Despite spending 99% of our evolutionary history outdoors, we now spend 93% of our time either indoors or in vehicles.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average American spends 93% of their life indoors. 87% of their life is inside buildings, then another 6% of their life is in automobiles. That’s only 7% of your entire life outdoors.
As a result of human ingenuity, we now spend more than 90% of our time in a built environment crafted to befit our needs (Janda & Janda, 2017).
Note: “That ratio was fairly constant across the various regions of the US and Canada between the late 1980’s and 1990’s.
7% sounds pitiful, but it is actually 100 minutes a day! Although I’m outside at least that amount a day, I doubt the average person is.
Is there a true correlation between being inside and sickness? Do people actually spend more time indoors in the winter?
People often think that we get colds and flu more often in the winter because it’s cold out. False. We get colds and flu more often in the winter because we are inside more often and exposed to higher concentrations of airborne pollutants, including cold and flu viruses. Being inside also means we don’t see the sun and end up vitamin D deficient, a vitamin that is essential for our immune system.
What’s your ratio? Does it matter to you? What would you want it to be? Why?
I am tempted to actually measure the amount of time I spend outdoors. Indoors get an easy 6-8 hours advantage because of sleep. I would be happy if I found a 40% balance of my waking hours outdoors.
This could serve as a call to action to get outside more and to cherish our indoor spaces.
How much control do we have over how much time we spend indoors.
Hello fellow pod people
“That’s our experience of the city — moving from one interior to another.“
Perhaps the wonder and benefits we get from being in and near nature could be attributed to the novelty as opposed to the nature itself? What other forms of novelty might elicit similar benefits?
I wonder if people who are outdoors for more time than their indoors experience the same degree of benefits from being within / near nature.
Indoors | in a bubble | in a box
Claustrophobia while watching Star Trek and thinking about how spending every day indoors walking around the same halls would feel. Or consider people who work in submarines.
Did watching Star Trek make anyone else feel claustrophoic? Living an entire lifetime indoors, under a roof. makes me want to run through an open field. It turns out most of us spend 93% of our daily lives inside.
What would your life look like if spent more time outdoors than indoors?
Should we value the temporal property of being outdoors?
What’s your indoor to outdoor ratio?
How much of your life is spent outdoors?
How much of your life is spent indoors?
Time in space
Quantity of time in space vs quality of space
Is there something inherently positive about being outside?
There are a couple studies that found that 93% of our daily lives are spent inside.
Reading that felt like a call to action to either get outside more or to polish our indoor spaces.
It sounded like a significant difference at first, but then I realise that this actually equates to nearly 100 minutes a day outside.