Nature as Medicine
Except from Byron Trails
“We need the sun, the moon, the stars, the rivers and the mountains and birds, the fish in the sea, to evoke a world of mystery, to evoke the sacred. It gives us a sense of awe.”
~ Thomas Berry
Feeling a Bit Strung Out?
Studies confirm that spending time in a forest can ease stress and depressive symptoms and improve your sleep. Just being in nature, even for short periods of time, can reduce stress hormones and improve your immune defences. ‘Forest bathing’, as the Japanese call it, can have a long-lasting influence on our immune system’s ability to resist invasions from harmful bacteria. With all these physical and mental health benefits, walking in nature becomes a perfect panacea. Nature simultaneously calms and focuses the mind, offering deep relaxation.
Negative Ions
Negative ions have also been shown to improve mood and to lessen stress, depression and anxiety, even reducing the incidence of panic attacks. You’ll find an abundance of these little charged oxygen ions in forests and near moving water, and there are more of them in the air after rain or on clear, calm days and around sunrise and sunset.
Get those Hormones Pumping!
Research shows that exposure to nature can with lower blood pressure and reduce cortisol (the stress hormone). Being in nature also leads to higher levels of activity in the parasympathetic nervous system (the part responsible for calming us down) and increased serotonin production. Serotonin regulates our moods and is the hormone that strengthens and reinforces our human bonds. It is this hormone that antidepressant medications attempt to boost. Sunlight helps to produce serotonin in your body. The more sunlight you get, the more serotonin you produce. And exercise alters your serotonin production in similar ways to antidepressants. After about three or four hours on the track your body starts to generate endorphins (also released by laughing), which give you a natural high. The evidence is so sound that some mainstream health-care providers promote nature as therapy for all sorts of illnesses.
Become Brainier
The author Edith Cobb, an active observer of creative people and supporter of nature-based education, maintained that geniuses all share one interesting thing: a transcendent experience in nature in their early years. It seems that trees and plants give off aromas that affect our learning. Not only that, walking in the forest increases our levels of DHEA, a hormone that improves mental functioning. In fact researchers have shown that taking children into green areas improves cognitive function as much as the best ADHD medications do and that symptoms of ADHD reduce significantly when they’re in nature. The simple act of walking may be one of the most effective ways to protect your learning brain and keep fit. Spending hours in front of a screen has exactly the opposite effect, so the more high-tech we become, the more nature we need!
Protecting against Nature-Deficit Disorder
It seems that our civilised society may have completely underestimated how much the human brain is influenced by its physical environment and in particular by the natural world. Our attraction to and connection with nature may exist at the level of our DNA. As humans we need direct experience with nature. In his book Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv coined the phrase ‘nature-deficit disorder’ and described it as a diminished ability to find meaning in the life that surrounds us, whatever form it takes. By using this guide you are giving your children, your loved ones and yourself the gift of nature. The natural world is a treasure that connects you to your authentic self. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, day after day in a myriad of ways. As the pioneering naturalist and conservationist John Muir said, ‘When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.’