Soft Fascination – ART

SOFT FASCINATION

Soft Fascination is an aspect of Attention Restoration Therapy, the tenet that states being in or around Nature and Natural Scenes is stress-reducing, relaxing, and genuinely healing.

“Hard Fascination” is probably your daily routine, the 9-to-5 environment, the busy, noisy, demanding environment. It precipitates a sort of brain overload; stimuli comes at you from all directions, demanding your attention. By lunchtime, you find yourself over-aroused (over-stimulated) and stressed. These every-day, day in and day out, experiences lead to physical discomfort, dis-regulation, and ultimately disease. Your brain really isn’t designed to handle this constant barrage. Working in these unnatural ways causes all sorts of mental and physical problems.

“Soft Fascination” is the term applied to the activity of being, basically, actively inactive; meandering instead of rushing, enjoying instead of laboring. Instead of some outside source demanding your attention and intervention, you restfully allow your mind to focus on what attracts it in a peaceful and enjoyable way, a bright pink wildflower beside the path, a Monarch Butterfly flittering by. This peace is found in a natural setting with the relaxing sounds of birds, bees, flowing water, or evening crickets. Your body was made to work with Nature, not against it.

ATTENTION REASTORATION THERAPY

I knew I had rediscovered something that could benefit many stressed out, chronically ill people when this very exciting discovery of a forgotten finding – Attention Restoration Therapy – came across my desk a few years ago. Its become more popular over the last few years.

DIRECTED ATTENTION

Today, we’ve discerned that the first stage of stress (often leading to chronic illness) is not just alarm or adverse events, it’s Directed Attention – sustained focus that causes fatigue. A person can work from 60-90 minutes before fatigue sets in and causes lack of focus because it impairs critical thinking and decision making.

  • Attention is a finite resource.
  • Directed Attention involves effort.
  • Tasks one is pursuing require effort.
  • Even more effort is required to overcome confusion and distractions.
  • In Directed Attention, effort leads to mental fatigue

WHY NATURE – UNDIRECTED ATTENTION / SOFT FASCINATION

(It’s totally natural, a non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical approach to wellness directed by You!)

Nothing DEMANDS your attention – Undirected Attention.

  • Nature restores mental functioning as food and drink restore physical functioning.
  • Forests, streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans demand very little from us, though they’re still engaging, ever changing, and attention-grabbing.
  • There is minimal effort required because of the fascination of the setting.
  • Natural counterparts to man-made landscapes give us the chance to think as much or as little as we’d like.
  • They give us the opportunity to replenish exhausted mental resources.

WHY GREEN

“How colors affect you” by Prof. William Lidwell, Univ. of Houston, The Great Courses. The color green:

  • fosters creativity
  • connects to environment
  • approach motivation – invites you in, opens minds, curiosity
  • reduces anxiety & mental fatigue
  • savanna environment: open spaces, low grasses, clumps of trees,
  • water: everything you need for food and safety.

View of Nature:

  • growing, alive
  • fast recovery from stress
  • Requires Sustained Exposure. Not long, but Frequent.

WHY A WINDOW

  • windows provide a safe vantage;
  • protected from the elements and many other potential dangers,
  • they offer refuge (Appleton, 1975) while affording prospect in permitting exploration beyond the immediate setting.
  • There is virtually no overhead in time or effort in obtaining the benefit of the view.
  • one need not contend with traffic or other forces that might reduce the effect of a restful interlude
  • immediate access to the view and the minimal transition time make it possible to accumulate many brief respites.
  • Greatest benefit is the SUSTAINED EXPOSURE – REPETITION PIECE

It is hardly surprising that the homes of the more affluent often have big windows and views of highly preferred settings.

From the safety of one’s home, scary things are less scary, allowing for fascination without danger.

There is virtually no overhead in time or effort in obtaining the benefit of the view. Perhaps a curtain needs to be opened or a blind raised, but one need not even put on one’s shoes to begin the activity.

Neither does one have to contend with traffic or other forces that might reduce the effect of a restful interlude before it is completed.

The immediacy of the view and the minimal transition time make it possible to accumulate many brief respites. SUSTAINED EXPOSURE – REPETITION PIECE which is one of the best stress-reduction practices on the planet, and you do it from the comfort of your favorite chair when you have a Natural Healing Views wellness window in your home or office.

Choose your favorite Natural Healing Views window and order now.