Hyper focused Hikes

The ART of self-regulation in my Autistic next steps

Yesterday I went hiking with a few lads heading to Kilimanjaro soon. I can 100% say I have no desire to conquer such a feat, but I don't mind climbing some mountains in Ireland (within my limits because I have them being human) occasionally to reset my brain and manage my mental health.

I don't do it enough, but for now, every so often is enough until I can prioritise it more often to serve my effective wellness better. Any mountain, however, conquered here in Ireland, no matter how small after having my spine fused, is enough as I have the grace of hindsight that I couldn't walk 2 km without bone-on-bone grating and nerve endings being set on fire years ago. As I climbed steeper rocks nearing the summit via narrow paths carved out by others before me, I realised the hyper-focus needed for the meticulous nature my sure footing gave me in the safety and security of my next steps is self-regulating.

I am utterly fixated while being consciously transported back to my starting point with more ease and confidence immersed in the fixation of calculating the best way forward while making conscious connections with the terrain. The satisfaction comes with "Yeah, I made the right decision with that next step." It is intensely personal. Me against me and my hyper-focus regulation management.

A sense of safety comes from attention to detail. When unnecessarily distracted, I feel unsafe, dysregulated, anxious, and emotionally conflicted. Makes sense, of course, for many of us but for my Autistic self, more so in the context of executive function. I actively manage challenges from distraction. Having to abandon tasks and then returning to my starting or last point requires more effort as I spend more time processing the frustration from the distraction than the actual distraction.

I can now manage my working environments more effectively, for which I am grateful for this privilege. There are many Autism aside burning out from continual violation of hyperfocus flow states by energy-draining workplace agendas. My hike yesterday had me reflect on Attention Restoration Theory (ART). Pioneered in the 80s by Rachel and Stephen Kaplan in the book The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective, ART suggests that exposure to nature has specific effects on our executive attentional system, which can become worn down due to the demands made of it by urban life, add in work life and many of our executive attentional and subsequent functioning systems are pushed to their limits.

Noise, technology, multi-tasking, and the need to immediately respond to many disruptive stimuli because the lack of patience post-pandemic is apparent to many all severely strain cognitive functions. By contrast, natural environments are plentiful in the characteristics needed for brains to replenish and regulate more effectively to honour increased creativity, problem-solving, and higher-order cognitive skills.

The opposite of distraction.

The ART of focus.