The Tortoise with Brooke McAlary

In the perfect follow-up to March’s Great Outdoors Slow Experiment, today Brooke chats with Florence Williams, author of The Nature Fix. Whether you’ve been reading the book or have never heard of it, you’re in for a treat. Florence is an epic researcher and communicator, and the studies and anecdotes she shares are both informative and inspiring. Kicking off, Florence shares her favourite definition of nature: Oscar Wilde’s generous statement that it is “a place where birds fly around uncooked”. She believes nature doesn’t have to be wild or pristine to have an impact, which makes it much more accessible, especially to urban dwellers. She and Brooke talk about the importance of prioritising and valuing time spent in nature, as well as sharing some concrete tips for engaging in nature once we get there. Then they dive into the benefits. Florence shares what she found while researching and writing the book, from the way spending time in nature makes us feel more connected and be more civic-minded to the impact on creativity, productivity and mood. She also touches on the relationship between nature and technology, encouraging kids to get outside, how she gets her own nature fix, research on the minimum recommended dose of outside time and so much more. This conversation only further convinced Brooke of the importance of spending time in nature – it’s not a ‘nice-to-do’, more a ‘need-to-do’. Let us know if it made you feel the same way! Comment on Instagram or Facebook and share your thoughts. To read more, head over to http://slowyourhome.com/232/ for all the links and resources mentioned, as well as the full blog post. ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes or head over to the Patreon page to help support the show financially and join in on our live monthly video calls. And thanks so much for listening! ===Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s the last episode for the Great Outdoors Slow Experiment, and this week Brooke and Ben look at the mental health benefits of spending time outside, as well as wrapping up the month and reflecting on their own experiences. Hint: Brooke’s mind has been blown, and Ben thinks he’ll stick to the habit. Given her experience with postnatal depression and anxiety in the past, Brooke feels particularly connected to the concept of nature having an positive impact on mental health. It played a major role in her healing journey, and she’s excited to see studies showing its benefits in others with mental health illness. Ben found research that highlighted that everyone’s response to time in nature is different, and that people with a predisposition to mental illness actually feel the benefits more than others. Which leads into a timely reminder to find what works best for you, try it and see and be self-aware as you experiment (and of course, always seek professional help when it’s needed). The guys also talk about the wondrous week in nature they’ve had, filled with birthday hikes, hot springs, natural springs, playtime, skiing and walks. Brooke had the timely reminder to let go of expectations and let nature time happen however it does, even if it’s 5 minutes hanging out the washing and breathing in the fresh air rather than a glorious stroll in the woods. They reflect on the month as a whole, and both agree it’s been a huge shift for them in understanding the importance of getting out into the Great Outdoors, and that it’s something that will stick with them. If you’re playing along, don’t forget to share how you’re going over on Instagram using the hashtag #slowexperiment, or comment on Facebook. We’d love to know what you’ve discovered, or what’s impacted you over the month, and whether you think you’ll keep it up. And also a massive thank you to everyone who’s joined us in the experiment - we’ve loved seeing your posts, and your passion and honesty in sharing has been inspiring. To read more, head over to http://slowyourhome.com/231 for all the links and resources mentioned, as well as the full blog post. Stay tuned in April to find out what the May #slowexperiment will be too! ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes or head over to the Patreon page to help support the show financially and join in on our live monthly video calls. And thanks so much for listening! ===Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Let’s get physical. Yep, we’re in week three of the Great Outdoors Slow Experiment, and this week Brooke and Ben are looking at a bunch of the physical benefits of spending time outside in nature. It’s been a pretty wondrous, awe-inspiring week outside for them, with quiet moments, play, some glorious snow and then even more glorious skiing. This week Brooke has really found herself craving time outside, and Ben noticed the headspace that spending time in nature gives him, setting him straight for the rest of his day. They looked at a bunch of research, and found some really surprising studies and information. Things like how exercising outside makes you want to keep exercising. That if you live in an urban environment but have access to or prioritise time in nature, you can live a longer and more healthful life. Being outside can lower your blood pressure, and make you better at coping with stress. If you do it regularly, it can reduce your stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. It impacts inflammation and your immune system, as well as your ability to heal and recover from illnesses. Basically, the long term benefits are many and varied and there is so much interesting work being done in this area. If you were having doubts about this whole nature thing, this episode will definitely put them to bed. Put simply, there is so much to gain by making these changes, and so much to lose if we don’t. And the hack of the week to help you commit? Reduce the scope, stick to the schedule. So get out there! If you’re playing along, don’t forget to share how you’re going over on Instagram using the hashtag #slowexperiment, or comment on Facebook. We’d also love to know if you’ve noticed any physical benefits - from sleep to immunity, let us know how you’re feeling. To read more, head over to http://slowyourhome.com/230 for all the links and resources mentioned, as well as the full blog post. ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes or head over to the Patreon page to help support the show financially and join in on our live monthly video calls. And thanks so much for listening! ===Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to episode 229, and to the end of the second week of the Great Outdoors Slow Experiment! In today’s episode Brooke and Ben turn their attention to attention - the benefits of outside time for mental performance. There’s loads of research that shows how time spent in nature helps us concentrate more, be more creative, improve our memory and do better in work and study. Brooke highlights that while for her, she doesn’t need any more convincing to spend time outside, this research is pretty powerful when it comes to showing decision and policy makers of the importance of integrating nature into urban, work and educational environments. Creativity is a theme that comes up, and Brooke says she feels the benefits more in this and problem-solving rather than a more immediate impact on productivity. Ben realises that while he once thought time in nature gave him clarity, he now sees it more as a reset, a time for his brain to rest and heal so he can come back to the clarity that’s already there. This ties into the research about active and passive attention, and the importance of downtime for your brain. At the end of the episode, Brooke shares a bunch of ideas for those living in urban environments who are finding it challenging to get out in nature. These include things like: Take your lunch to a park and eat it there Find a patch of grass and sit on it – take your shoes off and pop your feet on the ground, see what it feels like Make a date with friends/family and go for a picnic Drive out of the city one night and look at the stars Make a date every month and make that your nature day – no phones, just hanging out, outside Buy a couple of house plants Looking at images and listening to sounds of nature Go camping We’d love to hear your suggestions! If you’re playing along, don’t forget to share how you’re going over on Instagram using the hashtag #slowexperiment, or comment on Facebook. We’d also love to know what you’ve found challenging or easy so far, especially if you’re in an urban environment. To read more, head over to http://slowyourhome.com/229/ for all the links and resources mentioned, as well as the full blog post. ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes or head over to the Patreon page to help support the show financially and join in on our live monthly video calls. And thanks so much for listening! ===Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re one week into the Great Outdoors experiment, and it’s off to an enjoyable start. In today’s episode, Brooke and Ben talk about how they’ve spent the last week getting out in nature, what they’ve noticed, as well as diving into some research around the emotional benefits of spending time outside. This week the guys have spent time outdoors both as a family and solo. It’s been active, but also contemplative, as Brooke shares how she spent one session just sitting by the river watching the water flow - a perfect reminder that sometimes being in nature can just be about being rather than doing. Ben noticed a marked difference in himself between the time spent outside in nature versus the the time spent outside in an urban environment. He shared some research he found that looked at a range of studies where this distinction was made between urban and natural outdoor environments, and the different impacts they had on stress, happiness, creativity, generosity, kindness, attention and the feeling of being alive. No surprises, nature came out ahead. Brooke focused on the sensation of awe that she feels when she spends time in the great outdoors, and was surprised by the amount of research that backed this up scientifically. Studies have found that awe is more important than happiness when it comes to unlocking all the emotional benefits of time spent outside, as it forces us to slow down and be immersed in the thing we are in awe of. Pretty magical stuff, right?  So try to keep that sense of awe and childlike curiosity with you this week as you spend time with nature big and small, and stay tuned for the experiment episodes for the rest of the month, where Brooke and Ben will look at the mental (especially performance) and physical benefits of spending time in nature. If you’re playing along, don’t forget to share how you’re going over on Instagram using the hashtag #slowexperiment, or comment on Facebook. We’d love to know what you’ve found challenging or easy so far, and if you’ve noticed any emotional benefits at all! To read more, head over to http://slowyourhome.com/228/ for all the links and resources mentioned, as well as the full blog post. ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes or head over to the Patreon page to help support the show financially and join in on our live monthly video calls. And thanks so much for listening! ===Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Let the experimenting begin! Yep, the #slowhomeexperiment is back for 2018, kicking off this month and happening every second month hereafter. March is all about the great outdoors, and the experiment is to prioritise spending time outside every single day. Brooke and Ben are aiming for 60 minutes a day, but if you’d like to play along, find an amount of time that works for you and try sticking to it. The aim is to keep it simple but consistent, and to pop outside time a little higher up your to-do list than normal, even on the days when it seems too hard. We all know at a deep level that spending time in nature is good for us, and Brooke talks about some of the symptoms of “too much inside time” that she notices in her family: irritability, excess energy, feeling cabin fever-y and craving that delicious buzz of tiredness that can only come from spending a day outdoors. Sound familiar? The guys are going in with an open mind as to what they’ll get out of the experiment, but also research shows that spending more time outside in nature has a massive impact of many areas of your life, from mental and physical health to emotional wellbeing, as well as performance in school and work. They talk about some different ways you can try to incorporate outside time, from the big to the small, as well as some ways to feel the benefits even on the days when getting outside is literally impossible.  Stay tuned for the experiment episodes for the rest of the month, where Brooke and Ben will report back on their outside time, as well as diving in deep to some of the benefits and research that’s been done. If you’re playing along, don’t forget to share how you’re going over on Instagram using the hashtag #slowhomeexperiment! To read more, head over to http://slowyourhome.com/227/ for all the links and resources mentioned, as well as the full blog post. ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes or head over to the Patreon page to help support the show financially and join in on our live monthly video calls. And thanks so much for listening! ===Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In today’s episode Brooke chats to the delightful Kirsty Farrugia, founder of Feels Like Home professional organising, and co-host of the podcast The Art of Decluttering. This conversation put to bed a few misconceptions Brooke had about professional organisers, as Kirsty really brings warmth and vulnerability when talking about her job, and the full spectrum of relationships between stuff and people that she deals with in her daily life. They talk about the misconception of decluttering as the solution to every problem, when really it’s often just the first step in a long process of creating change in your life. Kirsty also talks about how she gets started with her clients, and the questions she invites them to ask as they sit in the mess and start to deal with it. Just like Brooke talks about the importance of knowing your ‘why’, when it comes to decluttering, having a vision for your home and your life in it makes the process much easier. Wonderfully, Kirsty reveals that she is in fact not a naturally organised person, and that it was only after she married an “uber-organised” man that she started to change her ways. This means that she can really connect and empathise with her clients, as she too has felt overwhelmed in her own home and has done the hard work to make changes. She talks about the idea of grace, and of the benefits of letting go and giving yourself permission to live the life you want to live, not a life dictated by the things around you. It’s a big, honest, vulnerable chat that definitely peels back a couple of onion layers around decluttering and professional organising, and we owe a big thanks to Kirsty for sharing so openly. To read more, head over to http://slowyourhome.com/226/ for all the links and resources mentioned, as well as the full blog post. Brooke and Ben also announce the first Slow Experiment of 2018 and encourage you to join in. You can find out more at http://www.slowyourhome.com/nature ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes or head over to the Patreon page to help support the show financially and join in on our live monthly video calls. And thanks so much for listening! ===Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Three-time guest Rachel Jonat of The Minimalist Mom is back! This week brings some real-talk to the topics of slow living as a family, as we catch up on the changes in Rachel and her family’s life since she was last on the show, as well as talk about her new book, The Joy of Doing Nothing. In episode 30, Rachel and her family had just moved to Vancouver from the Isle of Man, and she and Brooke talked about the ways city living and slow living tied in together. In episode 93, the talk turned more specifically to kids and slow living. In today's episode they flip the script entirely, as Rachel and her family have moved away from the city to a small town to live a life with their priorities at the centre. The decision to sell their condo in Vancouver and buy a house in a small town in the mountains of BC was a well-thought-out one that aligned with the needs of Rachel’s family (and especially her eldest son, who has additional needs), and also her and her husband’s values. She and Brooke talk about the reality of making this decision, what led up to it, and how the change in location has impacted their lives. Rachel talks about the shift in pace from city to small-town living, which, given her new book, The Joy of Doing Nothing, is utterly relevant. She was working on the book right before she and her husband made the decision to leave Vancouver, and felt inspired by what she was writing about to try and find a life that gave her the time and space she wanted. The book is about slowing down and simplifying, but rather than being about stuff, it focuses on simple, actionable ways to create quiet time for yourself to really unplug and just be. It’s not an extreme approach in any sense, but it definitely taps into that fear so many of us have of not being entertained, distracted or scheduled, and encourages us to hit reset a little more often. To read more, head over to http://slowyourhome.com/225/ for all the links and resources mentioned, as well as the full blog post. ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes or head over to the Patreon page to help support the show financially and join in on our live monthly video calls. And thanks so much for listening! ===Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s good to be back! Welcome to the first new show of 2018, a week late and all the better for it (thanks for your patience with and understanding of the delay!). Today’s episode is a hostful, recorded all the way from the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and it sees Brooke and Ben catch up on everything that’s happened since they last recorded a podcast almost 2 months ago. First up they talk about the head, heart and hard work that went into selling their house, moving out, saying goodbye and getting on that plane. The amount of energy and emotion involved caught them by surprise, and at times Ben found himself in a really stressful place, potentially taking tilting a little too far. Luckily, Brooke’s planning and organisation gave this busy time intention and focus, and they got through to the other side.  They then dive in to talk about the specifics of what went down, including the garage giveaway, having a super slow New Year’s Eve, the emotions involved with leaving their house (and garden) for the final time, packing and the difficulty of saying goodbye (especially to their dog). All in all it’s been a big few weeks, but never once have the guys questioned whether they were doing the right thing or not. Two days in to their big adventure and they really are living in the unknown, doing the experiment. Which brings us to the experiment episodes - they’re back! They’ll be happening every second month, and the first one will kick off in March, so stay tuned.  To read more, head over to http://slowyourhome.com/222/ for all the links and resources mentioned, as well as the full blog post. ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes or head over to the Patreon page to help support the show financially and join in on our live monthly video calls. And thanks so much for listening! ===Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, and welcome to the Slow Home Summer series! For 5 weeks over December and January we’ll be revisiting some of our favourite episodes from 2017, so we can walk the walk and slow down during the Christmas break. Also it turns out podcasts, just like fine wine, really do get better with age. Whether you missed them the first time around, or are having another listen, we hope you enjoy these poggies as much as we did! ==== Today Brooke chats with the wonderful, challenging, inspiring author Sarah Wilson. Sarah is someone Brooke has admired for years - not only for the work she’s done to promote the notion of drastically cutting sugar in our diets, preventing food waste, and her more recent work in mental health awareness - but also the way she goes about that work. She is honest and open, prepared to stand for something regardless of whether people agree with her, and she’s also funny and smart and good at not taking herself too seriously. In this conversation Brooke and Sarah talk about her new book, ‘first we make the beast beautiful: a new story about anxiety’ and dive deep into how Sarah slows down in order to both strengthen herself against anxiety’s harmful side, and simultaneously go deeper into it. They talk about the discomfort of true reflection and Sarah’s growing boredom with shallow conversations and external grasping (and why cocktail parties are the worst example of this!) as well as the idea that it’s not necessary or even helpful to slow down simply for the sake of slowing down, but rather aiming to slow down in order to be or do something meaningful. As an avid bush walker, Sarah talks about why she chooses to head off into the bush every second weekend (more if possible) and what the rhythm and solitude of solo hiking provides her that other exercises can’t. Sarah shares her cure for insomnia and why one of her two major tenets of slow-ness is to simply walk. She also introduces Brooke to the French idea of ‘flâner’, an urban wandering, and why sometimes it’s enough to simply walk through our own neighbourhood, noticing, paying attention, watching people and observing the comings and goings that surround us. They also talk about meditation and why it’s the second key tenet of slow-ness for Sarah, and why it’s not only OK to suck at meditation, but why it’s actually incredibly useful to be bad at it. This is a cracker of an episode, packed with loads of inspiration. Head over to http://www.slowyourhome.com/ss185 for the full blog post, including links to Sarah's books, website and other resources mentioned in today's show, and in the meantime, enjoy! ==== If you're enjoying the show and want to know how to best support it, leave a rating or a review in iTunes or head over to the Patreon page to help support the show financially and join in on our live monthly video calls. And thanks so much for listening! ===  Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.