Household focus mapBringing nature inside

Emily C

Goal behavior change to bring nature inside our household (my boyfriend and I)

Top 3 focus behaviors from our focus map last week:

● For three months, every Saturday we will each add 3 nature images onto one wall of our living room (posters and photos of natural scenery) until the wall is entirely covered with nature imagery.

● Buy a bird of paradise potted plant from OSH on Saturday and place it next to our computer work bench.

● Every morning for the 30 min after we wake up and for the 30 min after we go to bed, play ambient jungle/rainforest/nature sounds from a Spotify playlist.

Every morning for the 30 min after we wake up and for the 30 min after we go to bed, play ambient jungle/rainforest/nature sounds from a Spotify playlist.

● Why 30 minutes after waking / before sleeping?○ During this time I am lying still in bed, my attention isn’t distracted by other

matters (work, commute, exercise.) This is a good time to truly immerse myself in nature sounds

○ Close my eyes, listen, imagine...

● Source of music? Spotify!

Spotify = gold mine for nature sounds

Spotify = gold mine for nature sounds

An amazing variety of bird sounds!Thank you Cornell!

Soothing whales!

Calming water ambient noise

How many adjectivescan you come up with to describe rain?

Are behaviors changing?

YES!

Why? Consistent trigger: when getting into bed and checking my phone for the last time, go to Spotify and turn on the ambient nature playlist (30 minutes of nature sounds before sleeping).

When we wake up in the morning, the playlist is still playing from the night before, so no trigger is even needed for this part (30 minutes of nature sounds in the morning)

Ability: Spotify makes it really, really easy to gather a playlist of nature sounds.

Ability: my boyfriend owns hi-fi excellent quality speakers he built himself, that my phone plugs into. The speakers helps the nature sounds feel realistic and immersive.

Possible next steps...

● Reinforce behavior: remember to congratulate myself for remembering to play the Spotify playlist before bed -- associate positive emotions with this behavior

● More variety to the playlist? ○ Right now it seems like most ambient nature sounds are concentrated around

4 categories: rain and thunder, jungles, babbling of streams, forest with birds. ○ Is there a way I can integrate more variety to my playlist?

● Spread this behavior beyond our household