Humans Outside

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Some of the good stuff: [2:59] Annabel Street’s favorite outdoor space

[3:36] How Annabel became someone who likes to go outside and also go for walks

[7:07] Why she started researching walking

[8:14] Was it hard to find 52 ways?

[8:52] Why people avoid walking

[9:23] Her favorite new way to walk

[12:19] Amy’s night experience

[16:44] What people always think about walking

[18:43] Her least favorite way to walk

[19:39] Another perfect and underappreciated walking favorite

[24:18] Ways to walk that didn’t make it into the book

[30:38] Want to start walking? Here’s how.

[35:06] Annabel’s favorite outdoor gear

[36:49] Annabel’s favorite outdoor memory

2 Listeners

296: Finding a Sense of Place Through Wandering (John Messick, author and professor)

Humans Outside

04/27/23 • 33 min

Sometimes the best way to understand the importance of connecting to your place in the world is through wandering away from it. And when we pair that with spending time in the wild outdoors, we might also learn that things aren’t quite as wild as they seemed from the outside. Maybe what you think of as “wild” others simply consider “home.”

John Messick, author of the new book Compass Lines, is currently grounded in Alaska -- but his life hasn’t always looked that way. In this episode he talks about the importance of belonging in relation to the world, how he found that in his travels and how you might be able to find it too. Listen now.

Connect with this episode:

Read Compass Lines: Journeys Toward Home (affiliate link)Visit John Messick’s website Follow John Messick on Instagram Join the Humans Outside Challenge Follow Humans Outside on Instagram Follow Humans Outside on Facebook

Some of the good stuff:

[2:23] John’s favorite outdoor space [5:15] How he became someone who likes to go outside [10:02] The idea of wild [14:03] How does traveling the world impact that idea [18:27] How many countries has he visited? [20:23] What was he looking for during his travels? [21:21] A diversion to “Gathland” [27:13] Tip for finding a grounding where you are [30:31] John’s favorite outdoor space

1 Listener

294 Gretchen Rubin: Advice for Making Outdoor Time Better via Life in 5 Senses (Gretchen Rubin, happiness researcher and author)

Humans Outside

04/20/23 • 41 min

What would you find if you spent your outdoor time focused on experiencing life through your five senses? I don’t mean just soaking in the great outdoors by seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and tasting, but by adding an intentional focus to explore what each of them adds.

That’s a question New York Times best-selling author Gretchen Rubin asks through her new book Life In Five Senses and is actively exploring through her own one-year outdoor challenge that she’s shared with listeners of her Happier With Gretchen Rubin podcast.

In this episode Gretchen sits down to chat with us about all things five senses, outdoor habits, what you find by doing the same thing every day -- whether that be going outside of visiting a museum -- and how you can use your five senses to make your life even happier. Listen now.

Connect with this episode:

Read Life in 5 Senses (affiliate link)

Visit Gretchen’s website

Follow Gretchen on Facebook

Hear Gretchen Rubin on Humans Outside Join the Humans Outside Challenge Follow Humans Outside on Instagram Follow Humans Outside on Facebook

Some of the good stuff:

[3:05] Gretchen Rubin’s favorite outdoor space

[4:10] How Gretchen became someone who likes to go outside

[6:35] The problem of things taking effort

[8:47] Why Gretchen started her Life in 5 Senses project

[11:33] Does she still go to this place every day?

[11:38] How that practice is like a sit spot

[14:40] The freedom (and challenge) of doing something every day

[18:28] Gretchen’s favorite sense and how her experiment impacted it

[19:41] What do we lose when we ignore our senses?

[22:27] All about Gretchen’s daily outdoor project

[24:15] The difference between a chore and recess outside

[27:00] Why the freedom to choose your own rules is important (and hard)

[30:13] The inspiration for Gretchen’s project

[33:17] How her five sense are influencing her outdoor project

[36:19] Personal habits that make her outdoor time better

[40:21] Gretchen’s favorite outdoor moment

1 Listener

1 Comment

295 Outdoor Diary: What Happens When I Think About My Nature Habit as ‘Recess’

Humans Outside

04/25/23 • 6 min

Keeping a daily habit, any habit, comes with a risk that it eventually transforms from something you want to do into something that’s simply a chore. You do it without thinking. It’s so a part of who you are that you may not even remember if you did it or not.

I don’t want my outdoor habit to be a chore. I want it to feel like recess, a concept introduced to me by New York Times best-selling author Gretechn Rubin in her recent guest episode with Humans Outside.

What changes when I think about heading outside as recess instead of a chore? Listen now.

Connect with this episode:

Some of the good stuff:

[:35] What might happen when you realize that every day is a lot of days

[1:11] You don’t want this to feel like a chore

[1:37] What I want it to feel like instead

[2:15] What Gretchen Rubin taught me about this in our recent episode

[2:50] Do you remember recess as a kid?

[3:15] What would happen if I made my outdoor time recess

[4:00] Here’s how that looks

[4:45] Two great examples of this

1 Listener

273 Outside Diary: My Favorite Humans Outside Episodes Over 3 Years + a Birthday Giveaway

Humans Outside

02/07/23 • 8 min

It’s been three years since I launched the Humans Outside podcast in the early winter of 2020. It’s been an incredible ride of learning, growth and outdoor adventures for me as I’ve connected with 101 Humans Outside guests and recorded over 270 episodes. But what were some of the ones that have stuck with me the most?

In this episode I talk about my favorite takeaways from three years of Humans Outside, plus share how you can enter a giveaway I’m hosting to celebrate the Humans Outside birthday. Listen now!

Connect with this episode:

Enter the Humans Outside birthday giveaway

Episode 18: How Nature Can Help Your Marriage (Corie Weathers)

Episode 26: Heading Outdoors to Conquer Challenges Indoors (Nailah Blades Wylie)

Episode 54: How to Use Outdoors as Therapy

Episode 83: Here's Exactly How to Build an Outdoor Habit (Sarah Hays Coomer)

Episode 99: How Heading Outside Makes Your Brain More Creative (Cordele Glass)

Episode 171: How to Create an Outdoor Habit that Works for You (Sarah Hays Coomer)

Episode 179: How to ‘Rewild’ Yourself Even If You Live in a City (Claire Dunn)

Episode 208: Simple and Easy Ways to ‘Rewild’ Your Life by Going Outside (Micah Mortali)

Episode 264: How to Create a Habit That Gives You What You Need (Sarah Hays Coomer)

Episode 268: Why Outside Challenges Like Harsh Weather Can Feel Bad and What to Do About It (Sarah Histand)

Some of the good stuff:

[:50] What podcasting is to me

[1:17] What three years of this podcast means by the numbers

[1:46] What podcasting here means to me

[2:23] A few highlights of the interviews I’ve loved

[7:20] Info about the giveaway

1 Listener

239: Building Real-World Toughness by Heading Outside (Steve Magness, Human Performance Expert and Author)

Humans Outside

09/29/22 • 48 min

So you want to learn how to handle tough challenges in life, both those you encounter while playing outside and those you find just going about your day-to-day, indoor life and job. But how do you make it happen?

Steve Magness, a world-famous coach, human performance expert and author of the new book Do Hard Thing: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness says part of the reason toughness against life’s challenges is so create is that we are going about it wrong.

In this episode, Steve walks us through what the research shows about building a lifestyle around getting and staying tough, why that matters and what heading outside has to do with it.

Connect with this episode:

Find Steve Magness on Instagram

Visit Steve’s website

Read “Do Hard Things” by Steve Magness

Learn about Ski Babes and Mind and Mountain Follow Sarah Histand on Facebook Follow Sarah Histand on Instagram What to Wear in Cold Weather, Sarah’s first Humans Outside episode Join the Humans Outside Challenge Follow Humans Outside on Instagram Follow Humans Outside on Facebook

Some of the good stuff:

[2:52] Steve Magness’s favorite outdoor space

[3:48] How Steve became someone who likes to go outside

[6:00] Why going outside is so important to him now

[9:18] What’s the difference between toughness and resilience?

[10:41] Examples of awareness

[15:28] What’s wrong with how we tend to think about toughness

[18:06] How do you build toughness?

[21:40] The difference between thoughtful response and reaction

[28:10] How this applies to everyday life

[29:35] Creating a strong why -- and why it matters

[35:41] What this has to do with setting incremental goals

[38:07] Why the Humans Outside 365 challenge is great for this

[41:48] Is toughness a muscle you have to maintain or something you only have to learn once?

[46:44] Steve’s favorite outdoor moment

1 Listener

268: Why Outside Challenges Like Harsh Weather Can Feel Bad and What to Do About It (Sarah Histand, mental health informed adventure fitness trainer)

Humans Outside

01/19/23 • 46 min

Ever seen that meme that asks “why do I live some in a place where the air hurts my face?” Heading outside in harsh conditions can feel like a personal attack that has your whole body and mind screaming “noooooooooo!” You want to want to do it, but you don’t. You know there’s no actual danger, but if feels like there is. You want to be someone who goes outside and does cool stuff, but you can’t figure out how to calm down that internal “nope” monologue.

So what can you do about it? In this episode Alaska-based mental health informed adventure fitness trainer Sarah Histand tackles the big question of dealing being kind to your nervous system while teaching it that, hey, heading outside for challenges big and small is a safe and even fun idea. Listen now.

Connect with this episode:

Some of the good stuff:

[2:57] Sarah Histand’s (different from last time) favorite outdoor space

[6:10] How Sarah got into the subject of mind meets mountain

[10:53] Why going outside in harsh weather or for big challenges sometimes feels so very bad

[13:40] Why sometimes it feels totally fine and other times it feels totally not fine

[19:05] All about very individualized risk tolerance

[24:19] Steps for overcoming this problem

[25:13] Snacks and other comfort items

[30:54] Baby steps aren’t just for babies

[32:24] This is an everyone problem -- not just beginners

[37:27] No comparing, please

[39:48] Learning to balance intuition with social pressure

[45:01] How to find more about Sarah

1 Listener

1 Comment

258 Best Of: What I Learned from Spending 20 Minutes Outside Every Day for 4 Years

Humans Outside

12/08/22 • 59 min

When Amy first started her outdoor challenge it wasn’t to inspire anyone but herself to make getting into nature a daily habit. It wasn’t even because she had found heading outside to be so transformative she had to do it every day. Originally, the 20 minute daily challenge was born of a question: how would her life change if she went outside for a certain amount of time every day for a year? The experiment started September 1, 2017. And there at the beginning was Amy’s friend Holly Wise, helping her develop the concept just as she had for all of Amy’s big ideas since 2004.

In this “best of” episode recorded four years after starting her experiment and hundreds and hundreds of hours outside as part of her daily practice, Amy and Holly discuss what Amy learned over the course of her habit -- and what you can learn, too.

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