The Immense Value of Spending Time in Nature & Detaching

00:00:00.000 | I have found that spending time in silence in nature without anything to do, disallowing

00:00:11.720 | myself from doing things, no note-taking, no reading, et cetera, and spending, I have

00:00:18.700 | spent a number of extended fasts in nature, just like water only, by myself, no talking,

00:00:23.780 | no reading, no writing.

00:00:24.640 | What's extended?

00:00:25.580 | Seven days, generally.

00:00:27.340 | Wow.

00:00:28.060 | So you're camping in nature?

00:00:29.660 | Sure.

00:00:29.760 | With just water?

00:00:31.520 | Yep.

00:00:32.040 | That's it.

00:00:32.420 | By myself.

00:00:33.000 | And there are risks associated with that, right?

00:00:36.080 | You got to be careful, not stupid about it.

00:00:37.740 | But that does a lot for me with some persistent benefits.

00:00:44.160 | Are there some favorite places that you've gone into nature?

00:00:47.700 | It doesn't have to be too fast.

00:00:48.900 | Like, for instance, I'm a big fan of some of the national parks up in the Pacific Northwest

00:00:53.080 | because it's like being transported to a different planet.

00:00:55.740 | Yosemite is obviously amazing, but any favorite spots where people won't go looking for you

00:01:02.160 | there, don't worry.

00:01:02.820 | Yeah.

00:01:03.320 | You live in Austin all the time.

00:01:05.500 | That's right.

00:01:06.260 | Yeah.

00:01:06.800 | So I would say Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, spending time in mountains, around rivers, lakes,

00:01:15.800 | I find very therapeutic and just gorgeous.

00:01:20.860 | I do think we suffer from awe deficiency disorder, you know, a bit of ADD when we're trapped in

00:01:28.620 | the mundane for too long with too much distraction, with too many to-dos, with too many relationships.

00:01:35.800 | And there's no space for awe there.

00:01:37.540 | There isn't the room necessary.

00:01:39.760 | Awe isn't, from my perspective, generally a quick hit that you get in the 30 seconds between

00:01:46.120 | using two apps.

00:01:46.920 | There's more breathing room required for a genuine transcendent experience of awe.

00:01:52.320 | So I try to, on a yearly basis, as one of my top priorities, block out these weeks of

00:01:59.220 | time in nature.

00:02:00.700 | Last year was the first year I did that.

00:02:02.420 | I went out to Colorado in August and just took daily hikes.

00:02:07.180 | I stayed in a hotel.

00:02:08.020 | I'm not as beastie as you doing water fast.

00:02:11.060 | I was eating every day, but it was spectacular.

00:02:14.700 | One thing I noticed, and I'd like to know your process on, how do you handle going back into

00:02:20.080 | life?

00:02:20.520 | Great question.

00:02:22.360 | You know, because those days were and are amazing, right?

00:02:25.560 | You know, detached and, you know, maybe one text message here or there in between hikes or

00:02:30.240 | something, and then you just really clued in.

00:02:31.900 | Even the process of watching a show at night, like one felt so rich and like enough.

00:02:37.080 | So I wasn't as aesthetic as you were and like really cleaned all the clutter.

00:02:42.000 | But once you return to life, it's almost like getting, being awash in demands.

00:02:47.080 | And I can see from a place of more equanimity how one could make better choices.

00:02:51.000 | But how do you handle those transitions?

00:02:53.220 | The re-entry.

00:02:53.860 | Yeah.

00:02:54.320 | So before getting to the re-entry, I think it might make sense for me to talk about what

00:02:58.720 | comes before.

00:02:59.380 | So let's say it's like pre, during, post.

00:03:04.280 | Part of the reason I do these one week or longer periods off the grid is because it forces me

00:03:13.980 | to put better systems in place.

00:03:16.480 | So there's the benefit that you derive from, say, that week.

00:03:20.060 | And I have three weeks coming up right after this interview where I'm going to be off the

00:03:23.840 | grid.

00:03:24.000 | To set myself up for three weeks off the grid, I have a team.

00:03:28.440 | I have the podcast.

00:03:30.240 | I have a lot of things that are in motion at any given point in time.

00:03:35.320 | If you disappear for, say, a two to four week period, generally you cannot let the whole

00:03:40.680 | house catch on fire, then come back and put it out effectively, which means you need to

00:03:44.380 | put some policies and rules and so on in place in advance.

00:03:48.480 | And there's a carryover effect that has a host of benefits and makes things smoother for the

00:03:54.420 | re-entry.

00:03:54.760 | So they're related.

00:03:55.500 | Like the more you set up the pre, the easier the post is going to be.

00:04:00.640 | And then you have this beautiful, expansive experience in nature, whatever it might be,

00:04:05.300 | whether you're making it a suffer fest like I do or at a hotel at night, either way, these

00:04:12.060 | things can work.

00:04:12.740 | And nature in and of itself is super helpful.

00:04:14.560 | I do think that a lot of the time we like to imagine because we're driven, smart, accomplished

00:04:21.860 | people that our problems are very complex.

00:04:23.700 | And at the end of the day, it's like you just need some time in nature and a cold shower and

00:04:28.680 | some fucking macadamia nuts and you'll be fine.

00:04:31.480 | You don't need to solve like all the existential dilemmas of humankind actually or fancy pharmaceuticals.

00:04:37.120 | So you have this experience over this week and what I will do then is set at least a, let's

00:04:47.640 | call it integration period of two to three days where I will slowly edge back in to my previous

00:04:55.380 | routine.

00:04:56.160 | I will not within 12 hours of getting back to so-called civilization have a day full of

00:05:02.900 | calls or meetings.

00:05:03.580 | I will not do that.

00:05:04.760 | It's too much of a shock to the system.

00:05:06.060 | And I think it robs you of a tail end of benefits, which would also be the case with say fast or

00:05:12.300 | ketogenic diet or any number of interventions.

00:05:14.820 | You can squeeze out a long tail of benefits if you make a handful of changes.

00:05:19.520 | For instance, after an extended fast, what if you started with a subcaloric ketogenic diet

00:05:26.900 | for a few days?

00:05:27.700 | You get to extend some of the benefits as opposed to going straight back to say a diet that includes

00:05:33.840 | a lot of carbohydrates.

00:05:35.160 | Similarly, when you create more of a vacuum, more space for awe, insight, reflection, recovery,

00:05:42.900 | I think you're doing yourself a disservice if you jump from park into sixth gear.

00:05:48.540 | And so I plan for that.

00:05:49.400 | And it's a function of scheduling.

00:05:51.800 | I also have a predictable weekly schedule.

00:05:55.160 | So I tend to schedule podcast recordings on Mondays and Fridays.

00:05:59.480 | In preparation for an extended trip, I will batch a lot of similar activities that we have,

00:06:06.120 | say, a bunch of episodes in the bank that are pre-scheduled.

00:06:09.020 | Everything is figured out in advance.

00:06:10.280 | And over time, the more you take these breaks, the better your system has become and the more

00:06:16.440 | liberated you are from the day-to-day, which means when you get back, you also don't need

00:06:21.620 | to rush as much into hyperactivity.

00:06:24.200 | And if you do, you know that that is more from a compulsivity than from a necessity.

00:06:30.180 | While you're on these nature retreats, are you writing on a daily basis?

00:06:36.820 | Are you just thinking and allowing thoughts to enter and leave your system?

00:06:40.600 | Depends on the retreat.

00:06:42.680 | So sometimes I'm writing, but writing, I think, can underscore for me a desire to be compulsively

00:06:52.380 | productive.

00:06:52.840 | And I think that is inversely correlated to my happiness or sense of well-being a lot of

00:06:59.460 | the time.

00:06:59.760 | So there are many areas in my life now.

00:07:02.940 | So if you were to ask me, what has changed significantly since the time that you wrote the

00:07:06.640 | word for our body, I would say that rather than looking for areas to optimize, I am looking

00:07:13.660 | where I can very deliberately de-optimize certain areas to increase sense of well-being.

00:07:19.600 | Where can I de-optimize?

00:07:20.980 | Where can I stop measuring?

00:07:22.040 | Where can I stop reading books?

00:07:25.200 | Which areas can I ignore completely?

00:07:28.660 | What types of information can I just excise from my life altogether for a period of time?

00:07:35.220 | Delete Twitter.

00:07:35.760 | Stop reading about books in X related to, say, AI or whatever it might be.

00:07:42.100 | Like, where can I de-optimize selectively to sort of optimize the whole?

00:07:47.360 | Does that make sense?

00:07:47.980 | Makes good sense.

00:07:48.900 | Yeah.

00:07:49.240 | And before we started recording, I gave you a book, which is a short collection of poetry

00:07:53.440 | by Halaliza Gafuri, which is called Gold.

00:07:58.040 | It's a collection of Rumi poetry.

00:07:59.380 | Reading poetry is an activity almost by definition, which is the antithesis of optimization.

00:08:09.260 | So I've tried to also integrate more of those activities into my life.

00:08:13.000 | And this relates to your question, because there are times when I will force myself to

00:08:17.700 | sit on my goddamn hands and not write, not read.

00:08:21.880 | Just do the thing that is so uncomfortable sometimes, which is just sitting there with yourself.

00:08:27.800 | It can be incredibly uncomfortable in part because of the fear that it could be comfortable, especially

00:08:35.520 | for proactive people with a strong, to use Paul Conti's words, generative drive.

00:08:42.260 | No, you're going to, that's, you know, which is a good thing, I believe.

00:08:47.980 | It's a good thing.

00:08:48.720 | And it can be a good thing.

00:08:51.020 | It can indicate really incredible adaptations.

00:08:57.280 | It can also sometimes, I think, indicate maladaptations, right?

00:09:03.880 | And so I think it's helpful to take a break from that generative drive, or at least just put

00:09:09.800 | it in park position to see if that generative drive is, is perhaps indicative of you leaning

00:09:18.980 | towards something in a healthy, proactive way versus running from something in a long-term

00:09:27.700 | destructive way.

00:09:28.540 | Yeah.

00:09:29.000 | Well, and I think Paul would say that part of the generative drive process is peace, you

00:09:34.740 | know, not as necessarily even as a still state, but as a, you know, being able to experience

00:09:40.400 | peace even in the transitions.

00:09:41.680 | And there's a lot more to say about that.

00:09:43.640 | And he would say it far better than I ever would.

00:09:45.420 | So I'll leave it at that.

00:09:47.460 | And I mean, for people who have the option, getting in nature, it doesn't have to be all

00:09:52.400 | day, every day on a water fast.

00:09:53.540 | I just take certain things to an extreme because that's who I am.

00:09:56.920 | Sorry, when you say water fast, that means fasting with water, right?

00:10:01.100 | Fasting, but yes, drinking water.

00:10:03.020 | It just means you're allowed to have water and nothing else.

00:10:05.160 | For, for a long time, I thought it meant that you're not drinking water.

00:10:08.120 | Oh yeah, no, don't do that.

00:10:09.540 | Some people do that, right?

00:10:10.900 | They do these crazy food, water fasts as a way.

00:10:13.740 | I think they believe it clears senescent cells or something, but probably clears a lot more

00:10:18.740 | than just senescent cells.

00:10:20.180 | Yeah, there might be something to it.

00:10:23.520 | I mean, look, there are people who recycle by drinking their own urine, not my jam.

00:10:26.920 | But I would say it's like three hours without shelter, three days without water, three weeks

00:10:32.860 | without food, general rule of thumb.

00:10:34.560 | So be careful with dehydration.

00:10:37.400 | You can go a long time without food.

00:10:39.260 | I don't care how ripped you are.

00:10:41.160 | You got 8% body fat, man, you got plenty of time.

00:10:43.280 | You can go a couple of weeks, no problem.

00:10:45.200 | Yeah, you got calories.

00:10:46.120 | 9,000 calories per pound stored body fat.

00:10:48.280 | You got plenty.

00:10:48.940 | Don't worry.

00:10:49.480 | So for people who have the option to be in nature and just exercise several hours a day

00:10:59.900 | to exhaustion, see how many of your problems seem to just go away.

00:11:04.700 | Just try that.

00:11:05.840 | Mm-hmm.

00:11:06.200 | Mm-hmm.

00:11:07.200 | Mm-hmm.

00:11:08.200 | Mm-hmm.

00:11:09.200 | Mm-hmm.

00:11:10.200 | Mm-hmm.

The Immense Value of Spending Time in Nature & Detaching | Tim Ferriss & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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