Speaker 1: In case you're just recently joining us, or however long
Speaker 1: you've been a listener of the show, you may not
Speaker 1: realize that we have years and years of incredible episodes
Speaker 1: in our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that
Speaker 1: we've decided to handpick one of our favorites that may
Speaker 1: be new to you, but if not, is definitely worth
Speaker 1: another listen. We hope you'll enjoy this episode with Florence Williams.
Speaker 2: We don't spend that much time in nature. We are
Speaker 2: sort of epically disconnected from it, and because of that,
Speaker 2: we don't know how it makes us feel.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time. Great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
Speaker 1: ring true, And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do, things that hold us back and dampen
Speaker 1: our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter.
Speaker 1: It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a
Speaker 1: life worth living. This podcast is about how other people
Speaker 1: keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed
Speaker 1: their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on
Speaker 1: this episode is Florence Williams, a contributing editor at Outside
Speaker 1: Magazine and a freelance writer for The New York Times,
Speaker 1: New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, The New York Review
Speaker 1: of Books, and numerous other publications. Florence is also the
Speaker 1: writer and host of the Audible original series Breasts Abound.
Speaker 1: She's a fellow at the Center for Humans and Nature
Speaker 1: and a visiting scholar at George Washington University. Her work
Speaker 1: focuses on the environment, health, and science. Florence's first book, Breasts,
Speaker 1: a Natural and Unnatural History, received the Los Angeles Times
Speaker 1: Book Prize in Science and Technology. Her latest book is
Speaker 1: called The Nature Fix, Why Nature makes Us happier, healthier,
Speaker 1: and more creative.
Speaker 3: Hi Florence, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Hi Eric, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 3: Your book is called The Nature Fix, Why Nature makes
Speaker 3: Us happier, healthier, and more creative, which is something that
Speaker 3: I'm very excited talking about because I think I've learned
Speaker 3: that over the last number of years about myself, and
Speaker 3: it's not something I would have thought was true. But
Speaker 3: we'll get into all the science of that in a minute.
Speaker 3: But let's start like we always do, with the parable. Okay,
Speaker 3: There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says,
Speaker 3: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 3: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 3: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 3: others a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and
Speaker 3: hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks
Speaker 3: about it for a second, and he looks up as
Speaker 3: grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And
Speaker 3: the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 3: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 3: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 3: you do.
Speaker 2: I think my reaction to that parable is a little
Speaker 2: bit contrarian. I guess I would say it seems just
Speaker 2: too simple to dismiss one wolf as the bad wolf
Speaker 2: and one wolf as the good wolf. And I guess
Speaker 2: maybe because I'm a writer and I like to sort
Speaker 2: of plumb the complexities and depths of people's psyches, you know,
Speaker 2: I kind of like knowing that both of those wolves
Speaker 2: can offer us something, you know, and it's it's sort
Speaker 2: of too simple, I think, to identify one as being
Speaker 2: one we should starve and one that we should feed.
Speaker 2: I guess I feel like sometimes being friends, you know,
Speaker 2: with the dark wolf, you know, and sometimes you can
Speaker 2: learn something from that darker place. So I guess that's
Speaker 2: just something I've been thinking about lately.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, I agree. I agree one hundred percent. So
Speaker 3: let's talk a little bit about the book. The title
Speaker 3: is The Nature Fix Why Nature makes Us happier, healthier,
Speaker 3: and more creative. So let's just start with happier. In
Speaker 3: what ways does nature make us happier?
Speaker 2: There have been a lot of studies actually over the
Speaker 2: last i would say, ten twenty years, showing that when
Speaker 2: we spend time in pleasant natural environments and even sometimes
Speaker 2: unpleasant natural environments, it can really boost our mood. And
Speaker 2: this is something environmental psychologists, you know, noticed, I would
Speaker 2: say in the seventies, especially with people who were depressed,
Speaker 2: you know, after they spent a certain amount of time
Speaker 2: outside or in a garden or in a forest, they
Speaker 2: just reported feeling happier, feeling less frustration, less anger, less aggression.
Speaker 2: And I would say in more recent years that psychology
Speaker 2: has been really confirmed with neuroscience with biomarkers. So, for example,
Speaker 2: there has been research coming out of Japan that shows
Speaker 2: that cortisol levels or stress hormones decrease even after just
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes of being in a sort of peaceful forest environment,
Speaker 2: and then your blood pressure drops and your heart rate
Speaker 2: variability shifts in ways that are sort of more resilient
Speaker 2: to stress. And I think some of us would think, well,
Speaker 2: that's kind of obvious. You know, we know we feel
Speaker 2: good after a walk in the park. But I think
Speaker 2: what was less expected was sort of the level to
Speaker 2: which our nervous system and our physiology really reflects that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the happier goes hand in hand with healthier. And
Speaker 3: in the book, you cite studies that talk about blood
Speaker 3: pressure and cortisol levels, and you even cite something called
Speaker 3: NK cells natural killer cells. What are those?
Speaker 2: Yeah, natural killer cells are part of our immune system
Speaker 2: and they are for example, natural killer T cells, which
Speaker 2: can fight cancer and other diseases. And again, this research
Speaker 2: out of Japan, it seems sort of controversial, is showing
Speaker 2: that our natural killer cells seem to increase after you know,
Speaker 2: just these short walks in natural areas and then and
Speaker 2: then also even these natural killer cells, if you put
Speaker 2: them in a petri dish, they seem to increase and
Speaker 2: count and sell count after exposure to certain aerosols from
Speaker 2: Cyprus trees, which is kind of fascinating and in a
Speaker 2: way if you think about it, I mean, these aerosols
Speaker 2: from trees are designed to protect the tree, so you know,
Speaker 2: trees will emit these in order to sort of ward
Speaker 2: off pesticides for example. You know, it could be that
Speaker 2: there's really something about our human immune system that can
Speaker 2: converse with these aerosols as well. It's really fascinating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you talk about aromatherapy in the book a little bit,
Speaker 3: and you talk about the smells, and what I thought
Speaker 3: was interesting and it's sort of a theme that runs
Speaker 3: through the book is that you're, on one hand, you're
Speaker 3: deconstructing why being in nature makes us feel better, and
Speaker 3: there's lots of different theories, whether it's smell or sight
Speaker 3: or hearing, and so you go through the science of
Speaker 3: each of those, and that you're also referencing a lot
Speaker 3: of classical figures, a lot of poets, different people who
Speaker 3: are sort of not deconstructing it and saying, take it
Speaker 3: sort of as a whole thing. And I just thought
Speaker 3: that was interesting the way you kind of bounced back
Speaker 3: and forth between that and the book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think the science writer in me
Speaker 2: was really drawn, you know, to the research, to the
Speaker 2: sort of latest evidence, and of course we live in
Speaker 2: an evidence based society, and so I wanted to make
Speaker 2: the case kind of based on what they were telling us,
Speaker 2: you know, and each scientist kind of lives in a silo, right,
Speaker 2: So the physicist was convinced that the reason we feel
Speaker 2: good in nature is because of the fractal patterns, you know,
Speaker 2: that somehow, you know, converse with the perceptual systems in
Speaker 2: our brain, you know, And the psychologists were convinced, you know,
Speaker 2: that it had to do with our stress reduction levels.
Speaker 2: There were other people who had, you know, felt like it, oh,
Speaker 2: it has to do with the color green or the
Speaker 2: color blue, or the smell. And yet I am a
Speaker 2: humanist also, and I think part of me was resistant
Speaker 2: to the idea of, you know, so compartmentalizing this really
Speaker 2: kind of magical spiritual relationship that we have with the
Speaker 2: natural world. And maybe it's not just because of you know,
Speaker 2: one particular kind of sensory system. And I think that,
Speaker 2: you know, it's the poets really and the philosophers who
Speaker 2: kind of take us back to this more kind of
Speaker 2: full immersory, full sensory kind of engagement with nature that
Speaker 2: also appealed to me.
Speaker 3: There's lots of great quotes in the book from various writers,
Speaker 3: but one that I loved was Walt Whitman's when he
Speaker 3: warned of the city's pestiferous little gratifications. And I thought
Speaker 3: that was such a great description for how sometimes I
Speaker 3: feel when I'm just in the city or just sort
Speaker 3: of doing city like things over while, it just starts
Speaker 3: to feel like, whatever the gratifications are, they just become
Speaker 3: I would never use a word like pestiferous, but I
Speaker 3: probably should.
Speaker 2: I love the word pestiferous, and I think it is
Speaker 2: so appropriate, you know, and especially now, and we do
Speaker 2: have these little gratifications that are so tied to our technology,
Speaker 2: you know, which of course really didn't exist in while
Speaker 2: women's time. But isn't that just a perfect description for,
Speaker 2: you know, what we feel when we get you know,
Speaker 2: a text message coming in, or you know, when someone
Speaker 2: responds to our likes a Twitter post. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: it's this little gratification that that also just like gnaws
Speaker 2: at our soul, and on some level we know it's
Speaker 2: really bad for us, even though it kind of tickles
Speaker 2: our dopamine system.
Speaker 3: YEP. The idea of seeing this as a holistic thing
Speaker 3: versus the reductionist science piece reminds me of when I
Speaker 3: started getting into eating whole foods, because there was this
Speaker 3: idea that when you deconstruct each of these, like an apple, well,
Speaker 3: here's the nutrient that's got this nutrient in that nutrient,
Speaker 3: but there's really an idea that there's something else that
Speaker 3: the innerplay of all those different things makes an apple
Speaker 3: greater than some of its parts. And I think that's
Speaker 3: very similar to what you're saying here with nature.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean I felt like I had to sort of
Speaker 2: draw apart the evidence and explain it, you know, but ultimately,
Speaker 2: you know, whether we believe it or not comes down
Speaker 2: to how we feel when we're outside, and that depends
Speaker 2: on paying attention to how we feel when we're outside.
Speaker 2: And I think you know, you said it so well
Speaker 2: at the beginning of the show when you said, you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't really realize how happy I was going out
Speaker 2: into nature. I think that's kind of where a lot
Speaker 2: of us find ourselves that we don't really pay attention.
Speaker 2: We're on our phones, maybe when we're walking outside, we
Speaker 2: have our earbuds in, we're mulling over, you know, our
Speaker 2: to do list, you know how I did that. We're
Speaker 2: all multitasking so much and we're not really tuning in
Speaker 2: to how we feel. And I think, you know, if
Speaker 2: there's one kind of lesson I would love people to
Speaker 2: take away from this book, it's just to you know,
Speaker 2: go outside and also just pay attention to what makes
Speaker 2: you feel good.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You say in the book that some of us don't
Speaker 3: even realize how nature can make us feel better. We're
Speaker 3: so distanced from it as a culture at this point,
Speaker 3: and I, myself, I don't think had any sense of that.
Speaker 3: It was really when I met a gentleman named lou
Speaker 3: du Wine, who I love to bring up. He's now
Speaker 3: passed away, but he ran a little retreat center in
Speaker 3: Ohio called Niches, and he was the first person I
Speaker 3: really got that idea of nature deficit disorder. From that,
Speaker 3: there's something in us that is really lacking if we
Speaker 3: don't have some degree of exposure to nature.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I think it's kind of a vicious cycle.
Speaker 2: As you mentioned, you know, we don't spend that much
Speaker 2: time in nature. We are sort of epically disconnected from it.
Speaker 2: And because of that, you know, we don't we don't
Speaker 2: know how it makes us feel, and so we undervalue it.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: We tend to think other things will make us feel good,
Speaker 2: like shopping or you know, binging on Netflix or ice cream,
Speaker 2: and these things do make us feel good, but we
Speaker 2: don't really give nature sort of a fair shot, you know,
Speaker 2: in that competition. And of course when we when we
Speaker 2: go outside nature, really the side effects are mostly positive.
Speaker 2: I also get exercise. We also sort of clear our heads,
Speaker 2: and you know, our cognition can improve. You know, we
Speaker 2: may sleep better because we're you know, kind of sinking
Speaker 2: our cycles to the sun. You know, the benefits are
Speaker 2: just sort of on and on, and yet you know,
Speaker 2: we'd rather just take a pill or eat some ice cream.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You mentioned in the book how a lot of
Speaker 3: the science about being in nature is coming out of
Speaker 3: Japan and South Korea, and you were talking about how
Speaker 3: they sort of look at this a little bit differently
Speaker 3: than Americans do.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: What made me think of that was when you said,
Speaker 3: you know, take a pill, and you sort of made
Speaker 3: a joke like, well, if Americans, if we could get
Speaker 3: the benefit of nature and a pill, that's how we
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we definitely want the quick fix. I
Speaker 2: think there's no question that, you know, Eastern and Western
Speaker 2: philosophies about nature are really divergent. I mean here we
Speaker 2: consider ourselves really apart from nature. We're separate from it.
Speaker 2: We think of it as something other. And I think
Speaker 2: you know, in a lot of Eastern spiritual traditions and
Speaker 2: just in daily even today, nature is just more integrated
Speaker 2: into daily life. It's not necessarily pristine nature or wilderness,
Speaker 2: but you know, the emphasis on blossoms and on you know,
Speaker 2: flower arrangements, on you know, zen gardens. There's just this
Speaker 2: notion that that we can integrate nature into our daily lives,
Speaker 2: and I just don't think we do that as much here.
Speaker 2: And then I also think the questions that the two
Speaker 2: cultures are pursuing are really different and sort of fascinating.
Speaker 2: I felt like in many parts of Japan and South
Speaker 2: Korea and even in Europe too, I think more of
Speaker 2: the research is focused on sort of emotional states like psychology,
Speaker 2: how do we feel better? How do we help prevent depression?
Speaker 2: You know, maybe part of that is because those cultures
Speaker 2: really care about prevention and preventative health. There're state funded
Speaker 2: you know, healthcare, for example. The research in this country
Speaker 2: is sometimes more focused on how can time and nature
Speaker 2: actually make us work harder?
Speaker 4: How can we be more productive? How can we drain.
Speaker 2: More blood, you know, from office workers by maybe providing
Speaker 2: a break in nature or a roof garden, you know,
Speaker 2: like the one found on Facebook. The Facebook campus has
Speaker 2: this beautiful roof garden. But you know, let's not kid ourselves.
Speaker 2: It's really still designed toward productive workforce.
Speaker 3: Right. That leads me to another topic I wanted to mention,
Speaker 3: which was meditation. And meditation has gone through a very
Speaker 3: similar thing. Right. There's meditation for the spiritual benefits, and
Speaker 3: there's meditation for you know, being happier or healthier, But
Speaker 3: then there's also meditation for being more productive. You know,
Speaker 3: you've got the army doing a lot in meditation, and
Speaker 3: I thought that was an interesting parallel to nature. But
Speaker 3: also to tie it back in, you talked about how
Speaker 3: one of the scientists was saying that nature might be
Speaker 3: a better option for a lot of us than meditation
Speaker 3: because meditation so many of us give up on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought that was really interesting. This was from
Speaker 2: a psychologist at Pennsylvania State, and he said, we can
Speaker 2: get a lot of great benefits from meditation. I mean,
Speaker 2: this has been well proven, you know, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of neuroscience on this. The problem is really the stick
Speaker 2: to itiveness, the adherence, and meditation is also something you
Speaker 2: have to learn, and not everyone gets there.
Speaker 4: You know. I find meditation to be challenging.
Speaker 2: I feel like my you know, my brain is always
Speaker 2: churning a million miles a minute, and yet when I
Speaker 2: just go for a walk, you know eventually, maybe maybe
Speaker 2: not right away, but after twenty or thirty minutes, seven or.
Speaker 3: Eight days straight, your mind it's just quiet down. It's
Speaker 3: my mind, I guess.
Speaker 2: But but I also I've discovered that there are shortcuts,
Speaker 2: so of course I like that too.
Speaker 4: I like the shortcuts.
Speaker 2: There are ways that we can engage our minds, you know,
Speaker 2: when we're walking outside, that can can that can sort
Speaker 2: of help us get into that zone, you know a
Speaker 2: little more quickly. And because now I live in a
Speaker 2: big city, I live in Washington, d C. I feel
Speaker 2: like I have to sort of maximize, you know, my
Speaker 2: strategies for getting the most out of the nature or
Speaker 2: that I can find here.
Speaker 3: So what are some of those strategies.
Speaker 2: Some of those strategies involve, for example, trying to pay
Speaker 2: attention to my surroundings. I mean, that's kind of the
Speaker 2: overarching theme. So yeah, so I really do take my
Speaker 2: earbuds out, like I don't. I'm not one of these
Speaker 2: people who will listen to a podcast, you know, while
Speaker 2: I'm on a hike.
Speaker 3: I listen to her. People keep listening to the show.
Speaker 3: Just ignore that last piece.
Speaker 2: If you're on a hike right now, put this show
Speaker 2: on pause and come back to it later.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's it's too bad.
Speaker 2: I mean, I would love to be able to multitask
Speaker 2: as much as I can. You know, I'm a working mom.
Speaker 2: I've got two kids, I have a long to do list.
Speaker 2: It would be great. But I also know that I
Speaker 2: will get the most benefit from actually trying to hear
Speaker 2: the birds, trying to you know, pay attention to which
Speaker 2: birds are nesting right now. I've kind of made friends
Speaker 2: with this nesting pair of hawks, you know that hang
Speaker 2: out along the river where I walk most days, I
Speaker 2: will you know, try to look at the fish that
Speaker 2: are jumping, you know, in the canal or in the river.
Speaker 2: I will look at the sky and notice what the
Speaker 2: clouds are doing. I often walk in the evening, so
Speaker 2: I have a dog and she's got to go out
Speaker 2: before bed, and you know, I'll sort of check in
Speaker 2: with what the moon is doing.
Speaker 4: Like there are just little little elements.
Speaker 2: Of nature that I can kind of queue into that
Speaker 2: I find just kind of put me in this more relaxed,
Speaker 2: restorative state.
Speaker 4: You know, pretty quickly.
Speaker 3: We all know that genuine self compassion and self love
Speaker 3: are absolutely crucial in the quest for healing, transformation, and
Speaker 3: everyday growth. But what if we struggle to get there.
Speaker 3: One of the most powerful, yet effortless ways to settle
Speaker 3: our nervous system and reconnect with our true selves is
Speaker 3: by spending quality time in nature. It's for this reason
Speaker 3: that this August I'll be offering an in person Awakening
Speaker 3: in the Outdoors retreat at the Beautiful Cropollu Center. This summer,
Speaker 3: I'll be co teaching the retreat with Ralph de LaRosa,
Speaker 3: who's a three time guest of the podcast, author psychologist,
Speaker 3: meditation teacher and friend. During these five days together, will
Speaker 3: enjoy hikes, outdoor meditations, art, insightful workshops, and lively discussions.
Speaker 3: Our goal is for you to walk away feeling restored,
Speaker 3: with a firm awareness of new resources and a new
Speaker 3: relationship with the gifts nature holds for us. To learn
Speaker 3: more about this special retreat and sign up, go to
Speaker 3: oneufeed dot net slash nature. You talk about bird song
Speaker 3: and how effective that is or how useful that is
Speaker 3: for a lot of people, and there are studies showing
Speaker 3: that it's one of the best sounds we can listen to.
Speaker 2: It's true, although what I also learned was it depends
Speaker 2: on the bird. Yes, more melodic, you know, and sort
Speaker 2: of chirpy and happy the bird word, the more relaxed
Speaker 2: and alert we will feel. But there are some birds
Speaker 2: that are really grating, you know, the j kind of call,
Speaker 2: or the magpie, and that turns out does not have
Speaker 2: quite the same restorative effect.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and ever since I learned how smart crows are
Speaker 3: and that they can remember faces and keep grudges, their
Speaker 3: sounds have been a little bit more. Are they kind
Speaker 3: of evil? Chris is saying they're evil? I don't know
Speaker 3: if they're evil. What they are is wicked smart. So
Speaker 3: now I hear their cause a little differently, and they
Speaker 3: are It reminds me of that old joke, what does
Speaker 3: the crow say when he sees a friend crossing the
Speaker 3: road CA I'll leave it to Chris whether he wants
Speaker 3: to edit that out. So yeah, I thought the studies
Speaker 3: on bird song were very interesting.
Speaker 2: You know, businesses and institutions are starting to use this
Speaker 2: research in some interesting ways. So for example, British petroleum
Speaker 2: petrol stations in the UK are now piping bird song
Speaker 2: apparently into the restrooms you know, of these gas stations
Speaker 2: because they think that it will it will leave people
Speaker 2: with an impression of cleanliness and freshness, and then Mumbo
Speaker 2: spent more money in the mini marked interesting.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: I wish they would. I wish the places we're doing
Speaker 3: it would pump bird song into where you're getting your
Speaker 3: gas instead of a TV show or a news or
Speaker 3: all the other racket that comes out a lot of
Speaker 3: those gas pumps. These days.
Speaker 2: My gas station plays classical music and it's actually quite
Speaker 2: oh wonderful.
Speaker 3: That is nice. Most of my gas stations don't play anything,
Speaker 3: but there's a couple where it's like a you know,
Speaker 3: the news playing or a special show trying to get
Speaker 3: you to go in and buy different things inside.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's definitely not relaxing. No.
Speaker 3: One of the interesting things you mentioned was that walking
Speaker 3: in nature versus walking in the city, you're likely to
Speaker 3: have less negative thoughts when you're walking in nature.
Speaker 2: There was a really interesting study that came out of
Speaker 2: Stanford a couple of years ago, and the psychologist there
Speaker 2: actually imaged people's brains. So he scanned people's brains to
Speaker 2: find out, you know, which parts of their brains were
Speaker 2: lighting up in different environments. And so he sent a
Speaker 2: group of volunteers to walk along a city street, like
Speaker 2: a pretty busy city street for ninety minutes, and then
Speaker 2: another group to walk in a city park but by
Speaker 2: no means a wilderness area, you know, just like a
Speaker 2: nice city park. It's the Stanford Dish, you know, outside
Speaker 2: of Palo Alto. And what he found was that in
Speaker 2: the nature walkers, but not in the city walkers, a
Speaker 2: part of the brain the activation became reduced. There was
Speaker 2: less activation in this part of the prefrontal cortex called
Speaker 2: the subgenual prefrontal cortex, and it's actually a part of
Speaker 2: the brain that is associated with ruminative thought or negative thinking.
Speaker 2: And then we know that that part of the brain
Speaker 2: is kind of the worry box. It's the part of
Speaker 2: the brain associated with depression actually, And so I thought
Speaker 2: it was so interesting that it was after walking in
Speaker 2: nature that that part of the brain really calmed down.
Speaker 2: But of course, I think the fascinating question, and we
Speaker 2: don't really know the answer to the yet, is well,
Speaker 2: if there's less activation than that part of the brain,
Speaker 2: where is that activation going instead. And the theories to
Speaker 2: that are, well, maybe it's going to parts of the
Speaker 2: brain that are more associated with things like long term thinking, empathy, compassion,
Speaker 2: you know, self concept, the things that we kind of
Speaker 2: when we really can space out for long periods of
Speaker 2: time away from technology, you know, we start thinking about
Speaker 2: our goals and our dreams and who we are. You know,
Speaker 2: those are the kinds of big questions that I think
Speaker 2: so few of us really have the time to kind
Speaker 2: of tackle anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was interesting. Some of the studies in the
Speaker 3: book talk about, you know, the benefits of walking with others,
Speaker 3: and then there's lots of quotes in the book You're
Speaker 3: again referencing lots of great thinkers, Plato and Niche and
Speaker 3: lots of other people about how walking alone is where
Speaker 3: they get so many of their ideas, and so you
Speaker 3: kind of talk about the benefits of doing each of
Speaker 3: those things.
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean, we know that when outdoors with other people,
Speaker 2: we can really strengthen those bonds, the social bonds, the
Speaker 2: bonds of friendship. I know, we know when my family
Speaker 2: is outside, my kids get along with each other better.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, we all have this shared experience.
Speaker 2: You know, it can be a really beautiful thing to
Speaker 2: actually be outside with friends or family. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, I know for myself there are times when
Speaker 2: I really just crave the solitude, and I really need
Speaker 2: it because I'm working out, you know, issues with my
Speaker 2: work or issues with my personal life. I need the
Speaker 2: time to kind of zone out and not have an agenda.
Speaker 2: And I think some really really powerful things can happen
Speaker 2: when we allow ourselves to have that time. And in fact,
Speaker 2: in part of the book, I talk about wilderness, you know,
Speaker 2: and time and wilderness. And of course there's a long
Speaker 2: tradition right of rights of passage, people having vision quests,
Speaker 2: solo fasting, I mean, those are a long, long, spiritual
Speaker 2: tradition of this, and I think we be smart to
Speaker 2: kind of reconsider that, you know, in this kind of frenetic,
Speaker 2: crazy life that we all live now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my son recently went on a couple week outdoor
Speaker 3: trip and part of it was a solo thing. So
Speaker 3: I think it was definitely very interesting and useful for him.
Speaker 4: What did he get out of it, That's a great question.
Speaker 3: Maybe we should call him and ask him, because I.
Speaker 2: Can't remember, but it made an impression on him.
Speaker 3: It made an impression. I think what he was struck
Speaker 3: by was how much harder it was than he thought
Speaker 3: it was going to be. Not necessarily being alone, it
Speaker 3: was I think it was being in the woods for
Speaker 3: that long. They got rained on an awful lot. And yeah,
Speaker 3: so I think that was a somewhat sobering experience. No,
Speaker 3: I thought he really liked it. He loves to be outdoors.
Speaker 2: So and you know, I think we just don't turn
Speaker 2: off our phones anymore, and they are tremendous benefits from that.
Speaker 2: So I think, you know, one of the questions when
Speaker 2: we look at the benefits of nature, how much of
Speaker 2: it is really attributed to nature? Itself, and how much
Speaker 2: of it is attributed sort of being away, you know,
Speaker 2: from the things that kind of stress us out. And
Speaker 2: I'm not sure the answer to that is necessarily important,
Speaker 2: but I do think it's an interesting question.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's probably some of both. I think people way
Speaker 3: before we had cell phones and all that, have been
Speaker 3: talking about the beneficial effects of nature. You know, a
Speaker 3: lot of the people you're quoting in the book were,
Speaker 3: you know, writing hundreds of years ago in some cases,
Speaker 3: and we're getting the benefits of nature. So it's probably
Speaker 3: some of both.
Speaker 4: I think that's right.
Speaker 3: There were a couple of different theories that you mentioned
Speaker 3: about how nature might help us, but one of them
Speaker 3: that I was really intrigued by was attention restoration theory,
Speaker 3: the general idea there you can correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 3: And then add on to it was that a lot
Speaker 3: of our sense of mental unease comes from the fact
Speaker 3: that we've kind of worn out our frontal cortex or
Speaker 3: our executive thinking, and that's what makes us feel bad,
Speaker 3: and that by going into nature, it gives that part
Speaker 3: of the brain a rest, and that's one of the
Speaker 3: reasons why it feels so good to us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that theory really has a lot
Speaker 2: of traction, and it was developed by a couple Rachel
Speaker 2: and Stephen Kaplan, at the University of Michigan in the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies. So again, long before there were cell phones,
Speaker 2: long before there was an internet, you know, there was
Speaker 2: still a sense that our daily modern lives are fast
Speaker 2: paced and phrenetic, and you know, our to do lists
Speaker 2: are very long. We're constantly working on tasks, We're constantly responding,
Speaker 2: you know, to external stimuli. We have a lot of
Speaker 2: information coming at us. And when we do that, it
Speaker 2: makes us tired. It fatigues our frontal cortex, and we
Speaker 2: get a little bit grumpy, even if we don't realize it.
Speaker 2: We're just on some level kind of overtext. And when
Speaker 2: we go outside. The theory is that our attention is
Speaker 2: drawn kind of involuntarily, just toward things that are beautiful.
Speaker 2: We may notice a butterfly, or we may notice a sunset,
Speaker 2: so so our attention is gathered away. But it's not
Speaker 2: a demanding kind of attention. It's just this kind of
Speaker 2: slower paced fascination. We have this sort of fascination, and
Speaker 2: when that happens, our frontal cortex actually relaxes. It sort
Speaker 2: of it deactivates, and this has been shown in some
Speaker 2: of these brain scans as well. Our frontal cortex deactivates,
Speaker 2: and so when we go back to the office or
Speaker 2: when we go back to work, we actually feel refreshed.
Speaker 2: It's kind of this reset button.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that theory makes a lot of sense to me too,
Speaker 3: because as we were talking about, you know, I talk
Speaker 3: all the time about like when I check my phone
Speaker 3: a lot every day. I can't really explain what it is,
Speaker 3: but I feel like it has some negative effect on
Speaker 3: me that I can't quite put my finger on exactly
Speaker 3: what it is, but it I think fatigue is a
Speaker 3: good word for it. Mental fatigue kind of feels like
Speaker 3: what that is.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think there's just this certain amount of you know,
Speaker 2: just kind of strain, you know that, oh God, here
Speaker 2: we go again. Somebody wants something from me or I
Speaker 2: have to respond to something that your time is in
Speaker 2: total your own, and your mind isn't allowed to kind
Speaker 2: of wander on its natural path, I know. I mean,
Speaker 2: my kids go off to summer camp and they're teenagers,
Speaker 2: so they leave their phones behind and this really causes
Speaker 2: a lot of anxiety at first. You know to like
Speaker 2: not have their phones. But I asked them how they
Speaker 2: felt about it when they got back and they were
Speaker 2: gone for weeks, and especially my son said, oh my god,
Speaker 2: it was so great not to have my phone. Like
Speaker 2: I just didn't feel like I had to be beholden
Speaker 2: to it, you know, in a way that we all
Speaker 2: are just twenty four to seven.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep, I definitely agree. I'm going on a silent
Speaker 3: retreat here in the not too distant future, and I'm
Speaker 3: looking greatly forward to not having the phone or frankly
Speaker 3: any kind of stimulation. Although about halfway through, I'm sure
Speaker 3: I will be singing a different tune and be like,
Speaker 3: give me anything, a fortune cookie to read. I'll take
Speaker 3: a fortune cookie.
Speaker 4: Right the graffiti on the.
Speaker 3: Wall something truly. I mean, I remember when I did
Speaker 3: one of these before. I'd stand there by the message
Speaker 3: board reading the You're just so used to having something
Speaker 3: that we put in our brain, and when you take
Speaker 3: everything away, boy, it's it's it's an interesting experience.
Speaker 4: It's true.
Speaker 2: We're just not used to that level of kind of
Speaker 2: low stimulation. I think a little grade Yeah, but when
Speaker 2: you're in nature, see, that's not what happens when you're
Speaker 2: in nature, there actually is a lot of stimulation. There's
Speaker 2: a lot to draw our interest. Like it's coming at
Speaker 2: us at a sort of more human pace, right, it's
Speaker 2: the it's the pace of walking, or it's the pace
Speaker 2: of you know, lying in the grass and looking up
Speaker 2: up at the sky. It's it's really the pace that
Speaker 2: our brains evolve to travel in.
Speaker 3: So there are some recommendations that come out from this
Speaker 3: about the amount of time we should spend in nature.
Speaker 3: Obviously more is better, but what did you learn about
Speaker 3: how often we should aim for?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so fascinated by that dose question, and I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people have it, especially in the
Speaker 2: Western world. It's like, okay, so what's my prescription? You know,
Speaker 2: how much time do I need to spend?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And there have been some really interesting studies in that area,
Speaker 2: and it looks like there is kind of a dose curve.
Speaker 2: So there are effects, actually positive benefits from just looking
Speaker 2: out your window for ten seconds or two seconds at
Speaker 2: a green patch of grass or a tree. If we
Speaker 2: take a micro break by looking at greenery, we can
Speaker 2: actually have a slightly better working memory, slightly better attentional focus.
Speaker 2: When we go back to what we're doing. But of
Speaker 2: course the greater emotional benefits and psychological benefits really come
Speaker 2: from a deeper immersion. And I was so interested to
Speaker 2: talk to researchers in Finland because in Finland, suicide rates
Speaker 2: are up, depression is up, alcoholism is up, and so
Speaker 2: they're very interested in trying to prevent some of those things.
Speaker 2: And they have come up with a very specific recommendation,
Speaker 2: which is that to prevent depression, people need a minimum
Speaker 2: of five hours a month in the woods, and of
Speaker 2: course that's what they have. They have woods all over
Speaker 2: Finland that's not necessarily a place where you'd learn a
Speaker 2: lot about canyons or deserts. That ends up being about
Speaker 2: thirty or forty minutes twice a week, and they say,
Speaker 2: you know, if you can do ten hours a month,
Speaker 2: it's better, but if you can do five hours a month,
Speaker 2: or those thirty to forty minutes twice a week, you'll
Speaker 2: actually go a long way towards preventing depression.
Speaker 4: So that was so specific.
Speaker 5: I thought that was kind of interesting.
Speaker 3: I work by a place that has like a pond,
Speaker 3: one of those almost corporate ponds, right, but it's got
Speaker 3: beautiful trees and it's a nice pond and there's birds.
Speaker 3: I'm like, does this count? You know, there's a road
Speaker 3: next to it, but I know that it you know,
Speaker 3: for me, it does count because I definitely can tell
Speaker 3: the benefit of you know, making myself go out there
Speaker 3: for fifteen or twenty minutes. It's way better than nothing,
Speaker 3: which is kind of what we always talk about on
Speaker 3: this show, that a little bit of something is better
Speaker 3: than a lot of nothing. So if you're not going
Speaker 3: to do five hours, do five minutes, but anything helps, Well.
Speaker 4: It's true.
Speaker 2: And from the japan studies, we know that even fifteen minutes,
Speaker 2: you know, will reduce your blood pressure and improve your mood.
Speaker 2: So you know, that's huge. Fifteen minutes actually can kind
Speaker 2: of reset your mood for the whole day. But I think,
Speaker 2: you know, when you say for you, you know what
Speaker 2: makes you feel good, I think that that's a key
Speaker 2: to sort of acknowledge that there's going to be a
Speaker 2: lot of individual variation. And I think that there are
Speaker 2: times in our lives or times in our week when
Speaker 2: we're more stressed out we need a bigger dose of it.
Speaker 2: So so again, I think it just comes back to
Speaker 2: sort of paying attention to your own kind of mental state,
Speaker 2: in your emotional state and how you feel. You know,
Speaker 2: you may know that, oh man, you really need to
Speaker 2: go look at the ocean. You know, that's what's going
Speaker 2: to make you feel good. Whereas for someone else, you know,
Speaker 2: the ocean might kind of make them feel anxious. You know,
Speaker 2: they don't. They don't like all that open space. So
Speaker 2: know what you like, know where your emotional state is,
Speaker 2: and then you know, try to make it happen, because
Speaker 2: the rewards will be worth it.
Speaker 3: Yep. As Chris sits here in Pets's don't while we talk,
Speaker 3: it makes me wonder how animals fit into the nature piece.
Speaker 3: I mean, we know they make us feel better, but
Speaker 3: I just it was kind of struck me. We were talking
Speaker 3: about the natural world.
Speaker 4: And yeah, absolutely I'm with them on that.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: Ed Ed Wilson, the Harvard biologist or entomologist, talks a
Speaker 2: lot about biophilia, and I talk about that quite a
Speaker 2: bit in my book, that you know, our brains evolved
Speaker 2: in nature, that we have this innate affiliation with other
Speaker 2: living creatures, other living plants, for example, and wildlife. Certainly
Speaker 2: we do have this kind of compulsion I think to
Speaker 2: have a connection to other living creatures, and a dog
Speaker 2: certainly can release oxytocin in us when we make eye
Speaker 2: contact with a dog. We know that petting a dog
Speaker 2: releases happy hormones can also lower our blood pressure. So absolutely,
Speaker 2: my dog's absolutely a therapy dog, and I'm so fortunate
Speaker 2: and grateful I have her.
Speaker 3: I cannot imagine what a basket case Chris would be
Speaker 3: without these dogs. Meet me too. Actually, well, thank you
Speaker 3: so much for taking the time to come on the show.
Speaker 3: I like you. I loved being able to put some
Speaker 3: of the science to things I already know. I love
Speaker 3: when science what we're learning now matches kind of what
Speaker 3: we either intuitively know or what we've learned from poets
Speaker 3: or spiritual teachers. When all that comes together, I always
Speaker 3: it makes me feel doubly sure about the value.
Speaker 4: I agree. Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 6: Okay, take care, Thank you, bye bye.
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