Sunsets & Sunrises - speaking to our nervous system
I try to be outside at sunrise and sunset as often as I can. It gives me perspective, and perspective is one of the most powerful levers through which we can impact the quality of our lives.
A big statement, I know, but see note at the bottom.
Every time I stand there watching the sky flip its switch, I’m reminded that I’m just one small creature on a rock spinning at about 1,000 miles per hour on its axis while also hurtling around the sun at roughly 67,000 miles per hour. Wild, right?
I can feel the weather shift in real time—the warmth hitting my skin when the sun clears the horizon, the temperature drop the second it dips away. It pulls me out of my head and back into my body. My body, where I feel calm, connection, fear, stress, etc.
I think about how the same sun touched millions of people before it reached me. I think about my buddy 100 miles west, probably out walking his bird dog, Rupert, through the sage. There’s something grounding about remembering that other humans are out there doing simple, human things at the exact same moment you are.
My therapist tells me this little ritual stabilizes my parasympathetic nervous system. Translation: it calms the inner threat-detection system that can become oversensitized by life. And honestly? I believe her. Because I can feel it.
The Stoics had a name for this kind of thing—the “bird’s-eye view.” Not as a way to dismiss or minimize your struggles, but to right-size them. Our brains are constantly exaggerating the downside, scanning for threats, amplifying whatever feels heavy. Watching a sunrise or sunset interrupts that loop. It widens the frame.
For me, it hits two parts of my humanity at once:
The ancient, outdoor-dwelling human animal who feels more at home under the sky than under artificial lights.
The modern human who desperately needs a break from the world’s noise so he can remember he has some agency over how he feels.
It’s not a cure. It’s not spiritual bypassing. It’s just a simple practice that helps me feel steadier in a world that often feels like too much.
I’ll take any practice that reminds me the world is huge, my problems are real but not infinite, and that I’m allowed to breathe again.
—Ben
Note on how your perspective directly impacts your mindset, which can literally change your physiology.
Researchers at Yale gave people the same exact milkshake twice on separate occasions. What differed was what the participants were told about it:
One was labeled as a “620-calorie indulgent” shake.
One was labeled as a “140-calorie sensible” shake.
But both shakes were actually identical in calories and ingredients.
They tracked ghrelin, the hormone that rises when you’re hungry and falls after eating — basically a biological signal of hunger/satiety.
When people thought they were drinking the rich, indulgent shake, ghrelin dropped a LOT more, similar to what our bodies do after a bigger meal.
When they thought they were drinking the sensible shake, the ghrelin decline was much smaller.
Even though physically nothing changed, their bodies responded as if it truly had.
The study is a neat demonstration of mindset physically shaping biology — not just psychology. Your expectations and beliefs about what you’re eating can influence hormonal responses tied to hunger and satiety. Perspective impacts Mindset impacts Biology.
