Author: Tara Tiger Brown

  • Solo or Guided? Comparing Mindful Forest Walks

    Summary

    Both solo and guided mindful forest walks reduce stress, improve mood, and increase nature connectedness. Guide-led programs tend to add greater gains in self‑esteem, emotional regulation, social bonding, and sometimes larger anxiety and physiological effects than self-guided walks, though findings vary.

    Solo or Guided? Comparing Mindful Forest Walks
    Solo or Guided? Comparing Mindful Forest Walks
    Solo or Guided? Comparing Mindful Forest Walks
    Solo or Guided? Comparing Mindful Forest Walks

    Main outcome differences

    Self-guided experiences reliably improve mood, anxiety scores, and nature connectedness, while guided programs more often add effects on self‑esteem, emotional shifts, and social engagement.

    • Both effective Self-guided and guided forest therapy produced significant improvements in negative affect, mood states, anxiety, and nature connectedness compared with routine activities or controls [1] [2] [3].
    • Guided advantages Guided programs showed additional increases in self‑esteem compared with routine activities and, in several studies, greater reductions in state anxiety and total mood disturbance than self‑guided immersion [1] [4].
    • Different experiential emphasis Qualitative analyses report that self-guided sessions are more associated with introspection and inward focus, whereas guided sessions emphasize emotional change and social interaction [3].

    Physiological outcomes

    Comparative physiological data show consistent overall benefits from forest exposure but mixed differences between solo and guided formats depending on measures and contexts.

    • General physiological effects Forest-based interventions reduce systolic and diastolic blood pressure and salivary cortisol on average across studies of urban residents [5].
    • Heart rate Reductions in heart rate have been reported in both guided and self‑guided sessions across diverse parks and seasons [6].
    • Blood pressure and stress hormones Blood pressure responses varied between guided and self‑guided sessions and across individuals and settings; some studies found guided sessions produced larger or more consistent Systolic Blood Pressure decreases and lower stress‑hormones than strolling alone [6] [7].
    • Therapist-led clinical advantage Guided forest immersion led by clinical therapists was associated with greater short‑term reductions in state anxiety [4].

    Psychological outcomes

    Psychological outcomes across formats include depth of reflection, emotion regulation, social connectedness, and mindfulness.

    • Mood and anxiety Both formats improved mood and reduced anxiety in randomized crossover and controlled trials [2] [9] [10].
    • Nature connectedness Participation in either self‑guided or guided immersion increases connectedness to nature; some studies report stronger or more complex cognitive–emotional responses when a guide structures the experience [1] [2] [11].
    • Introspection versus social bonding Self‑guided therapy is repeatedly reported to foster introspection and inner-focused reflection, while guided programs foster emotional shifts and opportunities for social interaction and shared processing [3].
    • Mindfulness depth Insufficient evidence to conclude that certified guide‑led sessions reliably produce deeper mindfulness states than self‑guided sessions; many comparative trials did not include validated “mindfulness depth” measures or produced mixed results.
    • Emotional nuance and stability Guided formats can elicit deeper emotional processing and more complex cognitive responses to nature, and may buffer external variability (e.g., noise, weather), supporting more consistent experiential outcomes [11].

    Moderators and practical interpretation

    Differences between self-guided and guide-led outcomes depend strongly on participant characteristics, facilitation type, environment, and dose; these moderators explain many inconsistent findings. Choice of format should align with intended goals (introspection, clinical symptom reduction, social support, or scalable public health delivery).

    • Participant experience Increases in nature connectedness and mood were larger among participants with low prior forest‑bathing experience in some studies, affecting whether guided facilitation adds benefit [6].
    • Environment and sensory context Plant diversity, ambient sound levels, light, and season influenced mood and physiological responses, sometimes interacting with whether sessions were guided or self‑guided [6].
    • Dose and session length Longer or multi‑session forest therapy (≥20 minutes and repeated sessions) produced larger blood pressure and cortisol reductions in pooled analyses [5].
    • Facilitator type matters Clinical therapist‑led sessions (psychologists/therapists) have shown larger short‑term mental‑health gains and reduced outcome variability compared with unguided immersion in at least one study, and one retrospective analysis suggested higher economic value for therapist‑led delivery [4].
    • Practical recommendation Use self‑guided formats when the goal is personal reflection, scalability, or low cost; choose certified or therapist‑led programs when targeting clinical anxiety, structured emotional processing, social cohesion, or when environmental distractions must be managed.

    References

    [1]W. S. Shin and J.-G. Kim, “The influence of Self-Guided and Guided Forest Therapy Program on Students’ Psychological Benefits,” Journal of people, plants, and environment, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 169–179, Apr. 2023, doi: 10.11628/ksppe.2023.26.2.169.

    [2]W. S. Shin, I. K. Seong, and J.-G. Kim, “Psychological Benefits of Self-Guided Forest Healing Program Using Campus Forests,” Forests, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 336–336, Feb. 2023, doi: 10.3390/f14020336.

    [3]J.-G. Kim and W.-S. Shin, “Forest Therapy Alone or with a Guide: Is There a Difference between Self-Guided Forest Therapy and Guided Forest Therapy Programs?,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 18, no. 13, p. 6957, June 2021, doi: 10.3390/IJERPH18136957.

    [4]R. Rivieccio, F. Meneguzzo, G. Margheritini, T. Re, U. Riccucci, and F. Zabini, “Therapist-Guided Versus Self-Guided Forest Immersion: Comparative Efficacy on Short-Term Mental Health and Economic Value,” Behavioral science, vol. 15, Nov. 2025, doi: 10.3390/bs15121618.

    [5]Q. Qiu et al., “The Effects of Forest Therapy on the Blood Pressure and Salivary Cortisol Levels of Urban Residents: A Meta-Analysis,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 458–458, Dec. 2022, doi: 10.3390/ijerph20010458.

    [6]“Forest bathing in Metro Vancouver, Canada : a randomized crossover study examining health outcomes and environmental and vegetation influences,” Mar. 2025, doi: 10.14288/1.0448266.

    [7]K. Igawahara, T. Kagawa, N. Takayama, and B.-J. Park, “Research on the Effect which a Guide Brings about in a Forest Walk,” Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information, vol. 70, no. 5, pp. 597–600, Mar. 2007, doi: 10.5632/JILA.70.597.

    [9]H. Ochiai et al., “Physiological and psychological effects of forest therapy on middle-aged males with high-normal blood pressure,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2015, doi: 10.3390/IJERPH120302532.

    [10]A. Muro et al., “Forest bathing and hiking benefits for mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mediterranean regions,” European Journal of Forest Research, vol. 142, no. 2, pp. 1–12, Feb. 2023, doi: 10.1007/s10342-023-01531-6.

    [11]P. E. Loyola, “Evaluación de la influencia de un guía en prácticas de inmersión en la Naturaleza: conexión y actitudes de valoración de la Naturaleza en espacios verdes urbanos,” Jan. 2024, doi: 10.7764/tesisuc/agr/88525.

  • The Indoor Sit Spot: How Touching Wood Brings Nature Inside

    The Indoor Sit Spot: How Touching Wood Brings Nature Inside

    The biophilia hypothesis suggests that humans have an evolved affinity for living systems . Modern humans remain adapted to sensory-rich, natural settings, resulting in measurable physiological stress when isolated in synthetic environments .

    “Touch grass” has entered common usage as shorthand for stepping away from a screen and returning to the physical world. The phrase resonates because it names something real: human nervous systems evolved in close contact with living material, and sustained separation from it has measurable physiological costs.

    Multi-sensory natural environments produce greater benefits that single-modality indoor interventions cannot fully replicate .

    However, weather, air quality, urban living, shiftwork, unsafe circumstances, accessibility, and long work days can be obstacles to time outside. The good news, is that your wooden furnishings might be making you calmer than you think.

    The Indoor Sit Spot: How Touching Wood Brings Nature Inside

    In small studies, touching wood has been associated with short-term signs of increased rest-and-recovery activity . The effect is consistent across multiple studies and wood species. The body responds to natural materials in ways that are measurable, and distinct from its response to metal, plastic, or synthetic surfaces.

    Studies have also found restorative potential of exposed wood surfaces in healthcare facilities and oncology waiting rooms , alongside improved physiological recovery in hospital rooms containing indoor foliage .

    The Indoor Sit Spot: How Touching Wood Brings Nature Inside

    If you live with any of those barriers — if you work long days, if smoke season keeps you indoors, if your mobility makes a forest path difficult, if your workday runs past sunset, if your body is recovering from illness or injury — a sit spot practice is for you.

    A sit spot practice is simply spending time outdoors in a consistent location and engaging your senses. The indoor sit spot adapts this practice. In fact, early stress reduction research presented photos and videos to participants indoors . A practical indoor sit spot that includes a wood surface, a plant, natural light and a brief daily ritual, offers an accessible, science-backed way to maintain nature connection regardless of outdoor conditions.

    The Indoor Sit Spot: How Touching Wood Brings Nature Inside

    The Environmental Mismatch

    The human nervous system evolved in sensory-rich outdoor environments. When you feel depleted by a screen-heavy day, that depletion is a predictable biological response to conditions humans have never previously encountered at this scale.

    A sit spot works because repeated, brief exposure to natural stimuli triggers measurable physiological changes: parasympathetic activation (the body’s rest-and-recovery response), reduced prefrontal cortex activity, and lower stress biomarkers.

    The outdoor version delivers those stimuli through multiple senses simultaneously: sound, light quality, temperature, smell, visual complexity, ground contact. One sense that is often underestimated for indoor interventions is touch.

    The Science of Touching Wood

    Simple physical contact with natural wooden surfaces helps shift the autonomic nervous system away from stress-induced arousal and toward physiological calm. Research led by Hiroko Ikei and Yoshifumi Miyazaki demonstrates that physical contact with natural, untreated wood produces measurable relaxation responses in the human nervous system compared to synthetic or hard inorganic materials such as marble, tile, or stainless steel .

    When individuals touch uncoated or brushed wood, two distinct physiological changes occur: 1) blood oxygenation levels in the prefrontal cortex, the region of the brain responsible for complex cognitive processing, decline, indicating a reduction in mental exertion and cerebral strain, 2) measurements of high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV) increase significantly. High-frequency heart rate variability serves as a direct marker of parasympathetic nervous system activity, which regulates the body’s involuntary recovery and relaxation functions.

    The mechanism is partly thermal. Wood conducts heat more slowly than metal or stone, so it maintains your hand’s surface temperature rather than drawing warmth away. The nervous system registers this as safe. Surface texture also plays a role: both thermal perception and roughness shape the physiological response.

    Surface finish matters. Uncoated and oil-finished wood produces stronger relaxation signals than glossy, mirror-polished, or urethane-coated surfaces.

    Caveat. Systematic reviews caution that many primary studies in this area use small samples, single-modality stimuli, and heterogeneous methods, meaning the findings are promising and consistent, but translation to clinical guidelines warrants further large-scale trials .

    The Indoor Sit Spot: How Touching Wood Brings Nature Inside

    Wooden Environments

    Large-scale reviews of the literature support wood as a restorative environmental material, proposed for offices, schools, and care settings. For example, researchers found that a wooden waiting-room had regenerative potential in clinical indoor spaces . Another study found that using wooden tableware in social workplace gatherings reduced stress compared with metal alternatives.

    The Exchange in Kelowna, British Columbia, a mass timber office building, was evaluated post-occupancy by Happy Cities for Forestry Innovation Investment. 87% of employees reported higher mental wellbeing, 61% improved physical wellbeing, and 74% better collaboration compared with conventional office environments. The combination of exposed wood, natural light, and plants produced measurable gains. This is biophilic design (the practice of incorporating natural elements into built environments) working as intended: built-in environmental conditions that support human biology.

    These findings inform the benefits for indoor sit spots.

    Designing Your Indoor Sit Spot

    Designate an indoor spot where you dedicate 10 minutes to quiet, semi-structured attention. Include at least one wooden surface within reach.

    Choose your surface. A wooden table, an unfinished timber shelf, a smooth piece of driftwood, a turned wooden bowl, a wooden spoon, or a cutting board kept. Uncoated or oil-finished is better than glossy.

    Don’t have unfinished wood? Raw clay, unglazed ceramic, stone, and textured natural fibre also conduct heat more slowly than metal or plastic. A river stone, a terracotta coaster, or a linen cushion in your lap won’t replicate wood exactly but will give your nervous system a warmer, more natural signal than a plastic desk or metal chair.

    Position it near natural light. Light quality matters alongside material contact. Ideally you can be near a window, but it is not required.

    Add a plant. A plant that you can touch extends the multi-sensory signal. Multisensory natural environments consistently outperform single-modality contact in the research .

    Keep it consistent. Same spot at about the same time every day. The nervous system responds to predictability, and it is the repetition, not just the habit-building that provides benefits.

    One January 2026 cohort participant described the feeling this way:

    “Such a gentle way to approach the practice.”

    The Indoor Sit Spot: How Touching Wood Brings Nature Inside

    The Practice

    Guided Audio Practice • 3 Min

    Indoor Sit Spot — Wood (Sit Spot Club)
    1. Press play. Rest your hand on the wood surface, palm down, weight released. Notice the temperature, the texture, and the grain.
    2. Breathe. Follow the 3-minute guided audio to anchor your attention.
    3. Sit. When the audio finishes, remain seated in quiet observation for the rest of your 10 minutes: what you can hear, what you can see, and what the air feels like on your face.

    10 minutes is the minimum meaningful dose based on the research, enough time to complete a stress cycle rather than interrupt one.

    “10 minutes flew by.”

    Why This Matters

    Nature connection happens through touch, through smell, through the sound of rain on glass. It requires contact with materials and conditions that your nervous system recognizes.

    The indoor sit spot keeps the practice alive through the seasons when outdoor access is genuinely limited. And it is backed by real research. Including mine .

    Build the Habit: The Free 3-Day Sit Spot Series

    If 10 minutes touching wood changes your baseline today, building a 3-day rhythm anchors the habit.

    Sign up below to receive the free 3-Day Sit Spot Audio Series by email. Each morning, you will receive one brief guided audio practice and a specific sensory prompt to start your day:

    Ready to go deeper? The full Sit Spot Sessions delivers a daily practice by email each morning.

    Start the 30-day program ($39 CAD)

    References

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  • What Thirty Days of Sitting Outside Looks Like

    Sit Daily Outdoors is thirty ten-minute practices that arrive by email, one a day. Here is what is inside them, why they are short, and how to try the first three without paying.

    Everybody already knows that time outside helps. The advice arrives without instructions. You walk to the park, stand near a tree, and wonder how long counts, whether you are doing it right, and what to do with your hands. Ten minutes later you go back inside, mildly improved, and it never happens again.

    That gap between knowing and doing is the whole reason Sit Daily Outdoors exists.

    How a Sit Spot Works

    At its core, a sit spot is deceptively simple. You choose one specific place outdoors, like a quiet park bench, a balcony chair, a porch step, or the base of a neighbourhood tree, and return to it regularly to sit quietly, observe, and let the local ecology become familiar.

    While popularized in modern nature education through tracker and author Jon Young and ancestral awareness lineages, the instinct is timeless. You repeatedly visit the same patch of ground until your senses calibrate to the life moving through it. Sit Daily Outdoors translates that deep observational habit into structured, ten-minute guided audio sessions designed for modern daily routines.

    Thirty practices. Ten minutes each. One arrives in your inbox every morning. You open it, you go outside, you do the thing it describes, and you get on with your day. No app to download, no login, no streak counter waiting to tell you that you failed.

    Each practice names three things, including a place to sit, how long to stay, and one thing to pay attention to. Sound on the first day. The edges of your vision on another. The temperature moving across your skin as the light shifts. That single attention target is doing more work than it looks like. It gives your thinking mind a job small enough to actually hold, and while it is busy, the rest of you gets to stand down.

    You are not trying to relax. You are practicing coming back to baseline.

    Your spot can be a balcony, a bench outside the office, or the same square of grass by the bus stop. A forest is lovely and it is not the requirement. The practices were built for people who live in cities, because that is where most of us are.

    Why Ten Minutes and Not an Afternoon

    Because ten minutes survives a bad week.

    Short repeated exposures build a stronger connection to a place than one long session does. Ten focused minutes, several times a week, will teach you more about the tree outside your window than a single ambitious hike next month. The hike is wonderful. It also gets cancelled when work goes sideways, and then nothing has changed.

    There is a second reason. A place only begins to reveal itself once you have spent quiet, regular time in it. On day two you notice a bird. On day nine you know that bird by sound before you see it, and you know it arrives around the same time you do. That kind of noticing cannot be crammed.

    What the Research Shows

    My doctoral research at UBC’s Faculty of Forestry (explore the research) included a randomized crossover clinical trial across Vancouver’s urban forests. That work sits inside decades of shinrin-yoku and nature immersion evidence from Japan and Canada, which consistently show that time spent attentively outdoors supports stress recovery and nervous system regulation.

    Dr. Tara Tiger Brown research data on nature connection and stress recovery

    The part I care about is translation. A study result is not a practice. Somebody has to turn it into ten minutes you can do before your coffee gets cold, on a Tuesday, in the rain, without special equipment. That translation is what you are buying.

    Three Ways in (Free, 7-Day, and 30-Day)

    The free three days. The first three practices, no payment and no card, and they stay in your account for good. Start them this weekend or next spring. If sitting still turns out not to be for you, you have lost nothing but three ten-minute windows.

    Free 3-Day Sit Daily Outdoors starter practice card

    Seven days, CA$14. Practices one through seven, for anyone who wants to know whether a habit is forming before committing to a month.

    Thirty days, CA$39. All thirty practices, plus written notes and reflection prompts. This is the full program, and it is the one that changes how a place looks to you.

    There are facilitator packs as well, for occupational therapists, counsellors, guides, and anyone running groups. Five client seats for CA$175 or ten for CA$299, each with a seat for you. Try the free three days first so you know exactly what lands in your clients’ inboxes.

    Day Nine and the Habit Starts Itself

    Here is what I want for you, and it is smaller than it sounds. One morning around the second week, you will get to your spot and your body will settle before you have decided to settle. The sitting will start on its own. You will notice the light is different than it was last week, and you will know that only because you were there last week.

    That is the whole thing. Sit. That’s it.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Do I need access to a wild forest or park?
    No. A balcony, a backyard chair, a front porch step, or a single street tree works just as well. The practice is about observational attention in your everyday environment, not remote wilderness access.

    How long does each practice take?
    Each guided audio session is exactly 10 minutes. Short, repeated exposure builds a much more durable habit than an occasional long weekend walk.

    What happens if I miss a day?
    Nothing bad happens. There are no streak counters, guilt notifications, or failure penalties. Pick up the next practice whenever you are ready to head outside.

    Start with the free three days in our Programs catalog or at sitspot.club. Bring an umbrella if that is the kind of week it is.

  • 2026: I’m Not Anti-AI, and I Still Write Postcards in Cursive

    It’s 2026, and I’m still writing postcards in cursive for my postcard club. Analog hobbies like this are getting renewed attention. They surged during the COVID-19 lockdowns, when people turned to gardening, baking, puzzles, crafts, and other offline activities to stay occupied. Now, as AI and automation become more embedded in everyday software, offline pastimes like journaling, gardening, letter writing, and birdwatching can feel more human and more intentional. I’ve also noticed how much more I’m cherishing my nature connection practice.

    Screenshot of a Threads post predicting that 2026 will be the year of massive adoption of analog hobbies with no phone or technology.
    The Threads post that sparked this article about the renewed interest in analog hobbies.

    AI has been steadily infiltrating every facet of our lives. It went largely unnoticed to the untrained / non-techie eye until the past few years, when it began appearing in every nook and cranny of our digital lives, offering to do our thinking and our work for us.

    My entire career has been tech-focused, and although I took a side quest to earn my PhD focused on nature and human health, I have always kept pace with trends. I’m a big fan of removing tedious, repetitive tasks so I can use my brain for more creative endeavours, but I have become frustrated that the choice of whether AI is in our software has largely been taken away from us. I’m not anti-AI, but I’m absolutely pro-autonomy and pro-agency. I want technology to support my choices, not make those choices for me.

    I want technology to support my choices, not make those choices for me.

    AI is polarizing with full adoption on one side, full rejection on the other, and neither extreme is where most of us actually live. What we need is balance: more agency to make intentional choices about how much AI we let into our personal lives, especially since our workplaces and society are already going full steam ahead with it whether we individually opt in or not.

    Others navigating this intrusion have raised questions like, am I speaking to a human? And what will happen if I’m mean to this chatbot when the robots take over? It wouldn’t surprise me if we’re seeing increasing adoption of non-internet, analog interests as an escape, and as an assurance that a human is on the other end of the interaction, engaging authentically without algorithms or automation.

    This isn’t the first time people have looked for something human amid rapid technological change.

    Timeline showing technological change from the First Industrial Revolution around 1800 through the Fourth Industrial Revolution around 2000.
    A timeline of technological change from the First Industrial Revolution to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

    My Analog Escape

    My most consistent analog hobby has been being a member of a cursive-only postcard club for eight years. Every month I’m paired with someone somewhere in the world and I write them a postcard in cursive. We all take special care to find cool cards and it’s pretty much the only snail mail I receive that isn’t junk. As cursive isn’t taught enough in schools anymore, I feel like I’m contributing to keeping the skill alive.

    Collection of handwritten postcards from an eight-year cursive-only postcard club.
    Postcards collected through my cursive-only postcard club over eight years.

    A while back, I’m talking pre-AI life, Sean and I wrote a book about Interest-driven living. We never published it, but it’s been edited by a human and is pretty much ready to go. Hopefully we’ll put it out there, since pre-AI writing is a hot commodity now. That book was largely inspired by our friends from the maker and hackerspace world we were once deeply embedded in, and by my time working on connected learning research with Dr. Mimi Ito, who leads studies on how young people learn through their hobbies and peer communities.

    As more young people turn to analog hobbies, it’s worth exploring why these offline activities appeal to them in a world dominated by screens and constant digital connectivity. This shift feels less like nostalgia and more like an escape from the growing presence of AI in everyday life.

    The “Gen Z is engineering an analog future” piece I linked above captures 13- to 25-year-olds version of this shift. In 2025, more than 11.7 million Instagram posts used the hashtag #nostalgia, while searches for “90s movies” had doubled since 2015. The article describes this as anemoia, a longing for a past you never lived. As a Gen Xer, I find that both funny and easy to empathize with. Gen Z is nostalgic for the pre-digital experiences many of us remember: staying outside until the streetlights came on, drinking from the hose, talking on the phone for hours while the kids I was babysitting slept, making mixtapes from the radio, looking things up in an encyclopedia, using paper maps, and waiting for photos to be developed.

    The Line My Son Drew

    My teenage son drew his own line in the sand, clearly defining when he won’t use AI. He won’t use it for schoolwork (his school has been clear that they’ll expel students who do), and he won’t let it near his digital artwork. Building his 3D models is something he loves, takes pride in, and is still learning how to do. He recently modelled his own robot and then built it. I’ve documented his process so there’s no question he did it all himself, and so he can showcase his skills for future opportunities.

    Teen builder holding a controller to operate a robot he designed and built.
    My son operates the robot he designed and built.

    His stance isn’t quite the same as my postcard hobby, which is one way I unplug and recharge. His is a boundary and a deliberate refusal to let AI touch specific parts of his creative work, on principle, even in places where it’s allowed. Both are part of the same overarching pattern, but they’re not the same behaviour, and I don’t want to conflate them. With that distinction in mind, I wanted to look at the broader pattern.

    Are Analog Hobbies Actually Rising in 2026?

    We are now seven months into 2026, and I wanted to know whether search interest backs up what the Threads OP predicted back in 2025. I turned to Google Trends, comparing 2025 to 2026 search volume by hobby, in both Canada and the US (I’m a dual citizen, so I was curious about both.).

    Google Trends chart showing search interest in analog hobbies in Canada.
    Google Trends search interest in analog hobbies in Canada.
    Google Trends chart showing search interest in analog hobbies in the United States.
    Google Trends search interest in analog hobbies in the United States.

    A quick note on the stats: Google search interest measures curiosity, not participation. Just because more people are Googling “pottery classes” doesn’t mean more people at a pottery wheel. So, this is a signal, not proof.

    Analog hobbies with no phone and no tech

    This compiled list comes from the comments on the Threads post, along with related Google trends searches. None of these activities are modern in any sense; you’d find the same activities pre-internet, or even during the Industrial Revolution. That’s interesting on its own: is there any innovation happening in analog hobbies, or have they generally stalled? Maybe analog hobbies aren’t stalled so much as evolving through new communities, formats, and combinations with technology.

    • Birdwatching
    • Calligraphy
    • Journaling
    • Pottery
    • Art workshops
    • Listening to cassette tapes
    • Board games
    • Reading softback or hardcover books
    • Gardening
    • Letter writing
    • Sewing
    • Painting
    • Film photography
    • Listening to vinyl records
    • Puzzles
    • Making a zine
    • Home repair

    Maybe analog hobbies aren’t stalled so much as evolving through new communities, formats, and combinations with technology.

    Google Search, 2025 vs. 2026 in the U.S. and Canada

    I did a quick search using Google Trends to get a rough sense of changing interest in these hobbies. This is not a thorough analysis or representative study, but simply a snapshot of search activity in the U.S. and Canada.

    HobbyGoogle Search 2025 vs 2026
    Birdwatching30%
    Gardening80%
    Calligraphy30%
    Letter writing20%
    Journaling90%
    Pottery10%
    Sewing20%
    Painting10%
    Art workshops70%
    Film photography100%
    Listening to cassette tapes30%
    Listening to vinyl records40%
    Board games30%
    Puzzles10%
    Reading softback or hardcover books60%
    Making a zine20%
    Home repair110%

    The pattern isn’t a uniform escape, and I can’t claim that AI caused it. Economic conditions, home sales, or other factors may also be influencing these results. Still, skill-building hobbies in particular, including Home Repair, Gardening, Art Workshops, and Birdwatching, are up sharply. These activities reward practice and attention, whether it’s repairing something, growing something, making something, or learning to observe and identify birds. That’s more interesting than simply saying “analog is being massively adopted.” People aren’t just reaching for anything without a phone or tech. They’re reaching for activities that engage curiosity, creativity, and the satisfaction of making something real. Whether AI is the cause or simply part of the context, the desire for those experiences is worth paying attention to.

    Being Human

    That pull toward hands-on, self-directed activity isn’t new to me. In 2012, I wrote about the death of shop class in California schools, which had been cut because it wasn’t valued by university admissions requirements, even as companies like Boeing and Northrop Grumman struggled to find skilled tradespeople. That piece was one of the reasons I co-founded LA Makerspace, a hands-on space built because kids weren’t getting that exposure anywhere else.

    Tara Tiger Brown at LA Makerspace in August 2015.
    At Los Angeles Makerspace in August 2015.

    Fourteen years later, the context has changed, but the response looks familiar. When AI takes over too much of the making, people lose the chance to remain in a co-creator role, and some of that creative self-efficacy drops away.

    Maybe what looks like an escape from AI into the arms of analog experiences is really about control and the chance to decide what stays human.

    When AI takes over too much of the making, people lose the chance to remain in a co-creator role.

    AI Disclosure

    The European Commission’s Article 50 transparency rules (effective August 2, 2026) require labeling for synthetic audio, images, video, text, deepfakes, and chatbot interactions. None of those apply here because these are my thoughts, my words, my personal photos, my screenshots, my life! But for transparency: Gemini compiled the hobby list from the Threads post, created a spreadsheet, and explored search terms, Perplexity sourced the EU rule citation and some of the articles, which I then read, Rank Math made SEO suggestions, ChatGPT formatted the references, and Claude made grammar suggestions which I largely ignored.

    References

    Bonner, S. (n.d.). Sean Bonner. https://seanbonner.com

    Brown, T. T. The death of shop class and America’s skilled workforce. Forbes (2012, May 30). https://www.forbes.com/sites/tarabrown/2012/05/30/the-death-of-shop-class-and-americas-high-skilled-workforce/

    Brown, T. T. (2011). Got kid-friendly hackerspace in Los Angeles? https://taratigerbrown.com/got-kid-friendly-hackerspace-in-los-angeles/

    Connected Learning Alliance. (n.d.). About connected learning. https://clalliance.org/about-connected-learning/

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  • Side-by-Side: A Nature Practice To Transform Your Relationship

    Side-by-Side: A Nature Practice To Transform Your Relationship

    For the month of January we practiced sitting alone with nature. A participant asked for a practice they could do with a companion. In the words of Westley from Princess Bride: “As you wish.”

    Valentine’s Day usually means roses, chocolate, and dinner reservations. This year, try 20 minutes of shared stillness that costs nothing and might actually make you feel connected.

    This practice is called Side-by-Side. It works for romantic partners, close friends, siblings, basically whoever you feel safe spending time with outdoors.

    When you sit side-by-side in nature, your nervous systems sync up through bio-behavioral synchrony. Heart rates stabilize. Breath patterns influence each other. You both downshift from stress into calm.

    Co-regulation is free. No reservations required.

    What you need:

    • A sit spot (bench, log, grass, anywhere outdoors)
    • 20 minutes
    • Optional: blanket or cushion

    What you don’t need:

    • Perfect weather
    • Wilderness
    • Meditation experience
    • Romance

    Doing this solo? Sit, breathe, ground, and then do your own treasure hunt. Same practice, just you and the earth.

    Let’s Try!

    Find any outdoor space where you can sit side-by-side. A park bench, a log, your front steps, a patch of grass.

    Set aside 20 minutes (put a timer on if you wish) and put your phones aside.

    If you brought a cushion or blanket you can place them down. Get as comfortable as you can. In the words of Davidji, “feather your nest.“

    Just Breathe

    Spend a couple minutes just breathing and the feel of the person next to you. If it doesn’t feel comfortable at first, give it a chance. You won’t be sitting like this for long.

    Treasure Hunt!

    One person keeps their eyes closed or with a soft gaze. The other goes on a brief treasure hunt nearby looking for a natural object.

    Find something small from nature that is loose (no picking!) such as a pinecone, interesting leaf, smooth stone, piece of bark. Something with texture.

    Return quietly. Gently place the treasure in your partner’s open hands. Don’t tell them what it is. Don’t whisper hints.

    Eyes still closed or with a soft gaze, ask your partner to explore the treasure with their fingers. Is the texture rough or smooth? Does it feel warm or cool? Is it heavy or light? Is it round, flat, ridged?

    Guess what the treasure is before you open your eyes.
    ​
    Ask your partner to open their eyes and look at what they’ve been holding. Did they guess correctly? Were they surprised? Share why you chose this particular treasure for them.

    Trade roles. Now it’s your partner’s turn to go on a treasure hunt and you stay with closed eyes or a soft gaze. Repeat the same process: explore, guess, discuss.

    Sit in Silence

    Sit together again, holding your treasures. Close your eyes or have a soft gaze. Agree on how long to sit in silence. When your time is complete, ask each other one question: what are you noticing?

    That’s it. That’s the practice.

    Just 20 minutes of shared attention on the world around you instead of the relationship between you.

    Why This Works

    When you sit shoulder-to-shoulder with someone, your heart rates begin to stabilize together, your breath patterns influence each other, and stress hormones drop (Uvnäs-Moberg et al., 2015; Feldman, 2012).

    This is the same mechanism that helps bird flocks move in unison and keeps animal herds calm. Your nervous systems recognize safety in proximity.

    Sitting side-by-side (instead of face-to-face) removes the pressure of eye contact and “performing” connection. You’re both looking outward at the same world, which creates what researchers call joint attention, which is a shift from worrying about the relationship to experiencing the same reality together (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989).

    Translation: Less awkward. More calm. Possibly transformative.

    Did you try Side-by-Side?

    Share:

    • What surprised you about sitting side-by-side instead of face-to-face?
    • What treasures did you find?
    • What did you notice?

    If you post your practice or treasures to Instagram be sure to tag @sitspotclub.

    *Characters adapted from public domain Fleischer Studios illustrations (1930s)