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Informationen zum Autor Linda Åkeson McGurk Klappentext "In The Open-Air Life, Swedish-American writer Linda McGurk introduces readers to a wide array of Nordic customs and practices that focus on slowing down and spending more and more of ones' time outdoors. An outdoorsy cousin of hygge, friluftsliv is what Nordic people do outside all day before they cozy up in front of the fireplace with their wool socks on and a cup of hot cocoa"-- Leseprobe Introduction On any given workday, I spend most of my time sitting at a desk, in front of a screen, while my phone and email notifications are constantly poking me for attention. I have about fifty-six different website tabs and seventeen Word files open on my laptop while simultaneously fighting Wi-Fi issues and at least a couple of software installations gone wrong. Subconsciously my brain is also processing an incessant flow of mental clutter, from remembering to schedule dental appointments for my daughters to planning what we are going to have for dinner and wondering if I really emptied that load of laundry that I ran two days ago. By the time I wrap up work and the girls come back from school in the afternoon, I often feel like I’m spent, finished, deep-fried. I know I’m not alone. In fact, this is the reality for many of us. We do our best to balance the demands of family life, work, and other commitments, but many of us do it in an environment that researchers have found is inherently bad for our mental and physical health—indoors, plugged into our various electronic devices, and with little daily contact with nature. For lack of a better word, an increasing number of us are what neurophysiologist and educator Carla Hannaford has dubbed “SOSOH”—stressed-out, survival-oriented humans. Almost 80 percent of the population in the developed world lives in urban areas today, due to a mass migration to the cities that essentially started less than two hundred years ago. That makes our human experience radically different from that of our distant ancestors on the savanna, and even distinctly different from the lives our rural ancestors lived as recently as a few generations ago. But humans have evolved in nature for millennia, and even though we might like to think otherwise, our bodies and brains haven’t changed that much since we lived in caves. We even have internal biological clocks that synchronize with the rhythms of nature, functions that are suppressed by our modern lifestyle. Neither urbanization nor digitalization is likely to go away, so what’s a frazzled modern human being to do? Enter the Nordic concept of friluftsliv . This garbled collection of syllables with Norwegian roots (roughly pronounced FREE-loofts-leeve) has been translated as “open-air life,” “free-air life,” and “fresh-air life,” but unlike the equally tongue-twisting concept of hygge (“cozy” or “comfortable” in English), few people outside northern Europe seem to know what it means. And actually, not even people from the Nordic countries can agree on an exact definition. The Norwegian government defines friluftsliv as embracing nature and enjoying the outdoors as a way of life, a “possibility of recreation, rejuvenation and restoring balance among living things.” The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency contends that it’s about “spending time outside in natural and cultural landscapes for personal wellness and to experience nature without pressure to achieve or compete.” Swedish American authors and outdoor enthusiasts Roger and Sarah Isberg define it as “simple life,” whereas others have described it as living in harmony with nature. Personally, I think of friluftsliv as a way of returning to our true home. Friluftsliv, or open-air life, is where humans and nature intersect and the values that we create in those meetings. Simply put, it’s a way to nurture a personal rela...
