Why everyone should be birding in 2026

Birding is on the rise and if you haven’t added it to your list of pastimes, I’m here to tell you why you should!

Ease your mind, relax your body: less stress, anxiety, and depression
We all know that being outside breathing in fresh air is good for us; time in nature has been proven to reduce stress and anxiety. Hearing birdsong relaxes our nervous system because it signals to our bodies that we are not in danger. Looking and listening for birds is an exercise of mindfulness, helping us slow down and ground ourselves in the present moment, letting go of worries about the future and rumination on the past. Birding is generally not a super rigorous activity, but it does often require walking and gentle movement, which can be beneficial for people of any age. A walk outside almost always improves my mood, especially when I get to see my little feathered friends hopping around or singing their songs.

Good for your brain: better focus, attention, and memory
When you’re looking for birds, you’re locked in paying attention to the sights you see and sounds you hear. You’re looking for movement, you’re listening for subtle noises, you’re zoning in on one or two stimuli. I hear so many people talk about how they’re not able to focus these days because their brains have been hijacked by the quick dopamine hits we get from social media and the constant barrage of distractions supplied to us by our phones and other devices. Birding is the kind of activity that is SO GOOD for our brains because the more we challenge ourselves to slow down and engage in this activity, the more it increases our ability to focus and give our undivided attention to one thing. If you get really deep in it, you may find yourself staring at trees for hours and forgetting your desire for a distraction from reality.

Not all birders care about identifying what kind of bird they’re seeing, but if you do choose to get into identification, it can be a really great tool for keeping your brain sharp and improving your memory. There are over 10,000 species of birds in the world and at least 200 species that I know of that move through my area at some point during the year. Identifying these small creatures isn’t always a simple task and can require great attention to detail. Learning the names of different birds and studying the details that help you to tell them apart helps to create new neural pathways in your brain and improves cognitive resiliency. Being a bird nerd might help you maintain your cognitive functions longer, so go study the birds!

COMMUNITY: Parks as third places, intergenerational friendships, celebrating with others
Another optional part of birding is the social aspect (but I urge you to bird with other people because it’s way more fun that way)! I was mostly a solo birder in the early years of my birding journey but since having discovered the amazing community of birders in my area, I rarely bird alone anymore. There’s been a lot of discourse lately around the disappreance of “third places” in our world and while I agree that there aren’t a lot of places where people can go to regularly encounter and socialize with friends and potential friends, parks are the perfect third place for birders or bird-curious people! I’ve made so many friends at parks and being a birder makes it so much easier to befriend local park-goers. If you’re carrying a pair of binoculars or using your binoculars, it’s likely someone might ask you if you’ve seen or are seeing anything interesting. On the flip side, if you see someone else with binoculars, it’s very easy to start a conversation with them asking about what they’ve seen on their outing. The majority of birders are super friendly and happy to tell you all about what interesting finds they’ve had that day. Some might even show you their special birding spots and invite you to join them to look for birds together!

One great thing about the birding community is that it generally includes people of all ages since it is such an accessible hobby. There aren’t many spaces where I interact with people who are of a significantly different age than me, but birding has helped me build friendships with people of all ages- from kids to retired folk. I think it’s so important to have connections with people from different generations because they often have different perspectives and life experiences than you, giving you new ways to think about the world and potentially challenging your normal way of thinking.

One of my favorite things about birding is the excitement of seeing a new or interesting bird and the joy and celebration that follows! When you get to share this experience with another person or a whole group of people, there’s nothing better! I especially love seeing grown adults light up and high five or jump around because of a cute little bird they just saw. Nothing tickles me more than that. Celebrating with others creates bonds and increases your sense of belonging, so go jump around with some birders and experience the joy of being part of the birding community!

Spiritual benefit: Generates awe and appreciation of the natural world, encourages harmony with the earth, adds whimsy to your life
When you stop to appreciate the birds, you’re engaging in a gratitude practice for the natural world. You’re reminding yourself that there is so much beauty around you and allowing yourself to be in awe of it all. When you allow yourself to lean into awe and gratitude, you are likely to feel much more satisfied with your life. This may lead you to feel more at peace with simply being in the world and reduce the feeling that you need to constantly be doing and consuming.

Birding may also lead you to other nature-related passions as you spend more time outside, you notice more incredible wonders in the world around you. You may take up an interest in bugs or lichen or native plants or land conservation. You will likely start to see the interconnectedness of all living things and want to do your part to live more in harmony with the earth. Showing respect and care to our home matters so much and I do think we suffer in many ways when we are not in right relationship with the earth. Any activity that can move us more into harmony with our planet is an activity worth pursuing in my opinion.

I hope at this point I’ve convinced you to start birding, but if not, I’m urging you to just do it for the whimsy! Birders know that what they’re doing is a little silly and strange to some and generally they approach the hobby with a very playful spirit. Birding is a playful way to engage with the world and the people around you. It’s a way to point out interesting creatures and ask others to join you in your excitement around them. Maybe people will start referring to you as “the bird girl” or if you’re lucky “bird queen”! Maybe you’ll befriend a bird at your local park and chat with them when you’re feeling down. Maybe you’ll make a hoard of birder friends and not be able to go to any of your local parks without running into at least one of them. You’ll never know unless you get out there and let the birds (and birding community) change you!

Join your local birding club! Look for an Audubon chapter near you or search for other birding groups in your area! If you’re in Lexington, join me for a bird walk or bird event with my birding group Lex Bird Cult!

Productivity Anxiety : It’s Okay To Relax

What is your experience in stillness like?

Finish this sentence: If I spend all day not being productive, I’m _______. For me, it’s ‘wasting my time’. For others, it’s ‘a lazy piece of shit’. For some, it’s ‘heaven’. I don’t know what it is for you, but the idea of productivity has been coming up a lot lately, so I wanted to spend some time talking about it.

We need rest to be productive

We live in a very goal-oriented society that runs on busyness and productivity. Nothing inherently wrong with productivity, I think it can make us feel great and move us towards a better life oftentimes. But with anything, moderation is key. When we become obsessive about productivity, that’s when it becomes a problem. We can’t always be productive because we need rest to be productive. We can’t be productive without rest; we need both in tandem. So if you struggle with allowing yourself to rest, let’s reframe rest as an essential part of productivity. Rest is helping you get on your way to being productive.

Think about how productive you are on little sleep… not very productive, right? You’re distracted, you’re exhausted, you’re stretched for resources. But for some reason it seems different when it comes to other restful activities. Allowing ourselves to take a twenty minute stretch break, an hour to walk through the park, ten minutes to practice meditation, or five minutes to play with our dog may seem frivolous or unhelpful towards our goals for productivity, but just like you need sleep to do anything remotely productive, you also need restful things throughout your day to help your brain and body be in the right state to move towards anything productive.

An inability to rest leads to stress, frustration, and anxiety

Otherwise, you’re most likely going to be stressed, frustrated, and anxious as fuck all day trying to go from one ‘productive activity’ to the next without any rest. That’s how I get anyways. I love to-do lists and I think they really help me stay focused/be productive, but sometimes I feel like my life turns into one big productivity checklist and I can’t rest until everything has been checked off the list. I move from one productive task to the next and tell myself I’ll rest or do something fun when I get done with all of it. If I can just finish everything on the list today, I’ll rest tomorrow. But I know the list will never be completed, there will always be more productive things to accomplish, and life is not a checklist. I still stand by to-do lists because otherwise I’d forget everything important that I need to do, but to-do lists don’t need a due date. You’ll get to them when you get to them.

Practicing mindfulness around what we’re doing can lead to restful productivity

To-do lists often feel like ‘have-to-do’ rather than ‘get-to-do’ lists. Imagine reframing: I have to do the laundry, mop the floors, water the garden, grocery shop, and meal prep today to I get to do the laundry, mop the floors, water the garden. grocery shop, and meal prep today. How can you reframe it in your mind but also how can you physically reframe the activity? Reframe these things in your mind by practicing gratitude for the responsibilities and privileges you are afforded (i.e. a house, a garden, the ability to buy and cook food, etc.). Reframe these things physically by making them more fun and restful. It’s hard to enjoy folding laundry or mopping floors when you’re rushing through these activities just trying to get through your checklist. It’s easier to enjoy folding laundry or mopping floors if you’ve got some music jamming in the background and allow yourself to dance around while you clean things up. It’s hard to enjoy watering your garden when you’re focused on all the things you need to get done after you water your garden. It’s easier to enjoy watering your garden when you allow yourself to be immersed in it’s beauty and stop to linger at the new life you see. It’s hard to enjoy grocery shopping and meal prepping when we feel stretched for time to do these things. It’s easier to enjoy grocery shopping and meal prepping when we give ourselves the time we need to do these things.

Productivity anxiety saps our energy, creativity, and spontaneity

Life isn’t a checklist and life doesn’t need to be rushed through. Sure, maybe you save 5 minutes here or there by rushing through folding laundry or hustling through the grocery store. Amazing, maybe you have 15 more minutes at night that you can use to zone out to Netflix with (since you’re clearly too exhausted and stretched to do anything but mind-numb at the end of the day). Making life a to-do list and rushing through this to-do list saps our energy, our creativity, and our spontaneity. It leaves us with nothing at the end of the day except a feeling of mild accomplishment and major exhaustion. Slowing down, reframing our ‘have-to-do’s’ to ‘get-to-do’s’, and allowing room for fun and creativity in our day is essential to quieting our anxious minds. It’s okay to relax. Relaxing is not a waste of time. Relaxing does not make you a lazy piece of shit. It makes you healthy and calm and more fun to be around. Give yourself a break from the productivity anxiety and find ways to add rest to every part of your day.

Struggling with more anxious thoughts than you can handle on your own? Schedule a counseling appointment with me to talk it out!

Relax and Release Tension : 15 Minute Body Scan

Mindfulness practice: body scan

I’ve mentioned body scans before in my blog posts but I haven’t found any guided body scans that I LOVE, so I decided to make my own! The body scan is great when you’re feeling disconnected from your body and just generally distracted or frazzled. It helps you connect back to the pure sensations in your body to calm you down and help you figure out what your body really needs or is feeling in the moment. Great for eating disorders as you get connected back to your hunger and fullness cues, great for anxiety as you come back to the present moment and calm yourself, great for insomnia as it can help you get to a place of relaxation... Anyways, I love body scans and I hope you do, too!