Last updated September 2026
What Are the Benefits of Relaxing Outdoors?
Porch sitting is a simple way to relax that doesn't require a class, an app, or forty-five minutes you don't have. You bring a warm drink outside, sit for a few quiet minutes, and let your nervous system slow down. A porch isn't something everyone has access to, plenty of apartments come with no yard or balcony in sight. The practice still works from a window ledge, a stoop, or a bench in the closest park.
Whether you consider yourself the ‘outdoorsy’ type or tend to prefer time indoors, this practice can be easy to adopt for all in regards to the convenient access as well as the option to add some of your typical indoor comforts to your outdoor space.
What Are the Benefits of Relaxing Outdoors?
Typically this practice is one that is consciously or subconsciously implemented during the warmer months, however, exploring it as we shift into a cooler season (in the northern hemisphere) is something to be considered.
The shift from Pitta to Vata season (naturally) has many of us feeling less inclined to venture too far from our homesteads. However, we know that their are a range of benefits surrounding getting outside regularly, which is where the art of porch sitting can be a valuable practice to begin incorporating into your routine.
Spending time outdoors can…
lower blood pressure
reduce levels of cortisol (stress hormones)
strengthen immunity
relieve anxiety
improve concentration
improve short-term memory
energize the body + mind
improve your mood
strengthen sleep patterns
How Does Porch Sitting Regulate the Nervous System?
The other piece of this practice is the opportunity it allows for you to slow down and ground into the benefits surrounding stillness.
Western society in particular has put ‘rinse + grind’ on a pedestal and equated success with being busy. We compare idle resting time to laziness and rest as something to be earned; this in fact is not the case.
The ‘rest + digest’ portion of your brain, known as the parasympathetic nervous system, needs consistent activation in order for your body to stay healthy. When the PSNS is activated, it slows our heart and breathing rates, lowers blood pressure and promotes digestion. Our body enters a state of relaxation, which allows the opportunity for recovery (including physical + mental digestion). Overall the more time we spend in this state, the healthier we are.
How Do You Calm Your Mind Without a Formal Meditation Practice?
Your day is full of both resting moments and activities and that could be brought outside. When we take to porch sitting, we combine varying levels of the benefits of being outdoors as well as making a new space for potentially more time spent with our PSNS active, a heavy dose of nourishment for all areas of the body.
Bundle up and spend time on your porch at consistent times, perhaps for 20 minutes each morning with a warm beverage, or in the evening before bed. If it feels uncomfortable at first, lean into it. Take everyday activities you normally do inside, and move them to the porch. Made yourself a pot of tea? Enjoy it on the porch. Catching up with someone on the phone? Take your conversation outside! Read your book on the porch or plan for your week with a calendar/notebook. Bring your meal prepping, such as chopping vegetables or kneading bread out to the porch with you.
Sitting outside is a way to invite more overall health benefits into your day while embracing the simple moments and spending more time soaking in the natural energies and wisdom of nature around us.
Incorporate appealing sensory options to a porch space to personalize it and make it wholly welcoming to you.
This may include:
textiles
comfortable seating
a journal (for reflection)
Porch sitting is one way to reset the nervous system without a formal practice. A sauna and cold plunge circuit is another, no timer, no technique to learn, just heat and cold doing the work for you. Mist Thermal Sanctuary, also on Bowen Island, runs a ninety-minute circuit through the forest built around exactly that.
Use your journal to note your time porch sitting and any thoughts that come up. This is a good way to keep track of how this practice is making you feel over time — and help you create the additional practice (of journaling) that supports your overall health. Notice your favourite plants as well as surrounding flora; how do they shift with the seasons? What wisdom do they offer that can translate over to the human world and the habits we can mimic from nature during different seasons.
Where Can You Practice Porch Sitting on Bowen Island?
If you're visiting Bowen Island and looking for a slower way to spend a couple of days, porch sitting is on the shortlist. Guests staying at Nectar can practice it from their own cabin porch, Amethyst Cottage among them, coffee in hand, looking out at trees instead of a screen. It might be the easiest thing to do on the island, no hiking boots, no reservation, just a chair and a view.
Book a stay at Nectar Yoga Retreat and try it from your own porch. Or let us know in the comments, do you already have a porch sitting habit at home?
All Photos - Nectar Yoga Copyright
