¿Do You Feel Like You’re Running Out of Time? Getting Outdoors Can Give You the Energy You Need.

By Jennifer Nieto

We all have a certain amount of energy each day to do things, solve situations, and simply exist. Most of us spend the majority of our day working. Our hours are tied to an eight-hour or longer job, and it’s normal to feel that we have no more energy to give at the end of the day. But as the saying goes, “we should work to live and not live to work.”

A possible solution for this common situation could be spending time outdoors. There’s a book I highly recommend called “Leisure: The Basis of Culture” by Josef Pieper. The book discusses the importance of rest, not just to increase productivity, but to revitalize and reconnect with our soul, body, and mind. Rest is necessary not only to survive but to live a fuller life and create a more united community. Going outdoors can give you the “leisure” you need to recover your strength, and through that, it can give you more energy to do the things you’re passionate about, so you can fill your days and, little by little, the months and years, with new energy and time invested for yourself and your community.

So, I think the next question is: How do I go outdoors if I don’t have extra time?

An option, I can provide as a person who also works eight to ten hours a day, is to go out on a 5 – 7 minute walk or simply open your door and listen to what’s around you, feel the wind and be grateful for all the blessings and good things that have happened to you during that day. Start with just seven minutes, little by little. 7 minutes a day is just 0.5% of your time in a day. If you commit to dedicating just 7 minutes of your day to being outside, feeling the nature around you, you would be giving yourself a gift every day. I am sure you deserve more than 7 minutes for yourself, to reconnect with nature and, through it, reconnect with yourself.

I invite you to join Huellas Latinas to hike as a community and learn about all the types of activities that each season offers us in this beautiful state of Minnesota.

See you on the trails,

References

• ChatGPT. OpenAI, 6 Apr. 2025, chat.openai.com.
• OpenAI. “ChatGPT (6 de abril de 2025) conversación.” OpenAI, 2025.
• Pieper, Josef. Leisure: The Basis of Culture. Traducido por Alexander Dru, 1a ed., Ignatius Press, 2009.
• Asistencia para la reformulación. Claud.ai, OpenAI, 6 abr. 2025, www.claud.ai.