People Who Spent Most of Their Childhoods Outdoors are More likely to Develop These 9 Traits as Adults
A childhood spent in the great outdoors (including urban green spaces) shapes you in ways you might never have considered. Every scraped knee from climbing trees, every afternoon spent building forts, every moment you chose to explore rather than stay inside has left an invisible mark on who you’ve become. . . .
No More Looping! 7 Tips for Effectively Clearing Trapped Emotions
Feel it to Heal it. Easier said than done, right? Most of us have found ourselves looping (sometimes for decades or a lifetime) in the same dense emotions, stresses and fears. However, recent scientific research reveals that the lifespan of an emotion is a mere 60-90 seconds - as an active chemical reaction in the body. Shoot, only 60-90 seconds! When I first heard that I thought . . .
The Transformational Power of Gratitude
As the Thanksgiving season approaches, I’ve been thinking a lot about how gratitude shapes our inner world . . . especially in a culture that profits off of stress, pressure, and anxiety. At Back2Youth, we spend time talking about mental resilience, emotional intelligence and there is neuroscience behind this to emphasize its importance. And the more we explore . . .
Meeting Yourself Where You Are: The Heart of Healing
In a world that rewards constant motion, stillness can feel like rebellion. We’re often told that healing means doing more, fixing what’s broken, or chasing after some distant version of ourselves. But true healing — the kind that lasts — begins when we stop chasing and start meeting ourselves where we are.
New Study Links Surge in Children’s Memory Problems to Wireless Radiation Exposure
Children and teens in Sweden and Norway are experiencing an “alarming” rise in memory problems, which the authors of a new peer-reviewed study attributed to increased exposure to wireless radiation. “The steep increase in memory issues cannot be explained by . . .
Campfire Conversations
At the beginning of this school year, Back2Youth hosted a three-day, two-night camp at the Oregon coast — a retreat filled with adventure, laughter, and moments of stillness that seemed to hold their own quiet lessons. For ten campers — six boys and four girls, ranging from eleven to seventeen years old — it was more than a chance to hike, run, and explore. It was an invitation to learn about themselves, each other, and the deeper values that shape who they are becoming.
We filled the days with energy and curiosity . . .
Owning a Smartphone Before Age 13 Linked to Alarming Mental Health Declines, Global Study Finds
A worldwide study involving more than 100,000 participants has found that receiving a smartphone before the age of 13 is strongly linked with weaker mental health and lower overall wellbeing in early adulthood.
Mindfulness in Action: How Honoring Our Pace Leads Us Towards Empowerment
As a new volunteer with Back 2 Youth, I had the recent privilege of watching its mindfulness-based curriculum come alive in real life. On my very first day of camp, we visited the Salem Ropes Course — a place filled with challenges of varying heights, each designed to test both physical and mental limits.
Two courses, in particular, stand out in my memory. The first was a dueling course…
Feel It for 90 Seconds: The Surprising Lifespan of Emotions
Recent scientific research is learning more about how our emotions impact our overall quality of life. Explore more about this 90-second “emotion lifespan”, and learn how emotions become ‘trapped’ for much longer when not processed effectively to completion.
Too Much of a Good Screen? Poor Sleep Quality + Increased Behavioral Challenges in Youth + Teens Connected to Increased Screen Time
With many teens averaging 9 hours of daily screen time, it’s more important than even to know and understand the short and long term effects of this habit - and how it difficult impacts emotions, mental and physical health.
Embracing Your Unique Gifts
Drawing on Dagara wisdom, this talk by Sobonfu Somé at Connecting for Change 2011, brings to light how everyone has a personal gift that is vital to the well being of the individual, the community and Earth. This timeless truth is a reminder of your unique value and the need for you to bring your personal expressions out into the world.
Do You Know the Benefits of Practicing Solitude?
Solitude is different from loneliness and it is useful for restoring calm, reducing stress and enhancing relaxation. Solitude is not so much a state of being alone as it is an experience in which the dominant relationship is with the self.
Living from the Heart: Spiritual Bypassing, Building Community & Introspection
How is your heart? Can you feel it in your body? Are you aware of sensations in and around it? Is it light as a feather or does it weigh like wet cotton in summer? Okay, enough of the third degree. If you don’t know then sit and feel into it because it matters; the condition of your heart is the condition of your life.
3 Writing Practices to Untangle & Illuminate Your Life
Try writing new or re-sequenced versions of past events. Doing so can untangle sticky patterns and open your life to joy.
Creating through Joyful Expectation
When we are grateful for all and everything, that inner joy is ever present. For in gratitude lie the keys of life itself. For joy unlocks our inner creativity and more than this, further unlocks the thousand petal rose in our hearts. For joy contains the Lightness of Being!
A Sanskrit Poem to Enliven your Morning Routine
Look to this day,
for it is life, the very breath of life.
In its brief course lie
all the realities of your existence;
A Generation of Nature-Deficient Youth
Youth are spending almost all of their time indoors, and the lack of nature exposure parallels a concerning rise in mental health issues. Is Nature Deficit Disorder becoming an epidemic among young people?
Nature is Home
When we’re in observation with the outer world, all too often we may find ourselves reminded of the things around us that are ‘normalized’ but certainly not normal.
Field Notes Journal
The Back2Youth Field Notes Journal is our online blog and mindfulness guide for supporting youth in reconnecting to their inner fields through the natural outer one.