Photo by Moriah Wolfe on Unsplash

The Science of How to Use Nature to Reboot Your Exhausted Brain

If you’re a regular exerciser, you’re no doubt familiar with the feeling of muscle fatigue. Go for a run four days in a row and on the fifth day your usual easy loop suddenly feels like a near-death experience. Your body is simply out of juice.

A lot of us are currently experiencing something similar with our minds.

Political polarization, trade wars, war wars, AI mania, climate chaos, economic uncertainty. With all that’s going on these days, my mind often feels like my legs do if I run too many days in a row. Concentrating is hard, decision making is foggy, and willpower is beyond low. My brain is begging for a good rest.

What’s the best way to reset an exhausted brain? If you have the kind of life that lets you get away entirely for days, weeks, or months, power to you (and that might be more possible than you imagine). But this column isn’t really for you. This column is for the parents with kids whose needs never take a break, the entrepreneurs whose businesses don’t slow down even when their brain is melting down, the high performers who can’t let their teams down by stepping away just now.

What you need is an actually doable way to rest and reset your brain that doesn’t involve weeklong silent retreats or a beach in Bora Bora. And, handily, science has a…