How’s your breathing? And are you reading this on a screen? If so these words may be taking your breath away, or making it shallower. It’s not the words themselves. It’s our relationships with screens that triggers a physical response in our bodies and brains. We start to breathe less deeply when we text, email or game on a screen. The effects can leave us physically exhausted.
The phrases “email apnoea” and “screen apnoea” were coined by Linda Stone, a former senior executive with Apple and later Microsoft. Stone noticed that her breathing grew shallower as soon as she went on her phone or computer. These became moments of micro-stress, where shallow breathing puts our bodies in fight or flight mode without the sabre-toothed tiger to run from, just the “hey hope you’re well. Just checking if you had a chance to get back to me ...” messages.
I heard about email apnoea from Ashley Neese, author of Permission to Rest. Listening to her audiobook on Dublin city Library’s Borrowbox App proved an enlightening experience, as Neese described how stepping off the hamster wheel and giving rest back its importance in our lives makes it easier to understand how cycles of rest and renewal work in the natural world.
We are, Neese argues, endlessly depleting ourselves and the world in an interconnected spiral of more and faster and bigger. We have created a culture where nothing can feel like it’s ever enough, each new thing piling up on the last like stones sinking into sand under our feet. A culture that equates how “busy” you are with how “important” you feel is not going to lead us anywhere good.
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The last thing I needed recently was another “to do” to add to the list, but then a friend sent me a link to the Forest MOOC (mooc.forestmoocforchange.eu).
MOOC is an acronym for Massive Open Online Course and the EU-funded course looks at a healthier way of managing forests for timber, carbon and biodiversity called continuous cover. Instead of feeling exhausting, each hour of the course is like a microdose of hope and energy. It helps that every idea is explained in a video shot in a forest, many of them by smart articulate women foresters, one of whom coined the beautiful phrase “harmonious chaos” to describe a forest being managed along natural lines. The course is free, a brilliant example of technology for good, and is helping me breathe more deeply every week.