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Tune Out & Tune In

With growing efforts and awareness of the peril of our oceans and land, more people are making strides to conserve. Eco-conscious people worldwide are pitching in to save the planet. Efforts encompass recycling to conserving water and energy to reducing carbon footprints, and choosing reusable cloth totes over plastic bags. Many are eager to do their fair share.

For centuries, the great outdoors has lured people to leave their protective walls. While tuned into nature, they enjoy many beneficial effects. A sense of balance and harmony soon replace distraction and chaos.

Few experiences measure up to the sense of wonder when witnessing a waterfall rush down a mountainside or that diminishing sense of self which sets in when standing at the foot of a soaring mountain. Nature has a profound effect on us. Like great writers such as Robert Frost, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman, people from today’s generation embark on personal quests to discover that sense of harmony that nature promises as it reawakens and rejuvenates us.

Many people, who are caught up in a lifestyle of multi-tasking and overcommitting, yearn for a simpler time. The Millennials and Generation Z—people who were born after 1982—grew up with the constant accessibility of the Internet. As a result, many have difficulty imagining navigating life without being equipped with a cell phone, laptop, and tablet.

A host of retreats worldwide encourage the digitally-obsessed to disconnect and decompress. Digital detox programs abound everywhere from Malibu to Wales to Costa Rica. Upon checking in, guests swap their cell phones and technology for activities such as writing, yoga, meditation, reflection, and other mindful pursuits. The effects—a reduction in anxiety, stress, depression, tech dependency, fatigue, and information overload.

In recent years, the tourism industry has witnessed the emergence of another type of accommodation referred to as “black-hole resorts,” which ban technology, including cell phone service, other phones, Internet, and television. The goal—to tune out and tune in.

Of course, many renowned authors and artists enjoyed simpler times spent in nature. Celebrated poet Robert Frost is applauded for his realistic depictions of rural life. For more on his interactions and observances of nature, explore The Road Not Taken and Birches. In Walden, Henry David Thoreau reflects upon simple living while spending some time in the woods. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers is another nature-inspired read by Thoreau. Walt Whitman also had an appreciation for nature—for more from Whitman, read The Viking Portable Whitman.

By Regina Molaro