There’s a not-so-sacred ritual that I practice almost every time I drive somewhere. This happens before I put on my seat belt, check my rearview mirror and start the engine. I type the address of where I’m going into my phone. I have a terrible sense of direction, so without the seemingly omniscient guide of GPS – the global positioning system – not only would I be lost, I would feel lost.
I wonder: is there anything I can do to improve my navigation skills? The answer is yes, say researchers who study this subject. Let go of your fear of getting lost, be observant, and practice keeping “a sense of direction in your head as you travel,” says Mary Hegarty, a cognitive psychologist at the Spatial Thinking Lab at the University of California, Santa Barbara. . “When you have GPS on, you probably don’t think about any of this.”
Over-reliance on GPS can also lead to a narrower view of your surroundings, she says. “You’re not paying attention to the larger environment that gives you clues” about where you are in space – what’s to your right or left and what it means to be “here” .
In fact, people who have a good internal compass may have a deeper connection to the world around them, says Hugo Spiers, professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London. He studied the brains of London taxi drivers, who have to memorize around 25,000 street names in the city to get a job. And he found that once taxi drivers mastered the names, “they had a real sense of ownership of the city” – and greater power over their surroundings.
If you want to gain confidence on the road or rely less on GPS to get around, here are some steps you can take to improve your sense of direction.
Turn off your GPS and get lost on purpose
If you’re not pressed for time, turn off your GPS and try to find your way around town, says Ben Gero, an outdoor recreation specialist with Cleveland Metroparks, a nature preserve system in Ohio. It helps city children acclimate to the outdoors and teaches skills like navigation.
“Next time you’re out for a walk, take a road you haven’t been on and see where it ends,” says Gero. Or take the scenic route “to your favorite bodega, bar or cafe.” This works whether you walk, bike, or drive. Then see if you can get home without GPS from your destination.
The goal is to get comfortable with getting lost and moving around the world without a map, he says. “We’ve all gotten used to the idea that you have to go, go, go to get to where you belong. What’s the harm in taking five to ten minutes longer to get back to the highway? ”
Use landmarks to orient yourself
Not sure if you are north, south, east or west of where you live? The experts we spoke with suggest choosing a few landmarks around town to help you get your bearings.
The ideal landmark is large and distant, such as a large sign, highway, high-rise building or bridge, “so it can serve as a better orientation indicator,” Hegarty says. She uses the mountains where she lives in Santa Barbara as a point of reference. No matter where she is in the city, she knows the mountains are to the north.
Be curious about your surroundings
Whether you’re going somewhere new or somewhere you’ve been many times, it helps to just turn around and see what the view looks like behind you. Looking at your surroundings from different angles can help you remember details of your route, Hegarty says, and give you visual cues on “how to get back.”
Understanding the layout of the city
If you’re trying to figure out where you are in a new place, it’s helpful to understand the basic street layout. Many cities are laid out in a grid pattern. Washington, DC, for example, is divided into four quadrants and has streets that run in three directions: north-south, east-west, and diagonal.
Other cities have streets with special naming conventions. Gero says that in Ogden, Utah, where he lived, north-south streets are named after U.S. presidents and are ordered chronologically from downtown. “So instead of First Street, it’s Washington,” he said. Even if you don’t have your presidents memorized, you have a general idea of which direction you need to go if you’re on, say, Van Buren and need to get to Washington.
Use memory tricks to remember where you are
People with a good sense of direction – like London taxi drivers – know their streets. Although you may not be able to master 25,000, you can try an expert navigation tactic. Memorize street names, landmarks and routes using “stories and tricks to lock things in,” says Hugo Spiers. This is particularly useful when street names are abstract and do not follow a logical order.
The process of relating a story or idea to a place is called cognitive map construction. This gives you “an idea of where things are and how they’re connected,” Spiers says.
So while you’re navigating without a map, look around you and use stories and memory devices to remember details of your surroundings. You might say, “I’m turning right on 12th Street where I ate churros with my friend that day, then I’m heading down P Street toward the park – that’s P for park.”
Will these tips turn you into an expert navigator capable of locating your way out of your loss in the woods? Probably not. But you can use them to gain a better sense of belonging in your surroundings and ease any anxiety about getting lost.
The digital story was edited by Malaka Gharib. The visual editor is Beck Harlan. We would like to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823 or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.
Listen to Life Kit on Apple Podcasts And Spotifyand sign up for our newsletter.
Entertainment
