THE digital age, it's safe to say, is an increasingly less physical age. It’s there in all the statistics: less exercise, less sex, less dancing, even less close friends. Maybe we eat a little more - that's a physical activity - but we cook less. We still read, but fewer people are reading real physical books. Our thumbs certainly get a regular work out, though.

A kind of digital creep had taken place in many of our lives, and not just among the technophiles and the young. More and more of our time is spent on the internet. Instead of talking to people, we email or message them. When we go for a run, or shopping, we wear headphones, so that we can multi-task by listening to that latest podcast. In the small hours of the morning, perhaps, we wake up to find our mobile phone lost somewhere in the duvet where it fell the previous night when we were trying to read a Kindle novel or compose a Facebook post.

The creep is happening to most of us – the average adult spends 24 hours a week online, which is double that spent a decade ago. There is a growing feeling that this needs to be resisted and compensated for. We are mammals that have physical needs that can’t be fully satisfied by this virtual existence. Something is lost as our lives become ever more digital. A lesson over Youtube is not the same as one with a physically-present teacher. A stunning image of a mountain on Instagram does not have the same impact upon us as being there physically on top of the world. A photo of light filtering through translucent leaves might make a soothing screensaver, but looking at it is not the same as being in nature. Telling your woes to a physically-present friend, is a whole different experience to broadcasting them alone online. Emojis offer scant real comfort.

It’s not just what we are doing online that is the problem, it’s what we’re missing out on. We are, for instance, in the digital world, rarely pushed to our physiological limits. Rarely are we learning new motor skills. We also miss out on what happens to our minds and bodies when we are physically present with other people who are in the same space at the same time as us. A communal activity like singing together, rowing together or dancing together, gives us a physiological sense of belonging that is very different from the belonging created online.

Another absence is what has been called “flow” by the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.This, he defines as the “state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter”. It’s the absorption you get into when you’re concentrating on rock climbing, or playing a musical instrument, or even preparing a meal. We lose awareness of time, and much of the rest of our environment. Also, our sense of self melts away, along with feelings of anxiety and self-doubt.

Flow, perhaps, is what we miss out on most in the distracted online world. Finding flow requires a commitment to not being distracted, which is hard in these “fear of missing out” times.

Here, then, are some things you can do to get physical, to reconnect with the analogue. There are many others not included on this list — chopping wood, having sex, cooking or eating together, doing a skill swap, going on a mass political march. The possibilities are endless - for, along with the rapid march of the digital, has come a backlash, a desire to find physicality at its most intense, to push our bodies to the limits, and find ways of being together again.

Running

Since 2008, the number of people doing a half marathon in the United States doubled. It just so happens that 2008 was the year that the first phone to use the Google operating system Android was released, the year the smartphone revolution began in earnest. It’s interesting to see the way the two figures mirror each other – the rise in running and the rise in time spent online. Of course, marathon running is also part of a longer trend towards compensation for sedentary lifestyles, but it may also be part of our self-medication against the digital. For in running, whether within the huge crowd or on one’s own, is therapy.

Running does a lot of things for us. Think of the ultra marathon – which has also sharply risen in popularity – which pushes us to physical limits, but also usually places the runner right in some of the world's most dramatic, and sometimes inhospitable, landscapes. Ultra marathon runner, Adharanand Finn, whose book on ultra runners is out next year, describes how the initial appeal of the races was, for him, “the call of the wild”. It was, he said, the contrast with our everyday, mundane lives. “As the world becomes ever more sanitised and automated, where even cars drive themselves, a deep stirring grows to get out of our comfort zone, to feel something of our wilder selves.”

Think, too, of the huge popularity of the mass run, whether it’s a 5K or a half marathon. In these now regular public events, people get a sense of being part of something bigger. It’s possible to get the feeling of running in rhythm with someone, the sense that your beat is in some way mirroring theirs.

But even the short, solitary jog through nature – past a river, or a hill or through parkland – can have a powerful effect. But to experience it at its fullest requires leaving your headphones and your mobile behind. It requires you to acknowledge that you don’t need Map My Run or a fitbit to be able to run. For running is one of the best escapes from the digital. There are many others, of course: wild swimming, rowing, climbing.

Walking in nature

It doesn’t have to be a huge hike – it can just be a daily amble into your local park. For, being in nature has been shown by countless studies to be good for your mood, concentration and mental health. City dwellers, for instance, who visit such natural environments, have lower levels of stress hormones straight afterwards than people who have stayed inside.

Do it without your headphones on – the point is not to catch up on the latest true crime podcast, while using nature for a quick recharge. You have to give yourself to the trees and bees, let your mind drift.

Singing together

Singing, particularly in a choir or other large group, is good for us. Research has shown it can help alleviate anxiety and depression. A recent study, for instance, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, showed that it could speed up recovery from post-natal depression. But, the key thing, is that the benefits of singing are at their greatest when done with other people. Do it in the football stands or in the church pews or one of the country’s many independent choirs, but whatever you do, do it with other people.

According to Daniel Pink, author of When: The Scientific Secrets Of Perfect Timing: “Choral singing calms the heart and boosts endorphin levels. It promotes lung function. It increases pain thresholds and reduces the need for pain medication.” He observes that people who sing in a group report a higher well being than those that sing solo. The reason? There’s something about being in rhythm with others that increases our sense of belonging, our feeling of oneness with others.

Drawing, painting, sculpting

Don’t worry, you don’t have to express yourself or have something to say. Drawing, painting or doing some other creative art activity, has been shown to makes us feel better principally because it offers us a distraction from our more troubling thoughts. When we sit there, pencil in hand, concentrating on the drawing we are creating, and the way the graphite shades the paper, our mind is thoroughly taken off the other issues in our lives. So get out your crayons, and draw anything.

Reading real books

No, not on Kindle – an actual paper book whose pages can be bent over and whose spine can be cracked. The virtue of a paper book is that it is a world of its own, disconnected from everything else. At no point can you swipe away from its pages because a notification came in about the parents’ council meeting next Tuesday. Research has also shown that e-readers absorb less, and recall less of a plot after reading a book, than do paper-readers.

Take up dancing, or go clubbing

Any kind of dancing will do, whether it be ceilidh, zumba, lindy hop or a good old fashioned mosh. The health benefits have long been obvious, and, like singing together, dancing with others in a synchronised way, gives us a sense of belonging. It’s also hard to dance properly while holding a smart phone. Feel free to try.

Gardening

There’s something about putting a seed in the ground and taking it all the way through to something on your plate, that is one of the greatest antidotes to online existence. Through many studies it has been shown to have enormous mental and physical health benefits. Patience is required. Seeds sprout, rain comes, sun shines, you wait, and it all happens in its own time – and nothing that you post online can do anything to alter that.

Going to live music events

According to a study by O2 arena and Goldsmith University, attending a gig results in twice as much feeling of well being as doing yoga. Not only that, but, do it regularly - a concert every two weeks - and you could gain an extra nine years of life. There are many reasons behind this. First, there is music-listening itself, which causes the release of dopamine, the happiness chemical. Then there is the “oneness” you get out of being with a bunch of other people. One study has even found that, when people are listening to the same music, in the same space, their brain waves synchronise. As Jessica Grahn, lead scientist on the research has said: “When individuals attend a live concert and listen to music as a group, their brains waves synchronize – a bond that indicates each individual is having a better time as part of a collective.”

Escaping into the wilderness

Let’s not call it a digital detox, but rather a bid for freedom. The point is that, increasingly, people are choosing to go to wild places where there is no possibility of online or phone connection. Author Leo Carew, is one such digital escapee, who has described spending six weeks writing on a deserted Hebridean island with only his dog. Whilst there, he said, he found a “burning euphoria”. Often, he described, he would "spend an hour or more in silence, utterly captivated by something as simple as the interaction between sun rays and raindrops on the window.”