Restoration on Campus

We have learned through lectures and our readings that Directed Attention Fatigue will make it more difficult for people to participate in sustainable behaviors. Amel et al. describes how "mindful attentiveness may be necessary to develop sustainable habits" and "feeling connected to the world outside of ourselves is a precondition for sustainable action" (2009). Unfortunately, being surrounded nature, as students of the University of Michigan, is more difficult than it may seem.

Our culture glorifies being busy. Working hard is the goal, and our competitive environment looks down on free time and taking breaks, working directly against our need to restore. Society is one of the many aspects that hinders us from restoring our attention.

Our environment is also problematic. We sit in a room all day with no colors, and we go to school in an urban environment. Thereforem in order to be in nature, it takes a lot of directed attention to make the decision and plan out our day to go there and find time to spend in nature.

In addition, Michigan turns cold around the month of October, when the leaves fall off the trees and the color goes away. People are less likely to be willing or wanting to take engaged walks outside, because they are not necessarily compatible with the cold environment. Does nature have the same restorative effect for someone who despises the cold?

So many things about our way of life, even outside the university, hinder the ability to be in nature to restore our Directed Attention. As a senior, I am thinking about my future and where I will live. I plan to graduate and live in a city, although I recognize that there are only minimal aspects of nature in cities such as Chicago or D.C. Like the Michigan campus, it will take Directed Attention to plan time into my schedule to spend time in nature, even though it is something that I truly enjoy. The use of social media is on the rise, which means more time spent online in front of a screen. How many examples can you think of when people go on a hike and take time from mindfully experiencing nature to take a picture to post on Facebook or Snapchat? Also, the majority of jobs for recent graduates take place working at a desk in front of a screen. There is a public health push for health and increased movement in our daily lives, yet we go to gyms instead of taking a walk outside, with the option to stare at a picture of a lake or desert on our screen while we run on the treadmill.

With all of these trends hindering our ability to be in and mindfully appreciate nature, How can cities be changed to make more natural and restorative environments? How can offices and the workplace be changed to encourage people to be outside?

I want to talk about an experience I participated in while studying abroad in South Africa last semester. It was an event called Secret Sunrise, which took place on the first Thursday of every month. Early in the morning, residents of Cape Town, ranging from university students and young adults to business people and families, gathered at a secret location only announced one day before the event. It was also a secret, because everyone used wireless headphones connected to the same music and person leading it. The event centered on guided energetic meditation focused on welcoming the sun and positive energy into our days. Secret Sunrise mornings were definitely some of my most memorable mornings of my study abroad experience.

Secret Sunrise relates to our class for many reasons. First, the environment was consistently fascinating because it was a surprise and different every month. It also set up the entire day with fully restored directed attention and energy, because we were participating both in movement and mindfulness appreciation of the earth around us. I think that guided meditation should be implemented and normalized much more often in the university setting, especially energetic meditation to offset the hours and hours we spend sitting at a desk. Can you think of anything that is similar to Secret Sunrise here in Ann Arbor?

Restoration Through Nature-Based Mindfulness Practice

When the topic of attention restoration was first introduced in this course, I was eager to discuss and learn more about it—particularly, the idea of embodying mindfulness in the interactions we have with our environment. In the past year, I have begun to deeply explore and extend my knowledge on meditation and mindfulness-based practice. I was excited when I realized that much of the research we have discussed in both lectures and discussions of this course—namely, Directed Attention Fatigue, and the ability to restore it in a soft, involuntarily fascinating environment—are topics and ideas I’ve been able to experience first-hand in my own personal practice, as well as in the nature-based mindfulness course I’m currently taking.

 In the latest discussion of this mindfulness class, our professor brought up the idea that a large part of being mindful in nature is recognizing the reciprocal relationship we all have with the elements. It takes more than simply being outside; part of the experience is understanding that the elements are there, greeting them, and appreciating their presence in the world around you. In the past week, I’ve specifically focused on water; noticing how it’s in the air, in the clouds, on the leaves, in our bodies. It’s there whether we take the time to notice it or not, but the restorative potential it has increases when we step back and center it in our awareness. Mindfulness exercises have become the most restorative parts of my week, and I am working on extending and applying this consciousness to my everyday routines and interactions.

I’ve noticed that many of my friends and people I know seem to shy away from the concepts of meditation and mindfulness, saying things such as, “it’s just not my personality,” or “I have too many thoughts to meditate,” or “I tried, but I just fell asleep.” While I absolutely agree that sitting meditation is difficult and takes an extended amount of practice (and admittedly, a certain amount of directed-attention), I believe that it is possible to experience the restorative effect that we have been discussing in this class simply by making the commitment to heighten our awareness of the world around us.

How many times, as students on this campus, have we crossed the Diag going from class to class with our headphones in, our eyes diverted to the ground, and our minds in a separate world? We’re fortunate to be surrounded by nature and the elements essentially everywhere around us. It becomes a challenge to ask yourself to pause and identify that, and observe the overwhelming effects it has on our mood, attention, vitality, and overall appreciation for the environment in which we live.    

Yoga as Restoration

As human beings, we are constantly processing the information and stimuli that is swirling all around us. As college students we're running from class to lecture to mass meetings to seminars, and in every spare second we're checking our phones and scrolling through Facebook and Instagram.

Another quality that we, as human beings, share is a finite amount of directed attention. Like involuntary fascination, directed attention is an inhibitory response that quiets stimuli that is competing for our attention. However, while involuntary fascination draws our attention to shiny, bright, loud stimuli, directed attention allows us to ignore distractions an focus our attention on things that may not be inherently interesting, things like the three, forty-page readings your professor assigned, or even your favorite television show.

The downfall of directed attention? It fatigues. What would our human experience be like if directed attention never fatigued? Would we be able to read all one hundred twenty pages in one sitting? Would our attention never stray from Netflix, even if the fire alarm was going off?

That's why it's important that directed attention fatigues, and why involuntary fascination exists, to keep us all alive.

So when directed attention fatigues, what do we do? When I can't focus writing that midterm paper, or when I can't stand folding another article of clothing, or reading another passage, how can I restore my directed attention?

One of the best ways to restore directed attention is mindfulness practice. Mindfulness is taking a mental step back and observing your state of being and your environment without overly processing it.

This past summer the best mindfulness practice that I adopted was yoga. I do yoga everyday usually for an hour, especially after lengthy and demanding tasks like a day at work staring at computer screens or reading for classes. However, yoga does require some amount of attention, so how can it be restorative?

Yoga and other mindfulness practices are restorative because they allow you to think and to fill your mind with thoughts that don't require processing. In yoga you focus on your breath and the positioning of your body. You work your way up to challenging poses by slowly building your focus onto something you don't have to process the semantics of. You're not emptying your mind of your thoughts, you're tuning into the functioning of your body, you're turning your observations inward. For example on a mindful walk you're observing things, you're interacting with your environment in a new way. It's the same with yoga, just instead of external observation, the observation is turned inward.

So the next time you're brain feels exhausted, and you don't want to leave the house, take a fifteen minute break and do some yoga, or just stretch out and concentrate on the way your body feels with the movement of your breath.

Attention, Restoration, & Mindfulness

When you are told that you have 3 midterms coming up in the next couple weeks how do you feel? What is that feeling boiling inside of you? It is STRESS! Stress and mental fatigue (direct attention fatigue DAF) can be confused but it is important to remember that they are not one in the same. Stress comes from the anticipation of an event or deadline while as DAF is caused by the exertion of attention that has already taken place and can also come from doing an enjoyable task. The concept that Direct Attention pertains to is the kind of attention you really have to push for, like reading textbook material or solving a compositional problem in a painting. After an hour of these kind of active engagements you might say, “wow my head hurts!” This is you reaching your max direct attention capacity. After a long day of work, coming home to homework and then writing this blog post, it is quite difficult to write something profound while fatigued. I feel unfriendly at the loud girls in my hall and feel as if I am alone. Will I ever be nice to them again and feel myself? Why do people get fatigued in the first place?

 What should I do if I have no more attention left for completing a task? Well, the worst thing I could do is keep going after establishing that I am fatigued, because, it will take up more effort than ever before and I will never be kind again. This type of abuse to my brain calls for restoration! If I were to live on fatigued I would act irresponsibly, have very little compassion, and nobody, not even my mom, would want to be my friend.

Studies have found that the best way to restore direct attention (so I won’t lose friends) is through the repetition of micro restoration that consist of involuntary fascinations including, nature. Perhaps that is why we fatigue so often, because nature isn’t close, at least not as close as it use to be. But aren’t we a part of nature? When did we begin to separate ourselves from the rest of the world? Maybe it was after we claimed ourselves as the dominant species and neglected the things that helped support our wellbeing. Being back in nature for about ten minutes at a time can do wonders to clearing your head and solving internal problems and feeling calm. After doing this, I feel back like my own self.

To prevent getting completely fatigued I could have wise management. This when one chooses an environment that eliminates distractions and decreases unnecessary efforts. Mindfulness (concept of self awareness, observing the present, and building mental models in calm settings) could pair nicely with restoration and preventing fatigue. With mindfulness comes observation usually in a more natural setting. This kind of attention to the environment makes us aware again that we are apart of the sounds and smells, that we are a part of nature. It can be quite easy to start, just don’t think of it as being a monk only club, but as a five-minute self healing session. This can consist of soft chimes from a phone app or sitting outside and listening to the sound of wind, letting internal thoughts come and go.

So start tonight, pause the busy day of stress and fatigue, sit down comfortably, and breath.

Humans: The Past and the Future

Kristina Elkins 

Homo sapiens descended from the trees in recent evolutionary history, forced to find a way of life in the niche-filled habitat of the African plains. Bipedal, over-sized cranium, opposable thumbs, man was adapted to roam far from home to find food and other resources. Despite large hunting territories, man always returned home. This is an action not unfamiliar to us today. After a long day of work, school, running errands, we tend to come back to the same location. Of course, what is deemed home can change. In some cases, both in the present and in the past, home base can change quite frequently throughout a life-time. Nevertheless, early man and modern man claim a territory, often surrounded by claimed territory of other humans within the social group. This marked location serves as a sanctuary for himself and his family. Not all species, however, are home-based, so why are we? 

Home is a place that is safe, a place that provides protection from predators, weather, stochastic events and more. In the natural habitat of our early ancestors, the plains and grasslands of Africa, H. sapiens were not the most physically inept organism, capable of battling intense predators or withstanding extreme weather fluctuations. In order to survive, we relied on our brain power. For this reason, we needed a territory that allowed a break from constantly being alert. This sense of safety provides the ability to rest and restore the mind and body by reducing emotional and physical stress. The brain uses home to restore directed attention. Restoration of directed attention is needed for precision, accuracy and duration when out of home hunting, gathering, exploring, building, or testing.

Even today, we use home as a place to let our guard down. Not all of us are fortunate enough to have a home, and some of us may not want a home but these are small exceptions to an over-arching trend in our species throughout time. Humans as a home-based species helps to explain why we have additional adaptions such as way-finding.

Those that were capable of exploring topography of greater distances were more likely to find greater resources, assuming they could bring them back home to share with kin and other members of the group. If they could not find their way back home, food would not be shared with offspring, halting the spread of genes incapable of way-find. If an individual/group of individuals out hunting and gathering great distances could find their way back home with the increased collected resources, their offspring would survive to pass along those genes. This is the selective pressure for way-finding. 

As time goes on, the selective pressure for way-finding is near non-existent with the development of public transportation and GPS. Whether this is a “productive” course of action for evolution is definitely up for debate. In the event of societal collapse, way-finding will definitely be an adaption worth having. However, in the event of any other energy scenario (explosion, stability, or descent) this adaption is not needed, so it may not be worth the time and energy to maintain it.

There is often an evolutionary explanation for why a species is the way that it is, or else it would not have been able to survive and reproduce, passing on those genes of higher fitness. On the other hand, what is considered fit depends on the environment--an environment that is going to drastically change for humans in the not so far off future. 

Constructuring Online Environments

As part of my internship over the summer, I was tasked with updating and restructuring my division’s website. The goal was to create an environment that drove users to click through everything, check regularly, and learn more about activities going on elsewhere in the company; in essence, the ideal product would draw on users’ desires to explore and understand. To accomplish this goal, we needed to assess why the current website was failing to do either. We quickly found that the current site was difficult to navigate. The site had information from various departments scattered everywhere, possessed faulty links, and reflected outdated company information. In this regard, the site was going unused because employees were not able to understand the site’s layout or acquire new information through exploration.

In our redesign of the website, we cleared out empty links and aligned new links in accordance with a hierarchical design. To enter our new site, users have to navigate to the division home site which then spirals down to department sites, each possessing their own subsites. This modification allowed users to explore the site while maintaining a clear understanding of where they are in the site and how to return to a “safer” more well know area of the site by backtracking to the home site. Similarly, this setup allowed users to develop competence in navigating our site by observing how it is structured.

Finally, to ensure that employees kept coming back to our site, we notified all employees that sites would be updated weekly and delegated the responsibility of each site to a different person. Employees continued to check back because they knew there would constantly be new information to learn and a wider area to explore.

In this project, our team focused on driving engagement by appealing to the innate drives of our employees. However, our site still lacks a strong appeal for employees to participate in online communities. How could this be approached in the future? Furthermore, what steps could be taken to reduce the demand of our website and, more broadly, technology on direct attention?

Welcome!

Welcome to the Blog for Behavior & Environment! We are a class of graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Michigan who are studying human behavior and the ways that we interact with our natural and built environments. The goal of the class is to better understand how the human mind works so that we can help each other thrive and become stewards of our environments.

The purpose of our Blog is to provide our students an arena in which to explore how what we learn in class connects with each of our students' personal experiences and areas of interest.

This Blog will be populated with weekly posts on topics from Environmental Psychology - including attention, perception, knowing, and rationality - and the natural and built environments that help us become more effective, restore our attention, and cope with different kinds of environmental stress.