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