells fight cancer. Sure, it smells like a fart while steaming, but “broccoli activates pathways inside the cell so the cell starts creating its own antioxidants,” explains Talbott. Recent research has shown that some organs respond better than others to broccoli’s anticancer properties, but the fact that any of them respond at all is pretty remarkable.

Coffee

“It makes me shake my head when I hear people say they’re trying to quit coffee,” says Talbott. Sure, too much of it isn’t good for you, but at the right dose, coffee does have real benefits. “Caffeine is the most-researched performance product on the planet, and it has the same [beneficial] flavonoid content as tea.” Plus, there’s research showing regular coffee drinkers may have a lower risk for dementia, diabetes, and maybe even Parkinson’s.

Apples

That “apple a day” adage is not total bunk. The flavonol quercetin makes these boring old fruits worth adding back into your lunchbox: quercetin has been shown to lower blood pressure, open blood vessels, and improve endurance athletic performance.

7. Green Tea

This ancient beverage has been recently co-opted by the diet industry, which makes it seem gimmicky. While green tea diet pills are certainly worth being wary of, plain green tea is not. There is research showing that it can boost your basic metabolic rate by 3 to 4 percent, “and it’s profoundly anticancer,” says Talbott, thanks to compounds called catechins. In fact, research in the journal Cancer Prevention found that daily green tea consumption could delay the onset of cancer by more than seven years for women and three years for men. A large-scale population study published earlier this year in Cancer Science followed nearly 90,000 Japanese citizens for more than a decade and found that those who drank large amounts of green tea had lower risks for biliary tract cancer, gallbladder cancer, and bile duct cancer.

Black Beans

If you compare the diets of every culture with a beyond-average life expectancy—including the original Blue Zones of Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Icaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California—the one shared food tradition is a hearty doses of legumes. “They’re high in fiber, iron, and B vitamins,” says Talbott, and research has shown that diets rich in legumes (plus lean meats and vegetables) can lower your risk of developing cardiovascular disease and your total risk of morbidity from all causes. While all legumes are worth including in your diet, black beans are packed with polyphenols, giving them an extra nutrient boost.

Dark Chocolate

To get the reported benefits from chocolate, Talbott says you really need to eat the super-dark stuff—70 percent cocoa or higher. Studies have shown that just a few ounces can deliver a heart-healthy dose of flavonols that lower LDL cholesterol, stabilize blood sugar levels, and improve blood flow. Plus, as we all anecdotally know, there’s research showing that eating chocolate can boost your mood.

Red Wine

Go ahead and rejoice: there is evidence-based research showing that wine may have anti-inflammatory and blood pressure–lowering benefits, thanks to the polyphenol micronutrient called resveratrol, which research has linked to a host of cardiovascular benefits (although many of these studies were performed on rodents, not humans). A review in the Journal of Nutrition found a significant body of research pointing to a lowered risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality for populations that consume resveratrol-rich foods such as red wine. If you aren’t an alcohol connoisseur, a serving of red grapes may be just as good. Although be wary of resveratrol supplements: one study was actually suspended because participants reported kidney complications. Not that you’d ever want to skip that glass of red wine for a pill, of course.

Salmon

The omega-3 fatty acids in salmon contain docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), which help boost brain and heart health, respectively. “Omega-3s help with blood vessel compliance and have a nice blood-thinning effect,” which can reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes, says Talbott. A paper published in Epidemiologic Review found that women who increased their fish intake, including salmon, late in life had significantly fewer incidences of coronary heart disease. Additionally, salmon’s DHA—which you can get only through diet, since your body does not naturally produce it—acts as a membrane to neurons in the brain, protecting them from damage or inflammation. A meta-review in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Review found that an increase in fish consumption could reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s by more than 30 percent.

Turmeric

This powder, which comes from the rhizomes of the Curcuma longa plant, has been used in ancient medicine and Southeast Asian cuisine for centuries. Turmeric’s clearest benefit is that “it is profoundly anti-inflammatory,” says Talbott, thanks to curcumin, a natural polyphenol that also gives the powder its bright yellow hue. The body of research on turmeric is fairly deep, with several large-scale studies, and turmeric may have more benefits than researchers yet realize—early results from one small study in the UK showed a potential for turmeric to change gene expression in a way that might help fight cancer. Talbott says it’s best to eat turmeric at a suggested dose of one-fourth teaspoon three times a day along with some fiber and fat for maximum absorption. (He sprinkles turmeric on sandwiches, adds it to salad dressing, and even puts it in his coffee.) A word of caution: turmeric is very pungent.

Blueberries

“It almost sounds ridiculous to list the research-backed benefits you can get from blueberries,” Talbott says, pointing to their ability to lower your risk for heart disease, reduce joint and muscle pains, and curtail oxidative stress (the naturally occurring stress produced by cell respiration). Blueberry’s power comes from the compound oligomeric proanthocyanidins, and Talbott says that you don’t need a ton of it to get results: a half-cup per day of fresh or frozen blueberries results in a “significant longevity benefit.” Plus, there’s plenty of research showing that blueberries can reduce post-exercise stress and inflammation among athletes. As for the general population, researchers revealed that—at least for women—getting three servings of berries per week cut heart attack risks by one-third.

Original article here

01 Oct 2024
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October Artist of the Month: Sam Cannon

About the Artist:

I am an artist with a background in typographic design, often combining lettering with my artwork. I live and work in Southwest Dorset in the UK (near the seaside).

I began selling locally at first back in 2012, and now sell more and more online with the help of social media.

I love working with colour pencils, but it is my watercolours that I’m best known for. And though I have lots of local landscape paintings, my real loves are British mammals, birds and insects.

I really enjoy fine detail, paint with very tiny brushes and spend on average 30 to 40 hours on most paintings. And these days, for a bit of variety, I also paint straight onto little slates, pebbles and petal paper from Thailand. Once again, incorporating lettering.

I love my work and am very lucky to get so much inspiration from the 8 acres of rewilded land that I share with my parents, my son and our three donkeys.

Website: www.samcannonart.co.uk

Twitter: @samcannonart

Instagram: @samcannonart

Facebook: @samcannonart

And my donkey’s page is @thethreedonkeyboys on Instagram

30 Sep 2024
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Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a Seventh of Nine ‘Planetary Boundaries’ That Support Life

Our planet has not passed its latest health check-up. A new assessment of Earth’s life-support systems shows that six out of nine of these crucial processes have crossed their “planetary boundary.” These boundaries are not tipping points—it’s possible to recover from passing them—but they are thresholds signifying we’ve entered higher-risk territory.

On another worrying note, scientists found the planet is close to breaching a seventh planetary boundary: ocean acidification.

In its first edition, a report from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) used years of data and assessments to evaluate the nine planetary boundaries. These life-support systems make Earth resilient and stable. Alarmingly, six of those boundaries have already been crossed, as a similar assessment last year also concluded. The new report adds to that finding, suggesting these six metrics are now moving further into the “red zone,” or what the researchers consider a high-risk zone.

“The overall diagnostic is that the patient, Planet Earth, is in critical condition,” says Johan Rockström, PIK director and pioneer of the Planetary Boundaries Framework, in a statement.

Boundaries that have already been exceeded have to do with climate change, freshwater availability, biodiversity, land use, nutrient pollution (such as phosphorus and nitrogen) and the introduction of synthetic chemicals and plastics to the environment.

Ocean acidification is one of the systems that has not yet crossed its planetary boundary, along with ozone depletion and aerosols in the atmosphere. But while ocean acidification is still in the “green zone,” the new report finds it’s trending in the wrong direction. Scientists now say this metric is on the brink and may cross out of the safe zone in the next few years.

Earth’s oceans absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, providing a valuable carbon sink as humans burn fossil fuels. But this process also makes the oceans more acidic, which can disturb the formation of shells and coral skeletons and affect fish life cycles, per the report.

As ocean acidification approaches the boundary, scientists are particularly concerned about certain regions, like the Arctic and Southern oceans. These areas are vital for carbon and global nutrient cycles, “which support marine productivity, biodiversity and global fisheries,” the report says.

“Looking at the current evolution, I’d say it’s really, really difficult to prevent that [boundary] crossing,” says Levke Caesar, a climate physicist at PIK and an author of the report, to Mongabay’s Sean Mowbray.

Other recent studies indicate the current conditions are already affecting some marine organisms, Caesar said in a press briefing, per the Guardian’s Damien Gayle. As a result, it might be necessary to re-evaluate “which levels can actually be called safe,” she added.

Levels of acidification are different across the world’s oceans. Colder waters, like those in the polar regions, may become more acidic more quickly, because they absorb more carbon dioxide. For some scientists, this suggests that perhaps the boundary has already been breached.

“When you start to think of the nuances of how the ocean works and the importance of some regions over others, I don’t necessarily agree that we’re still in a safe place,” says Helen Findlay, a biological oceanographer at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in England who was not involved in the report, to Mongabay.

The Planetary Health Check is the first in a series of annual reports led by PIK and organized by the Planetary Boundaries Science initiative. It builds on years of research to inform solutions on how to improve the planet’s health. The health check will also serve as a “mission-control center” for decision-making, per the statement, by using satellite data, A.I. and multiple scientific disciplines—as well as the wisdom of Indigenous peoples, which is something the researchers hope to incorporate more of in following editions.

Even if it is close to its tipping point, ocean acidification is only one of the nine boundaries necessary for regulating the planet. Each process is woven together with the others. To protect the planet, it will take a holistic approach—and according to the team, considering the boundaries all together is the best way to identify the most effective actions to lessen humanity’s impact on the Earth and urgently restore it to a safe state.

“Indeed, one of the main messages of our report is that all nine planetary boundaries are highly interconnected,” Caesar said, according to the Guardian.

Original article here

02 Sep 2024
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The health benefits of seaweed – a bath full of bladderwrack might be just what the doctor ordered

Seaweed, the colourful macroalgae that grows in the ocean, is a food source for marine life and humans. Each type of seaweed has a unique set of nutrients and can boost vitamin and mineral intake if eaten regularly.

Seaweed is widely consumed in Asia, and a staple ingredient in many Japanese, Korean and Chinese dishes. For example, nori is well known as the seaweed used to wrap sushi rolls, while wakame or kelp are often found in comforting ramen noodle dishes. These seaweeds impart an instantly recognisable savoury taste – known as umami flavour – to food and can add a variety of vitamins and minerals to meals.

Seaweed types can be broadly classified according to their colour: red, green and brown. Around 145 species of seaweed are eaten around the world. Seaweed is valued for its antioxidant properties, which helps protect cells against free radical damage.

Many seaweeds contain phenolic and flavonoid compounds, which are important antioxidants, as well as omega-3 fatty acids, amino acids, fibre, vitamins A, C and E – and minerals such as copper, zinc and iodine.

The seaweeds with the greatest nutritional value include those often referred to as the “wracks”. Bladder, toothed and spiral wracks often have notably higher antioxidant contents than many other seaweeds. However, nutritional content varies depending on the type of seaweed, harvest location and the season in which it’s harvested.

As well as being nutritious, seaweed has potential as a source of valuable antimicrobial agents. Research from Queen’s University Belfast has shown that seaweed species can fight off the growth of harmful microorganisms in animals, some of which are becoming resistant to antibiotics.

While eating seaweed has an array of benefits, there are a few things to watch out for. Due to the high iodine content in many seaweed species, seaweed consumption could exacerbate thyroid conditions or interfere with thyroid medications.

Some reports also suggest that, depending on the habitat, seaweed species may accumulate heavy metals such as cadmium, which has been reported to cause liver and kidney toxicity, and mercury, a known neurotoxin.

It’s important, then, to check different countries’ maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for heavy metal concentrations in seaweed products and only purchase those that have been tested and deemed safe for consumption.

Seaweed Bathing

But diet is not the only way to experience the benefits of seaweed.

In recent years, there has been an upsurge in seaweed bathing, which is believed to be beneficial to health. A bath full of bladderwrack might not seem very appealing – but this strap-like, olive coloured seaweed, found along the coasts of the North Sea, Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean, has been shown to have beneficial effects as a topical treatment for various skin issues from skin ageing to wound healing.

The tradition of seaweed bathing, which has been practised for hundreds of years, was originally recommended for arthritis sufferers to ease pain, stiffness and inflammation of joints. Nowadays, it is also recommended for athletes after a strenuous workout because seaweed’s high magnesium content is believed to be soothing for aching muscles.

Many companies that specialise in the harvesting of seaweed for bathing purposes aim to do so sustainably. This means that the seaweed is cut from the reef at low tide and is never pulled from the root to ensure regrowth. As demand increases, there is a growing awareness of the challenges around growing and harvesting methods, technical know how and environmental impact of expanding production.

The moisturising effects of seaweed are also prized by the beauty industry as today’s consumers place greater value on natural – and environmentally friendly – skincare ingredients.

Containing extracts of seaweeds such as toothed wrack and sea spaghetti, seaweed-based skincare lines claim anti-photoaging, hydrating and protective, nourishing and skin-plumping effects. But check the label: the closer to the top of the ingredient list, the greater the amount of seaweed in the product.

So, to enhance your health, seaweed can be easily incorporated into your lifestyle. Add to your diet, in moderation, by exploring seaweed recipes and by sprinkling dried, ground seaweed mixtures featuring dulse, wakame, sea spaghetti and wracks into smoothies, over salads and even on pizza.

It is also possible to buy hand harvested seaweed products for adding to the bath so that the benefits of submerging in marine algae can be realised from home – no matter how far from the sea we may live.

Original article here

14 Aug 2024
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Why the Flow of Time Is an Illusion

In his book Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality, Max Tegmark writes that “time is not an illusion, but the flow of time is.” In this month’s issue of Nautilus, which looks at the concept of flow through various portals in science, we revisited our 2014 video interview with Tegmark (transcribed below for the first time), in which the professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explains why the feeling of time is one thing and the math quite another. That Tegmark, also the author of 2017’s Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, takes the keenest pleasure from peering into the world through the kaleidoscope of his physics toolbox is amply clear. During our interview, leaning out of his chair, waving his arms, pouring his water bottle onto the carpeted hotel floor to drive home a point, he was in a constant state of animation, much like the objects (both microscopic and gargantuan) that he studies.

You say time doesn’t flow, but our subjective perception is that it does. Where do we go wrong?

It certainly feels to us like time is flowing. Yet that’s not the only way of looking at this reality. I could say that 10 to the power of 29 particles constitute me, and they are moving around in some very complicated patterns. Einstein pointed out that the most elegant way of describing this mathematically is to say, Let’s look at where each particle is in the three-dimensional space at each time, and draw this in a four-dimensional spacetime, where time is the fourth dimension.

If I have a particle that is part of my knee, which hasn’t moved, that particle corresponds to a line. At all times, it’s at the same place. If I look at a particle that’s part of a red blood cell, which has been constantly orbiting around my circulatory system, it’s making a super fascinating shape in spacetime. If I look at all my red blood cells together, they would make a braid pattern, making this incredible tangle in spacetime. If you look at the electron in my brain while I’m thinking, it’s even more complicated. But it’s still just a four-dimensional pattern. So I can either say that reality is a complicated pattern of four dimensions, or I could say it’s this stuff that feels like it’s changing and moving around. Which is more fundamental? Which is more correct? These are just two different ways of describing the same thing.

It’s funny how physics, like any field, has a small number of hot-button issues that people get very emotional about

Is it part of the scientist’s job to explain why things feel the way they do?

We’ve seen a lot of examples of how things feel very different from the way they look in the equations. I would argue that almost all of the big breakthroughs in physics have this as their most difficult element. If you rewind to when Einstein came up with special relativity, you would find people like Lorentz and Minkowski had already written down a lot of the math. But Einstein was the guy who managed to figure out what it was going to feel like. He said if these are the equations, the way it’s going to feel is if you go near the speed of light, you’re going to feel time slowing down. And people said, Whoa, that’s really weird! Then they did the experiment and it’s correct. I had a fun conversation with physicist David Wineland. He told me that he’d built two atomic clocks that are super precise, and put one of them one foot below the other, and was able to measure that it runs slower!

Then quantum mechanics came along. It’s so complicated people still argue about it 100 years later! The math, though, is beautiful and clean. Randomness is fundamentally an illusion because there is no randomness in the math, even though it might feel random. I’m saying the same thing about time. Even though the flow of time is fundamentally an illusion, there is nothing flowing about the math, the equations aren’t changing, there is just a single four-dimensional pattern, albeit a very complicated and beautiful one, in spacetime. If you study it carefully, you’ll realize it’s going to feel like a flow of time. As physicists, that’s ultimately what we need to explain: Why does everything feel the way it does? We shouldn’t be so naive as to think that things will always feel the way they actually are, because the history of physics is a long sequence of examples of where we realize that the ultimate nature of things is very different from how they feel.

If time doesn’t flow, how do we understand the second law of thermodynamics, which says that time flows in the direction of increasing entropy?

It’s funny how physics, just like any field, has a small number of hot-button issues that people get very emotional about. Time and specifically the so-called second law of thermodynamics is one of them. It’s a simple statement that on average things keep getting messier. That lets you define the direction of time. But there has been a lot of controversy about it. On the one hand, there are people like Arthur Eddington, who tend to view this as almost a holy principle. It’s sacred and shouldn’t ever be questioned. He has this famous line where he says, Well, all sorts of things might turn out to be wrong, but if some theorist ever challenges the second law of thermodynamics, then too bad for that theorist, because there’s no hope for him other than the utmost humiliation! On the other hand, a lot of other people say, Look, we shouldn’t have any holy cows in physics, everything must be questioned, including the second law of thermodynamics.

It’s like the ending of Life of Brian, where they say, “You come from nothing, you’re going back to nothing. What have you lost?”

What’s questionable about the second law of thermodynamics?

It’s turned out you can derive the second law of thermodynamics from more fundamental things. Let’s say I did something clumsy like spill water on the carpet. If I played a video of it backward, and you saw the water come off the carpet and go into the bottle, it would look totally wrong. But if you just zoom in and look at the motion of the particles flying through the other particles of the air, it would look perfectly reasonable backward, just like a bunch of bowling balls bouncing the other way. After 100 years of thinking about this, we’ve come to realize the explanation is surprising. It has to do with what happened 13.8 billion years ago. The reason our universe keeps getting messier is because it started in a tidy state yesterday, which was even tidier the day before, and even tidier 13.8 billion years ago.

Why did the universe start in such a tidy state?

What I think that means is there is no holy era of time. It emerged. If, in the distant future, we find ourselves in a universe where all the stars have burned out, and all the black holes have evaporated, and all the radiation has been diluted by the dark energy that expanded our universe, and all we have is some very cold bath of photons here and there—basically thermal equilibrium; de Sitter space, as we call it—there will be no sense of time anymore. There will nothing you can do to determine whether time is going one way or the other. Time will then have un-emerged again. It will be like the poem, This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.

What if I looked at my wristwatch then? Would it tick forward?

There wouldn’t be a wristwatch because all the atoms, or all the protons in your wristwatch, would’ve decayed. All the particles that had decayed would’ve left the cosmic horizon. If there were a wristwatch, and it’s functioning, there will be a sense of time and change. But just like there hasn’t always been a wristwatch, there will not necessarily always be one.

How is measuring time related to the existence of time?

It sounds crass to say that time is what we measure with a clock. But it is a very deep fact that if there are no clocks—bearing in mind that every atom is a clock, in the sense that something is going around something else, which you can think of as a clock—then it’s not change which has gone but the whole ability to define time, and the whole ability to perceive time will also be gone. So in that way, time could’ve emerged from nothing, and might also go back to nothing. It’s like the ending of one of my favorite movies, Life of Brian, with Monty Python, where they say, “You come from nothing, you’re going back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing!” Well, we’ll see!

Original article here

10 Aug 2024
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Why You Can Smell Rain

When those first fat drops of summer rain fall to the hot, dry ground, have you ever noticed a distinctive odor? I have childhood memories of family members who were farmers describing how they could always “smell rain” right before a storm.

Of course rain itself has no scent. But moments before a rain event, an “earthy” smell known as petrichor does permeate the air. People call it musky, fresh – generally pleasant.

This smell actually comes from the moistening of the ground. Australian scientists first documented the process of petrichor formation in 1964 and scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology further studied the mechanics of the process in the 2010s.

Petrichor is a combination of fragrant chemical compounds. Some are from oils made by plants. The main contributor to petrichor are actinobacteria. These tiny microorganisms can be found in rural and urban areas as well as in marine environments. They decompose dead or decaying organic matter into simple chemical compounds which can then become nutrients for developing plants and other organisms.

A byproduct of their activity is an organic compound called geosmin which contributes to the petrichor scent. Geosmin is a type of alcohol, like rubbing alcohol. Alcohol molecules tend to have a strong scent, but the complex chemical structure of geosmin makes it especially noticeable to people even at extremely low levels. Our noses can detect just a few parts of geosmin per trillion of air molecules.

During a prolonged period of dryness when it has not rained for several days, the decomposition activity rate of the actinobacteria slows down. Just before a rain event, the air becomes more humid and the ground begins to moisten. This process helps to speed up the activity of the actinobacteria and more geosmin is formed.

When raindrops fall on the ground, especially porous surfaces such as loose soil or rough concrete, they will splatter and eject tiny particles called aerosols. The geosmin and other petrichor compounds that may be present on the ground or dissolved within the raindrop are released in aerosol form and carried by the wind to surrounding areas. If the rainfall is heavy enough, the petrichor scent can travel rapidly downwind and alert people that rain is soon on the way.

The scent eventually goes away after the storm has passed and the ground begins to dry. This leaves the actinobacteria lying in wait – ready to help us know when it might rain again.

Original article here

03 Aug 2024
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Can Humanity Address Climate Change Without Believing It? Medical History Suggests It Is Possible

Strange as it may seem, early germ theorists could tell us a lot about today’s attitudes toward climate change.

While researching for a new book about the history of emerging infections, I found many similarities between early debates over the existence of microbes and current debates over the existence of global warming.

Both controversies reveal the struggles of perceiving an unseen threat. Both reveal the influence of economic interests that benefit from the status quo. But most importantly, both reveal how people with different beliefs and interests can still agree on key policies and practices for tackling a global problem.

What You Can’t See Might Hurt You

Seeing is believing, and until the mid-19th century, it was very difficult to see the tiny organisms responsible for our so-called “fever” diseases.

Although the indirect evidence was compelling, many people remained skeptical of “animalcules” – as microorganisms were once called – until the microscope was sufficiently developed. Even then, acceptance was gradual. The once-dominant ideas about disease-causing gases, called miasmsas, persisted for several decades before most people acknowledged that the fevers had a living cause.

Climate change presents similar challenges of visibility. Although everyone can see and feel the weather, it is often difficult to observe its larger patterns and longer trends without the aid of technical charts.

Even when people acknowledge the bigger picture, the case for human responsibility is complicated by the fact that the carbon emissions from our engines, like the germ infections within our bodies, are unseen by the naked eye. It is hard to achieve human solutions when the evidence of human cause is invisible.

Economics Can Outweigh Evidence

Adding to these challenges, economic interests often confound scientific recommendations.

In the case of germ theory, early recommendations to prevent the spread of infection included reinstating quarantines at shipping ports and border crossings, thus impeding the international flow of trade.

In the case of climate theory, recommendations to slow global warming include reducing the consumption of carbon-based fuels, thus reducing the flow of oil. These strategies can threaten livelihoods as well as profits, so it is not surprising to find labor unions divided over green initiatives and energy executives spreading misinformation about climate science.

Beliefs And Interests Need Not Coincide

But people’s beliefs and interests need not align if everyone finds some benefit in the recommendations.

This was the case in the latter decades of the 19th century, when germ-denying surgeons nevertheless adopted the antiseptic techniques of Joseph Lister.

They did so mainly for the practical reason that their patients fared better under the new methods. But if an explanation was needed, many of these die-hard skeptics claimed Lister’s methods prevented the transmission of miasmas rather than living organisms.

Responding to these claims, Lister stated:

If anyone chooses to assume that the septic material is not of the nature of the living organisms, but a so-called chemical ferment destitute of vitality … such a notion, unwarranted though I believe it to be by any scientific evidence, will in a practical point of view be equivalent to a germ theory, since it will inculcate precisely the same methods of antiseptic management.”

Lister was more concerned with saving lives than winning arguments. As long as the surgeons adopted his methods, Lister cared little about their justifications. When it came to preventing infection, it was the behaviors rather than the beliefs that counted.

Changing Behaviors Through Complementary Interests

The same could be said for global warming: Changing behaviors is more important than changing beliefs.

Case in point, there is a large and growing environmentalist movement among evangelical Christians. Organizations such as Green Faith and the Creation Care Task Force cite Biblical scripture to promote environmental stewardship as a sacred duty.

While many of these groups acknowledge human-based climate change, some of their core beliefs contradict the evolutionary theories that my colleagues and I employ as scientists. But we need not agree about fossils to wean the world off fossil fuels.

The same goes for priorities and economic interests.

A recent national Pew survey found that a large majority of Americans support the development and use of renewable energy. This includes a slight majority of Republicans, though their motives tend to differ from those of Democrats.

Republicans are more likely to prioritize the economic benefits of renewable energy than Democrats, who tend to list global warming as their driving concern.

The economic benefits could explain why red states produce the largest share of America’s wind energy and why three of these states are among the nation’s top five producers of solar energy. Their adoption correlates with the geography of the wind and sun belts, where farmers see favorable returns for producing power and a stable source of income to buffer the price fluctuations of weather-sensitive crops. Livelihood is a powerful motivator.

Finding Common Ground Could Change The World

None of these examples address climate change on all its fronts. And among Democrats as well as Republicans, there are different opinions about how fast and how far the transition to renewable energy should go.

But we can take another hopeful lesson from the 19th century: Although people did not agree on all disease-preventing actions, they nevertheless found enough common ground to achieve the greatest mortality decline in recorded history.

Original article here

09 Jul 2024
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Why Being Near Water Really Does Make Us Happier

Every time my brother crosses the Sagamore Bridge from mainland Massachusetts to Cape Cod, we all know where he’s headed: a sandy spot off an ocean road on the Nantucket Sound, home to the little beach club my family has belonged to for over 30 years. On clear days, you can see the shores of Martha’s Vineyard in the distance. That’s his water.

If you talk to Wallace J. Nichols, Ph.D., a marine biologist and the author of Blue Mind, a book about the physical and psychological benefits of water, for long enough, he’ll eventually ask you what your water is. And as it turns out, nearly everyone has an answer.

Since humans started exploring the planet, we’ve followed the water. Crossing oceans gave way to new discoveries and changed the course of history; chasing rivers opened our horizons. As travelers, we seek waterways on vacation, driving new coastlines in search of wild surf spots. We return to familiar “blue spaces” we grew up around. Month after month, water graces the covers of travel magazines like ours.

The immeasurable sense of peace that we feel around water is what Nichols calls our “blue mind”—a chance to escape the hyper-connected, over-stimulated state of modern day life, in favor of a rare moment of solitude. Research has long found that humans are pulled toward Mother Nature’s blue for, in part, its restorative benefits. Take the Victorians for example: Doctors in that era prescribed “sea air” as a cure for all sorts of issues, from pulmonary complications to mental health conditions.

More recent studies—including those out of a UK-based project called Blue Gym—have found that people who live near the coasts are generally healthier and happier. Other studies find that when shown photographs of natural green spaces, people’s stress levels drop, but the more blue spaces in the photos, the more people prefer them. Nichols, who has spent the last 25 years studying our relationship to water, has heard of everything from a drop of dew on a flower to the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, providing a sense of calm.

Real estate data even suggests a water view tacks a 116.1 percent premium on a property; and real-world figures suggest we’re willing to pay 10 to 20 percent more for the same room with a sea view in a hotel. For the ultimate in luxury, we seek out overwater bungalows in the Maldives, and underwater hotels all around the world. And even in places where water isn’t always a given, such as urban metropolises like Pittsburgh and Austin, crowds frequent refurbished river ways and gather in fresh water pools. Paris, too, now has its long-anticipated canal swimming pools, where tourists and locals alike can take a dip.

Our love of water is pervasive, and the reasons behind why we travel—and rack up vast credit card bills—to be by the water can be hard to articulate. “You’re paying for a feeling,” Nichols tells Condé Nast Traveler. “When you ask people to describe that feeling, it’s hard for them to describe other than to say they really like it, need it, and are willing to pay a lot of money for it.”

Take travelers by their own words. Cassie Abel, 34, a communications manager in Sun Valley, ID grew up on Vashon Island, WA, the largest island in the Puget Sound. “I love the water because it’s so much bigger and more powerful than anything else on Earth,” she says. “It’s moody—sometimes it’s the most calming presence, sometimes the most turbulent.”

Lara Rosenbaum, a 38-year-old writer and editor based in landlocked Nashville shares a similar sentiment. “Water pulls on me the way the moon pulls on it. It’s just in my blood and bones. It makes me feel alive in a deep, calm way. It sort of brings me in.”

Rosenbaum isn’t wrong, either. While water makes up about 70 percent of the human body (and about 70 percent of Earth), it also comprises 31 percent of our bones. “When we are by the water it…cuts us off from the rattle and hum of modern society,” says Nichols. “Moving water is expert at masking noise, especially the sound of the human voice,” he says, noting that the human voice is considered the number one source of workplace stress.

Offering us an auditory break, water even helps us fall asleep. “There is some research that says people may sleep better when they are adjacent to nature,” explains W. Christopher Winter, M.D., author of The Sleep Solution. “No wonder sleep machines always feature the sounds of rain, the ocean, or a flowing river.” One small study out of Northwestern University found that people who fell asleep listening to “pink noise”—sounds like rushing water or rain falling on pavement—not only slept more deeply but the experience also boosted their memories.

Jim Tselikis, co-founder of Cousins Maine Lobster, grew up in a small coastal town in Maine where everything from the rising and lowering of tides to the smell of fresh salty ocean air plays a role in the everyday. He remembers a fog horn from Portland Head Light, a mile from his bedroom. “The sound was so soothing. It represented the ocean, where I loved to be on muggy summer days, when I wanted to get away from the stress of school or work, or where I wanted to find peace.”

Currently living in Los Angeles, Tselikis says: “Every time I drift asleep I think of that fog horn back home and my need to someday return.”

When we physically enter the water, our body can rest muscles used every day, and work others that are used far less frequently. Not only that, but we give up gravity, something that’s somatically a break for your brain. For some, time spent in the water is an opportunity for insightful thinking, creative output, and quality conversations.

“If we are close to someone, they join us in that private bubble and conversations become more intimate; an intimate conversation while walking the beach with waves nearby becomes more private,” Nichols says. “People a short distance away can’t hear our words, and 180 degrees or more of our surrounding is open blue space.”

When Jenn Lawson, a 33-year-old member of San Francisco’s South End Rowing Club starts her days swimming in the Bay, she says, “Everything pulls into perspective—my divorce, work worries, anxieties about the future. The world focuses down to the next breath, the feel of the water on my skin, the glimpses of the foggy skyline, or the Golden Gate bridge glowing with the morning sun. In the water, everything becomes clear.”

The Science of Wanderlust

Are some people genetically predisposed to travel? Science says maybe.

Marie Stanislaw, a 69-year-old who lives on Vashon Island, WA adds: “Swimming in lakes and oceans, the water encompasses me…I can float for long stretches in salt water and feel totally peaceful.”

Charlie MacArthur, of Aspen Kayak & SUP in Aspen—who grew up surfing in Southern California and Hawaii, but moved out to Colorado for the snow—says that in his early days in the landlocked state, he returned to the coast when the snow melted. “I could not fathom living inland during the summer.” Then he discovered mountain rivers and started raft guiding in 1983. “Soon I was teaching kayaking for the Aspen Kayak school. I also took my surfboard on the river to surf big standing waves that would form during the spring floods,” he says. MacArthur has since traveled the world—New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Peru—paddling and surfing new rivers and oceans.

So, what do we miss when we miss out on water? Ask Andrew Gray, a 25-year-old from Oklahoma City. Growing up in a landlocked state, he didn’t see the ocean for the first time until college.

“I had watched so many movies, documentaries, and shows and was always fascinated with the idea of not being able to see land on the other side of the water,” he says. “I think the fact that there is this feeling of being ‘trapped’ in a land-locked state just made that desire so much stronger to breathe in the ocean air and lose yourself in its vastness.”

That’s why he signed up for Semester at Sea during college, a four-month-long study abroad program that takes place on a globe-roaming ship. While drifting out of the port of Southampton, England he finally saw the sea up close. “It had such a still and calm presence, but there was this overarching feeling of being in awe and feeling completely tiny and helpless—that there was this force of reckoning beneath my feet. I was completely speechless, just staring off the aft of our ship for about 30 minutes,” he remembers. “It was very humbling, I will never forget it.”

Without water, then, we miss a part of ourselves, perhaps.

A California resident, Nichols recalls natural disasters such as the state’s multi-year drought. “Simple things like taking a shower made you feel bad,” he says. “But if your shower or bath was your moment of solitude and clarity and disconnect—if that was your ‘blue mind’ moment—it was taken away. It became a source of guilt and stress and fear and anger.”

‘Our oceans, waterways, and the life they contain are so much more than their ecological, economic, and educational value. They have vast emotional benefits. They make life on earth possible, but also worth living,’ says Nichols.

Issues like pollution, oil spills, and droughts don’t just have ecological and economic costs, then, but emotional ones, too, Nichols argues. “Pollution shatters our ‘blue mind’ experience—even in beautiful places,” he says. “The beach can become sad. The ocean can make you angry or frustrated.”

During a U.K. study last year, researchers observed people during a visit to the aquarium: Participants watched an empty tank of water, a partially-stocked tank (home to fish, crustaceans, and plants), then a fully-stocked tank, containing double the number of species. Other experiments involved measuring people’s heart rates and blood pressure while watching either an empty, partially-stocked, or fully-stocked tank. As it turned out, even just looking at an empty body of water at an aquarium proved to be relaxing. But the experience grew boring after time. The antidote? Biodiversity.

As wildlife, flora, and fauna increased in the tank, so too did the therapeutic benefits of standing there. With more wildlife, people’s blood pressure and heart rates dropped; and the longer they wanted to stay. It’s a poignant argument for keeping our planet healthy.

“Our oceans, waterways, and the life they contain are so much more than their ecological, economic, and educational value. They have vast emotional benefits. They make life on earth possible, but also worth living,” says Nichols. “I like to imagine the world would be a better place if we all understood just how true that is. Water is medicine, for everyone, for life.”

Original article here

27 Jun 2024
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Do you find the 21st century overstimulating? Try ‘longstorming’

Our experience of time is changing. For the philosopher Byung-Chul Han, the early 21st century has left us ‘whizzing without a direction’. Our world is shaped by the restless, disorienting rhythms of near-term deliverables, social media impression counts, technological obsolescence, shallow electoral cycles, rapid news cycles, frenzied culture wars, sudden stock market shifts, gig economy hustles, and occupational burnout. Though it all seems exhausting and unmanageable, the whizzing isn’t slowing: digital platforms now bombard us, minute by minute, with fragments of information that fail to cohere into meaningful narratives, and algorithms that hijack our neurochemical reward systems.

As the treadmill of post-industrial society speeds up, some of us have become so addicted to the stimulation that we struggle to imagine another way to live: psychological research shows that most people would rather receive electric shocks than sit quietly alone with their own thoughts. In his book The Scent of Time (2017), Han borrows a concept from Marcel Proust – une époche de hâte – to describe our overstimulated moment. The ‘age of haste’ has arrived. And its problems are pervasive.

When time whizzes by, individual moments blur together and we stop contemplating how each fits into broader arcs of history. We forget, Han laments, to engage in slower-moving forms of cognition such as wonder, curiosity and introspection. We forget how to reflect and be still. But what can we really do about the age of haste? For many of us, a slower, more contemplative life often feels unattainable. You may feel trapped by the directionless whizzing of the 21st century – trapped on an accelerating treadmill. Can you forge a new relationship with time?

Perhaps your first impulse is to find ways of escaping the age of haste. This is a mistake. We cannot simply break free by ‘exiting’ the world we inhabit. Confronting time requires moreengagement with the wider world. This world, however, is not the one defined by near-term deliverables and neurochemically disrupting algorithms. It is the one that reveals itself when you glimpse the Milky Way on a cloudless night. It is the world that becomes clear when you gaze upon a mountain.

Venturing into breathtaking outdoor spaces helps us step back, slow down and think in the long term

Encountering spectacular natural environments can cause a radical shift in how we think about ourselves and the world. According to the psychologist Dacher Keltner, feelings of awe, especially those inspired by natural scenery, can make us feel more collaborative, less egoistic, more altruistic, and more open to social connection. Over the past two decades, Keltner tested this idea through a series of experiments that examined how a person’s attitudes and behaviours change after experiencing awe-inspiring places or things. He found that natural splendour seems to put us in a headspace that lets us reflect on our short lives as ephemeral organisms dwelling on a fragile planet floating in a vast cosmos. This way of thinking can be transformative, but its power is not a recent discovery. Greco-Roman Stoic philosophers, for instance, encouraged retreats into the countryside to proactively ponder life. Venturing into breathtaking outdoor spaces seems to help us step back, slow down and, most importantly, think in the long term. I call this style of thinking ‘longstorming’ because encounters with sublime geophysical and ecological environments can invite the mind to brainstorm about our long-term futures and pasts.

Brainstorming is a technique that was developed by the advertising executive Alex F Osborne in the 1950s. This technique, as Osborne explains in his book Applied Imagination (1953), involves generating a stream of new ideas by riffing about bold plans or even proposing outlandish hypotheticals. Osbourne’s goal was to help employees come up with creative proposals for advertising campaigns, but brainstorming has since become a widely used tool for generating new ideas in all types of contexts. Brainstorming also works well – perhaps even better – out in the wilderness, under vast constellations of stars, where the mind is calibrated to contemplate the deeper timescales of our planet and universe.

I believe that purposefully longstorming can help us retool how we relate to time itself. Outdoors, in a headspace better suited to imagining possible scenarios in hypothetical past and future worlds, we can find a way beyond the immediacy of the age of haste.

In this case, a ‘scenario’ is created by weaving together ideas about trends (social, ecological, economic), possible events (the creation of new species, the movement of tectonic plates), and potential detours (such as the unexpected asteroid that collided with Earth 66 million years ago). The scenarios we imagine need not even be scientifically accurate. The simple act of temporally extending the intellect across time is enough to change how we experience the here and now.

Towering above the canyon like silent guardians, I saw the tallest living things on Earth: coast redwoods

I recently tried longstorming while hiking through Fern Canyon in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park in Northern California. Standing inside the canyon itself, which a tiny stream had carved out over aeons, I thought about the fern species covering the 15-metre-high stone walls beside me. The ancestors of these leafy plants dated back 325 million years. Climbing over the tangled roots of a downed redwood tree, itself several hundred years old, I watched the rays from our 4.6 billion-year-old sun filter through the foliage, casting a soft dappled light. As I walked, I saw a tiny waterfall sprinkling over pads of moss as it fell from the high canyon walls. Towering above the canyon like silent guardians, I saw the tallest living things on Earth: coast redwoods. The ancestors of these trees have been growing in the region for about 20 million years, and their relatives thrived in the Jurassic period, roughly 160 million years ago. The scene felt like a portal to an earlier world – a reminder of the vast chain of life, and of my fleeting moment within it.

As I longstormed, I envisioned other moments from the past. Imagining how the nearby waterway would have looked hundreds of years ago, I pictured the redwood-plank homes built on its banks by the Indigenous Yurok peoples, who were some of the earliest inhabitants in the region. My mind drifted even further back. Tens of millions of years ago, redwood forests grew from Greenland to Alaska, France to the Czech Republic, England to Svalbard. The redwoods bear witness to the depths of time.

As I wandered, the canyon’s sprouting ferns and trickling water proceeded at a slow, deliberate pace. This invited me to ponder Earth’s ongoing dance of creation and erosion, growth and decay. Boundaries between the natural landscapes of the national park and the inner landscapes of my thoughts blurred. I thought about the impermanence of human endeavours, and how soon the digital equipment I had with me – phones, cameras – would become obsolete. I thought about the redwoods absorbing our emissions from the atmosphere, taking in carbon dioxide as they continued to grow. I pondered how climate change could reduce the coastal fog upon which the trees depend, or how reduced snowmelt could someday hinder the redwoods’ access to water. And I thought about my own life, my ancestors, and the intergenerational chains of connection that bind us to Earth and each other.

When I left the redwoods, and stopped longstorming, I found myself in a different frame of mind than when I arrived. I felt more tranquil and open to time. And I’m not the only one. In 1969, Claudia Alta ‘Lady Bird’ Johnson, then the First Lady of the United States, noted a similar experience in a Californian redwood forest. What she describes is a simple form of longstorming:

One of my most unforgettable memories of the past years is walking through the redwoods last November – seeing the lovely shafts of light filtering through the trees so far above, feeling the majesty and silence of that forest, and watching a salmon rise in one of those swift streams – all our problems seemed to fall into perspective and I think every one of us walked out more serene and happier.

Sublime outdoor spaces, such as a redwood forest, can offer a temporal perspective that is rare in contemporary consumer societies. Longstorming acts on this by creating a contemplative headspace in which the fleetingness of the present and the vastness of deep time mingle in harmony. This underscores the importance of conserving outdoor spaces not just as charismatic ecosystems or natural resources, but also as ideational resources for connecting our minds with the deeper timescales of our planet. For some, contemplating these settings may evoke a sense of planetary connection that makes the restless whizzing of our daily lives less oppressive, less urgent. For some, this may also be confronting, as we realise how insignificant our daily concerns are in the grand timelines of the universe. For others, it may shed light on hopes, fears, dreams, anxieties and desires.

By longstorming, your mind becomes a theatre for viewing possible planetary events across time. This is similar to the geologist Marcia Bjornerud’s concept of ‘timefulness’. Thinking about geological events on Earth, she writes in her 2018 book, can help us become more ‘mindful that this world contains so many earlier ones, all still with us in some way – in the rocks beneath our feet, in the air we breathe, in every cell of our body.’ Longstorming is also related to the poet Arthur Rimbaud’s concept of Robinsonner, in reference to Robinson Crusoe, from his poem ‘Romance’ (c1869-71). This invented French verb denotes the act of daydreaming by wandering mentally to distant places and times. Such plays of temporal imagination are essential to resisting the pressures of our age of haste.

Metals found in smartphones, such as gold and copper, were formed billions of years ago among distant stars

Anthropologists and geologists have long advocated that we focus on long-term horizons. In the 1970s, Margaret Mead warned against the modern, Western, hyper-individualistic pathology of being too rigidly rooted in one’s own cultural concept of time – a phenomenon that the anthropologist Robert Textor later termed ‘tempocentrism’. Bjornerud has diagnosed consumer society with ‘chronophobia’: the time denial associated with lives of instant gratification. In my book Deep Time Reckoning (2020), I caution against ‘shallow time discipline’: the way that socioeconomic pressures for short-term gains have created incredibly short-term rhythms in our lives. Tempocentrism, chronophobia and shallow time discipline are all ways of diagnosing our ever-accelerating relationship with the world, which we experience as a hyperactive whizzing that spins us, faster and faster, toward death.

Fortunately, you do not need to visit charismatic ecosystems, like redwood forests, to begin longstorming. Walking down any city street or a country road, you can attune to how the rocks beneath your feet have multimillion- or multibillion-year geological histories. You can attune to how the air you breathe is altered by decades of carbon emissions. You can attune to the evolutionary histories of the chirping birds or even the cells in your body. Contemplating the passage of time is, at some level, available to anyone willing and able to longstorm – to begin wondering about the longer timelines of the universe. When you return to your smartphone afterwards, you might even look differently at the device itself: less attuned to the newsfeeds and pings, and more attuned to the ancient geological histories of the elements and minerals that make it up. After all, many of the metals found in smartphones, such as gold and copper, were formed billions of years ago among distant stars.

That said, certain geophysical features (like mountain vistas or idyllic countryside), certain activities (like hiking or backpacking), and certain mental states (like awe or calm) tend to draw out more enriching temporal experiences than others. This has an unfortunate implication: opportunities to have life-transforming brushes with the deep time of our planet and cosmos are not evenly distributed across society. Not everyone is capable of leisurely neighbourhood walks, let alone treks up to mountaintop vistas. Not everyone has the resources to make such a trip, let alone the time. If we want all of society to resist the age of haste, we first need to reform its entrenched structures of poverty – temporal or otherwise.

In the age of haste, longstorming should be a necessity, not a luxury. Without a deeper attunement to planetary time, the therapies of the 21st century will deliver healing that soothes us only in the moment. The age of haste requires healing of a different kind: longer, slower, planetary.

Original article here