Summer Downtime: The Power of Trees and the Default Mode Network

It’s summer, and that means more time outside—and for me, that means time with trees. In this episode, I dive deep into how trees, those quiet giants of our world, can actually help us and our kids develop healthier minds and deeper self-awareness. I unpack some fascinating science behind what nature, especially time spent among trees, does for our brains, our stress levels, and even our test scores.

Inspired by Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees, I explore not just the hidden life of trees, but the hidden life in trees—and what it can teach us about connection, cooperation, and the power of downtime. Whether you're a fellow tree-lover, a parent looking for ways to support your child’s mental health, or just someone who needs a reason to unplug and take a walk, this episode is for you.

Episode Highlights:

[0:00] - Why we fall back into old habits and the launch of our new workbook, The Seven Principles for Raising a Self-Driven Child
[1:20] - Introducing the episode theme: my love for trees and what they offer us mentally and emotionally
[3:14] - What Peter Wohlleben teaches us about trees' communication, cooperation, and support systems
[5:55] - Why intergenerational connections matter—and how forests model this beautifully
[7:03] - Green spaces and mental health: insights from Denmark and beyond
[9:02] - Understanding the default mode network and why downtime is vital for brain development
[12:25] - How nature improves test performance: the Johns Hopkins study and real-life results
[14:30] - A personal story of helping a student prep for the ACT with a walk in the woods
[16:08] - The danger of overscheduling our kids and the need for daily unstructured time
[17:40] - My son’s dreamy daydreaming as a child and how it shaped his path as a composer
[18:50] - How to gently support kids in managing phone use and embracing digital downtime
[19:46] - Final reflections and a call to get out in nature and enjoy a moment of peace and connection

Links & Resources:

• The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben: https://www.peterwohllebenbooks.com/ 

·         Article: "Rest Is Not Idleness" by Mary Helen Immordino-Yang: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26168472/ 

If this episode has helped you, remember to rate, follow, and share the Self-Driven Child Podcast. Your support helps us reach more people and create more content that makes a difference. 

If you have a high school aged student and would like to talk about putting a tutoring or college plan together, reach out to Ned's company, PrepMatters at www.prepmatters.com

Transcript

Ned Johnson: 0:50

Hey, folks, Ned here, like me, you want your kids, your students, honestly, all the young people you know, to thrive, and you know how much you can help. But like me, you probably also recognize that you fall short more than you'd like to, in part because we tend to refer to old ways. We hear a great suggestion or learn a new approach, but to easily fall back into the same darn things that didn't work before, it isn't easy, which is why I'm really excited to share with you that Bill and I have a new book out this spring, the seven principles for raising a self driven child, a workbook. Our goal is to make it easier to put into practice more of the advice from our first two books, the self driven child and what do you say? Full of reflections and exercises to do yourself, with your partner and with your children, we want to help make the self driven child way your way, so that you can, more often than not, be as effective as you want to be with your kids in ways that we know you want to be if you get a chance order a copy bill, and I and your kids would be grateful. And this is why so often teens are always in their heads. They're supposed to be thinking long and hard about themselves other people things that are hard. It's also important for reflecting on the past and projecting ourselves into the future. It's what's called autobiographical planning, the process by which young people especially figure out who am I and what do I want to be a really big deal. Welcome to the self driven child podcast. I'm your host, Ned Johnson and co author with Dr William sticks of the books, the self driven child, the science and sense of giving your kids more control over their lives and what do you say? How to talk with kids to build motivation, stress, tolerance and a happy home. It's summer, which for me means a lot of time with trees, in trees, near trees, thinking about trees, looking at trees. Maybe that's because I'm not such a beach guy, and I'm slightly afraid of sharks, and I really don't like sand. But other than that, I'm kind of a forest tree guy. And in part, I've recently been reading a book called The hidden life of trees by Peter volo. Then if I got that name correctly, a German guy. But in reflecting on this book, The Hidden life of trees, I've also been thinking about the hidden life in trees, and what we know the trees provide to us, not just, you know, beautiful spaces, but all the way down to a mental health level, something Bill and I wrote about in the self driven child so if, like me, you are a fan of trees, fast and bad trees, or perhaps just want to learn a little bit more about all the good that they do, take a listen. I'm Ned Johnson, this is the self driven child podcast, tree edition. So trees? What is there to say about trees? Well, the hidden life of trees is a really interesting book, and it has some surprising insights, which I swear will apply to people in just a moment. Peter voleman explores the surprising ways trees communicate, support each other and form complex communities within a forest. Sounds a little bit like people. Yeah, it highlights how trees, like families, share nutrients. We'll call those resources, warn of danger and nurture their young. Talks about the interconnectedness within a forest ecosystem, how monoculture is not such a good thing. We do, in fact, want kids to be able to march to their own drum, and it talks about the interconnectedness. It's a big deal. Trees, turns out, are not just cool to look at and climb and walk through, but they have really complex systems and even social lives. A few highlights, trees communicate with each other through various means, including chemical signals we talked about in the self driven child about being a non anxious presence. Stressed out, trees will stress out other trees as a warning and presumably calm trees keep other trees calm. Trees actually cooperate. If there's a struggling tree, trees around it that are stronger will provide nutrients through water and fun guy and all underground networks to support the development the healthy recovery of a tree that's having a hard time again sounds a little bit like people. And of course, the importance of old growth. Trees. Healthy forests have a combination of old and young, new trees, mature trees that support one another, and it makes a balanced ecosystem that's ideally what children have, where they're connected with not just their peers and their parents, but also with grandparents and other people. Intergenerational connections are really big deal and make for healthier ecosystems. Okay, that's all great now, but why are we talking so much about the hidden life of trees? Well, I want. Talk about the hidden life in trees and what trees actually do for us. There's a really fascinating body of literature on how trees support mental health and test taking scores, but I'll come back to that a moment. A study that came out of Denmark several years ago found that people who grow up with the least amount of green space exposure in child had a 55% increased risk of developing anxiety, depression, asthma and a whole raft of other things that are bad. Other studies show that when people move from an area with less green space to more green space, they have significantly better mental health three years after the move being near green spaces matters, and it's not just things like, oh, it's pretty and it cools us. It's really significant for something called the default mode network, which we wrote about in the self driven child the default mode network is a network that engages when we're not actively involved in another task. Early research with FMRIs had people go in an fMRI and sing a song or do math or whatever, and they'd watch what part of their brain lit up. And it was kind of based on the idea that if you weren't really doing anything, that your brain would be quiet, sort of flat line. And it turns out it is anything but that when we're not actively involved in a task, the default mode network engages and it uses, this is cool, 70% of a brain's energy. Really. Big deal. A fascinating article by researcher Mary Helen immordino Yang. You can look this one up if you're interested, called rest is not idleness, and it talks about the default mode network. And she describes the brain of having two systems. One, a task positive or looking out, system that's activated when we're engaged in goal directed tasks. And two, a task negative, or resting system that is for looking in. Why do I bring this up? Well, so often during the summer, children, their parents, think we have to make this summer really productive. We have such productivity based society, and that certainly has its place. We've got to get things done. And students want to develop themselves by engaging in things. But a huge amount of healthy brain development comes not from task oriented, but rather from this default resting state. What does this look like from the book I will share, when our default mode network activates, our conscious networks take brief rest, even simply closing your eyes, taking a deep breath and exhaling can help refresh the brain. When your default mode network is active, you think about yourself, about your past and your future, and about problems that need to be resolved, all of which are crucial for developing a sense of self. We consider the experiences and feelings of other people, a process is important for developing empathy, something we can all probably use a little bit more of the default mode network is where the all important work of person reflection takes place. From my perspective, I can't imagine anything more important for a teen than reflecting on himself and the people in his or her life. It makes us more thoughtful people. It allows us to organize our thoughts. It grounds us when we get in a fight with our friend, we reflect on that conversation, and we think about them, we think about us. We go back and forth, and we try to make sense of this. If the brain develops according to how it is used, how do we develop an understanding of ourselves and of other people, other than by thinking about ourselves and other people? And this is why so often, teens are always in their heads they're supposed to be thinking long and hard about themselves other people things that are hard. It's also important for reflecting on the past and projecting themselves ourselves into the future. It's what's called autobiographical planning, the process by which young people especially figure out who am I and what do I want to be a really big deal. How does the default mode network engage? Well, daydreaming, mind wandering meditation. How does this apply to trees? Oh, what a good question. The Japanese have something called Shinran Yoku, which translates loosely as forest bathing. And what they know is that when people spend time in nature, they stop ruminating and think about all the active things that they need to do, and they start daydreaming. And it's incredibly useful to mental health, like that Danish study. It's also great because I mentioned this before for test taking, there was a really clever experiment that was done by researchers at Johns Hopkins, where they brought folks in and had them take a test on a computer. Great, then they're going to have them take a second test 2030, minutes later. In between the two tests, they had the groups of people broke up and broken up into three cohorts, one group, they. Said, hey, just hang out here and read some old magazines. We'll get started about 1520 minutes, and we'll have you do the second half of this test. The second group, they had go out and walk around the block. It was a city block and, you know, navigate and just get some fresh air. But the third group, they quickly shuttled over to a nearby park and had them walk without their phones. That's important. Had them walk around in the park, Default Mode Network. They didn't have to think about cars. They weren't getting input from the magazine that they're reading. They're just walking through the park, taking in the trees and letting their brains and their minds wander. When they came back and took the test, almost a standard deviation increase in their performance. It was a really big deal. Why? Well, one other benefit of time in nature and the default mode network engaging is it sort of wipes clear the prefrontal cortex and all that kind of monkey brain list, making things our brain full of all the things that we need to do, and we sort of set that stuff aside. And so literally, the people who spend time in nature came back to this test with a brain that was refreshed. There's actually a story in the book I had a student I was working with who was taking an AC T she was at her school, and for reasons I don't recall, they were proc during the test to her after school. Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. I'm thinking think of all the things this kid has to face during the day. She's got quizzes, she's got tests, she's got to think about tomorrow's homework. She's got to think about cheer practice. She's thinking about friends, conversations that went well, conversations you want to had, conversations that didn't go well. Oh my goodness, by the end of the school day, much like the end of our work days, our brains are typically kind of full. So for her to then go and sit for her test after the full day of school with a very full brain, I was concerned. Fortunately, she had last period free before she would then take the test right after school when all the other kids vacated, I said, Oh, we have the opportunity. Here's what I want you to do, take your phone, turn it off, put it in your locker, lock your locker, go up behind the football stadium, where there are some woods. Walk around the woods for 1015, minutes. You're not going to get lost. Come back, talk to no one. Don't get your phone again. Go and take the test, for those of you know, the AC T, she went from a score of a 28 to a 32 Yeah, I like to think that some of what I contribute taught her, and a lot of her hard work made a difference, but a big part of it, and especially because this was a kid who was both anxious and ADHD, she swept aside some of that anxiety, and she refocused her brain in a way that allowed her to really perform her best. So yeah, time of nature. It's pretty much like medicine. One of the concerns that I have during summers is that all of us, particularly if you've got kids, are in high school, and you start thinking about the resume building for college, and yeah, it's important. It's valuable for kids to explore activities outside of the classroom in ways that really lean into their likes and their natural talents. I get it, but woe is the child who is constantly programmed up to the hilt without ever time to reflect. Student from some years ago, super academic, super high achieving school, super competitive tennis player, and at one point she was sort of venting to me and talking about her week, and she said, All I want from my day is two hours to myself. I work super hard just to get stuff done, and then if I'm just spacing out and just enjoying the downtime, my mom will rush in with Shouldn't she be doing more practice of fill in the blank? Rest is non idleness again, as Dr Mary Helen emerina yang implored, it's so incredibly valuable to how we develop ourselves young people, especially because they have brains that are still under development. I'll share with you this story that was from the self driven child about my son, who's now 23 he was well, I'll read it to you, and then I'll expound a little bit. My son, Matthew, was what people used to call him, dreamy. When he was four or five. We were having breakfast together before school, and I looked up from the paper to see Matthew staring across his spool and Cheerios into space. Hey, what are you doing? I'm listening. Oh, okay, a little confused. But can you eat your cereal before it gets soggy? Oh, sure, he said. But a minute or two later, he was back to staring in space. What are you listening to? I asked, songs in my head, and I've often thought about how easy it is for me as an adult. And I suspect I'm not the only person to think that the thoughts in my head that what I would program him with, the adult thoughts, are somehow more important or more valuable or more meaningful than the thoughts that were in his own head. But the research shows that his daydream and may be just as important for his cognitive development as anything else that kids do. Thing we wrote in the book. And now, when my friends wonder where Matthew's musical ability comes from, I think about all the good that daydreaming did for those who don't know. My son just graduated college, and he is a composition major. He's a composer. He literally spends all of his time in his head thinking about music, watching movies, thinking about the music, and this started at the youngest possible time of life. So during the summer, it's great for your kids. It's great for you to find what we describe as radical digital downtime. I just came back from travel with my family overseas, and was one of these countries where you had to pay, like, 12 bucks a day to use your phone. And I was like, Woohoo. All four of us. My daughter, who's the most logistically able of the group, had her phone on so she did all of the navigation. And I, because I didn't really want to pay 12 bucks to be on my phone, and I really, frankly, was happy to pay 12 bucks to not be on my phone for a whole week. Oh, what a blessing. And it was so great because my attention when I wasn't default mode networking, I'm sure that's a word, was really on the people and the places where I was for those of you have kids at summer camp, ideally, summer camps where there is no technology, do you notice a difference before you drop them off and after you drop them off? If you have kids who go to summer camp, it's worth asking them, what did it feel like to not have all those screens? Was that beneficial to you? And chances are, their feelings are mixed. They probably miss catching up on social media and Xbox and everything else, but I think they're also quite likely to say it was really great to be off my phone. Quick note on here, I know that many of you know of the wonderful book the anxious generation by Jonathan Hite, terrific research and but I quibble with it a little bit in the approach that's taken that from my perspective, our perspective, feels a little bit controlling of children by adults, and here's why, Bill and I were recently lecturing at a local school after launch of our third book, The Seven Principles for raising a self driven child. And I asked these students, as I asked every student group I ever speak to, how many of you feel like you're on your cell phone too much, and typically, 85 maybe 90% of kids raise their hands. Here is the follow up question, how many of you are on your cell phone more than you'd like to be the same percent. So we parents and we adults don't have to lecture kids about time on their cell phone. They already know that it's a problem, and much like a person who's a problem drinker, the more you hammer someone on something if they're not asking for your help to change, the more they then fight to resist you and go into denial. So if you have a kid who comes back from camp and you just gently ask them, so what was it like being off your phone, ideally, he or she is honest and say it was actually pretty good. So then the question is, well, then not how do I control your phone and keep you off your phone and make sure you spend more time in nature? Is to simply ask, is there a way that I can help you be on your phone less so you can feel more during the rest of the year like you feel when you're at camp? Chances are they'll say yes, and then you and your kids make it a family value, as we did when we were traveling abroad to find out, how do we support one another to be on our phones less. My daughter, to her everlasting credit, was willing to take the hit and play navigator so I didn't have to have my phone. I could just leave it in the house where we were staying. So it's summer, a time for trees, a time for connecting, a time for connecting off our phones, a time for daydreaming, mind wandering. Just the other day, I was lying on the lawn and looking up at clouds and thinking, I can remember doing this a kid, and just thinking it was so marvelous. If you haven't done that in a while, your kids haven't done it, pitch out a blanket, lie on the lawn with them, and just check out the clouds. It's good to have our heads in the clouds, like my terrific son, and I'm sure with your kids too, the hidden life of trees, the hidden life in trees, so useful for helping the healthy development of young people, especially the fall mode network, the way by which they reflect on the past, on the future, they develop their own empathy and a coherent sense of who they are and who they want to be in the world. I hope you get out for a walk in the woods. I'm Ned Johnson, and this is a self different child podcast, forest edition. Hey folks, over the past 25 years, I've talked to countless parents of high school age students who care deeply about their kids education and how they deal with stress and the pressure to succeed. It can help parents to work with a team. Trust won't just pile on more pressure to achieve better scores and grades. That's why I founded prep matters in 1997 to create a different kind of experience for test preparation and academic tutoring. This podcast and my books with my friend Bill stixfruit reflect our company philosophy and approach to helping students. If you have a high school age student and would like to talk about putting a plan together. Please get in touch with us. Visit our website at prep matters.com, or while your kids may only text, you might want to actually talk with a person, if so, you can reach us at 301-951-0350, you.