Preventing autopilot in familiar surroundings
Do you find yourself walking the same routes for your fresh air every day?
Are you finding that you are walking them on autopilot?
Perhaps they are not proving to be as relaxing as they used to be because your mind starts to wander?
There is a reason for this. Your brain puts the processing of things that are familiar on autopilot and it pays more attention to things that are novel. This is where our focused attention goes and this is also why time moves slower for new experiences than familiar ones. It is much easier to feel ‘in the moment’ when we are using our focused attention.
So how do we bring our focused attention back to familiar walking routes?
I learned a few methods recently but my favourite by far is to set yourself a goal for noticing things. Whenever I go walking, I try to count how many different species of bird I can identify (my record is 13 in 5km).
I use birds. You can do something similar with pretty much anything. If you live in an urban area why not spot numbers on signs, doors and vehicles and see if you can get to 100? How about looking for a different letter on each sign and see if you can get through the alphabet? A simpler way to do the same thing is to simply reverse a route or to vary it slightly.
This has helped me keep out of autopilot and it has kept me tuned into my environment so that when I get to my desk I feel refreshed again.
