I’ve always loved my rituals.
Where I currently live, one of my favorite rituals is the meandering trek I take every morning from my urban apartment — through some city, over train tracks, among a few trees and over a river — to the coffee shop where I write every morning. Lately it has been filled with cheeky squirrels and the song of robins, finches, and a chatty crew of red-wing blackbirds. The sun grazes the landscape from just above the horizon and invites dried oak leaves to cast a circus of shadow-critters on the sidewalk, while a silhouette of me — slender and three times my actual height — stretches out from every step.
Friday morning I woke to the highly rare event of steady rain. For a brief moment I considered a closer coffee shop (for a an even briefer moment I considered the relative freshness of an old bag of coffee beans). It rains so seldom in Denver that I don’t actually own a raincoat and I couldn’t remember how to protect my laptop for fifteen minutes of this odd, sky-born wetness. I finally located an umbrella (purchased as a prop for photoshoots), donned a baseball cap and headed out. I was greeted by soft light, thick grey skies, damp air, and the overnight appearance of newborn blossoms on trees, vibrant and coated with fresh droplets.
I was giddy. It was like I’d woken up in a different part of the country in which wouldn’t have been surprised to see moss and giant redwood trees.
My world looked different.
And different felt like a precious gift dropped from the jet stream.
Rituals comfort and ground us, making them especially important touchstones for maintaining normalcy when things are, shall we say, overly turbulent.
As “overly turbulent” has become a characteristic of… basically always (ah, the curse of living in interesting times)… it seems I’ve been relying too heavily on the cozy predictability of my rituals.
I thought it was just me, but conversations with people across age-groups and time-zones over the past week have helped me realize I’m not alone in experiencing a greater-than-average restlessness right now.
Too much routine — even when it’s a calming salve to mitigate uncertainty — can drop us into an over-worn groove on the vinyl of our daily life.
Brain science tells us that neural pathways, in response to familiar surroundings, will replay over-and-over until they become less like paths, and more like trenches.
It’s one of the reasons we love to travel.
Foreign settings trigger the brain to react to new stimuli and, in turn, forge new synaptic connections. Turns out it’s neurologically healthy to see new things — like exercise to keep our brain-plasticity in growth mode.
No one wants a hardened brain.
BUT…
Not all of us can afford — financially, time-wise, or carbon-budget-wise (for those of us who consider that sort of thing) — to fly off to a foreign land every time we get bored with our surroundings.
So, if we don’t have the option to travel, what do we do to mix it up at home in the name of enhancing mental and physical brain-health?
This is where I formally invite you to become a tourist in your own life.
And here’s the best part: it doesn’t have to cost a thing.
Breaking up routine is key, even in small ways.
It sounds ridiculous but sometimes something as simple as taking a different route home — even walking on the other side of the street — tricks my brain into seeing things I’ve never seen. (True story: I recently discovered a whole coffee shop hiding in my neighborhood just by walking a different way home. And I legitimately felt like I was on vacation ordering from a “foreign” menu!)
The simple act of noticing can forge the new connections in your brain necessary to spark creative thought.
It’s like neural exercise.
Except in this health-regimen, repetition is not the goal.
Challenge yourself to look for things you’ve never noticed. New shards of light or shadows of leaves on the sidewalk. Listen for birds and try to identify different songs. Watch bees coat themselves in the depth of a pollen-loaded flower.
Right now, if you’re fortunate enough to live in a place with seasons, your surroundings are changing all around you. If you normally drive to work, can you commute by bike or figure out public transit and slip a walk somewhere into your day?
While you’re out there, BE THE PERSON who walks up to a tree and admires the buds. Take a moment to marvel at the wildly different character each tree sports as they get ready to hide their winter structure beneath a glorious wardrobe of foliage.
And don’t leave just yet! While you’re standing there, consider how each little bud-pack is full of materials and information to grow fully-functioning, membrane-thin energy-machines that will absorb light, water and carbon dioxide, and convert these things into sugar and oxygen. For us to breathe!
It’s all fairly astonishing if you think about it.
So, if you, like me, are feeling a little restless…
Take a different route somewhere you need to go.
Or if you go the same way, challenge yourself to actively look… and discover something you’ve never noticed before.
Notice the angle of a shadow or where the sun sets on the horizon and how it subtlely changes over a few days. Find evidence of nature in your town or city.
Play different music. Visit a museum. Find a new trail.
Learn to knit. Learn a new language. Read a different genre. Rearrange a bookshelf. Rearrange the furniture. Throw a wild new spice into dinner. Eat dinner for breakfast. Break out into uninhibited dance in the kitchen. Brush your teeth with your non-dominant hand.
Do what you can to stimulate your brain, and let’s all write some new code.
You’ll thank you later.
Are there things you do to shake things up when you’re feeling restless and can’t get away? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Until next time, keep leaving those good footprints!
Reading your prose ALWAYS reboots my brain automatically!!
Aw, I love this. I'm definitely the type who feels suffocated when life becomes routine and booking a flight is my remedy. I love all your suggestions for shaking up the routine—it really doesn't have to be big. Lately I've been enjoying new music playlists to step outside of what I normally listen to. It's been lovely!