Nature's Prescription: The Healing Power of Getting Outside

IF Insider No. 76

This month, we are going to take a look at why (besides just being relaxing!) spending time outdoors in natural environments is so important for your health. A brief recap from our last issue (IF Insider No. 75), in which we examined why getting out of debt is so important…not financial debt, but sleep debt, which is a big problem for a lot of people.

Catching Z's: The Ultimate Guide to Paying Off Your Sleep Debt

For our premium subscribers, in this week’s Research Spotlight, we are going to look at an intriguing new study using hypnosis that purports to prove that a person’s beliefs and perceptions can directly and measurably change how they perceive the world and what this might mean for hypnosis as a healing tool.

Our paid subscribers also get one of Ellen’s recipes each month. We recently featured how Ellen uses plant-based sausages to make a flavorful and delicious red sauce-infused pasta with Ellen’s Impossible Pasta recipe. This time around we are featuring her easy-to-make Steamed Artichokes with Lemon Butter.

Looking for a supportive group that “gets” your interest in IF and other cutting-edge health information? Our free intermittent fasting Facebook group, with over 1800 members, is a wealth of info, in addition to our new Longevity Experience membership.

---

Green Therapy: The Ultimate Antidote for Modern Stress

Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

In our modern world, most of us live lives that are very insulated from nature. We spend most of our time in artificially lit and heated or cooled boxes that we refer to as our homes or offices.

Many of us don’t even walk outside to go to our cars as we go from our house into our garage, get into our vehicle, drive to the office, perhaps even park in a parking garage, then take an elevator into the building. The only green things we see are some trees and grass on the drive into work and perhaps a few potted plants in the lobby. 

Maybe once or twice a year, we go on vacation, perhaps to the mountains or to the beach, where we get a bit more exposure to nature. But even then, for most people, the majority of the time is spent in the air-conditioned comfort of a hotel room or cabin or if out to eat, then in the dining area of a restaurant. 

What is the price we are paying, both as individuals and as a society, and both for ourselves and our children for this disconnection from the natural world?

Journalist and author Richard Louv is  best known for his book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, which looks deeply into the relationship between children and the natural world. His book highlights the continuously growing number of studies that point to direct exposure to nature as being essential for healthy childhood development and for the emotional and physical health of not only children but adults as well.

Many people say that when they get back from vacation, they need a vacation just to recover! That’s because for most families, vacations are almost every bit as structured with activities as they were at home. Richard Louv puts it this way, “It takes time...loose, unstructured dreamtime—to experience nature in a meaningful way.” Loose, unstructured dreamtime, the kind of time many of us adults had as children when long summer days were spent playing outdoors and roaming woods and fields. This sort of experience is largely absent in today’s environment, both for children and adults. 

At our core, we are human animals, a product of the earth and our environment. We are so enraptured with technology, that much of our lives are spent staring into the light of an electronic screen instead of noticing the way the sunlight plays on the grass or enjoying the beauty and warmth of a campfire.

Exposure to the natural world has healing properties...researchers in Pennsylvania found that patients who were in rooms that had a window with a view of a tree used less pain medication and had shorter hospital stays than patients whose rooms looked out at a brick wall. Plus, in a much earlier edition of the Insider (IF Insider No. 28), we covered the concept of restorative environments, so you may want to check that out as well.

Back to Nature - Restorative Environments and Intermittent Fasting

There is another surprising effect of exposure to the natural world that you’ll want to know about, especially if you are a business owner. I’ll tell you more about that effect in just a moment but first, let’s look at a wellness trend that started a few years ago and is still quite popular.

The Japanese concept of Shinrin-yoku or forest bathing, popped up a few years ago as the latest wellness trend and is not showing any signs of slowing down. The concept was developed in Japan in the 1980’s and has become an important therapy in both preventative health care and healing in Japanese medicine and is catching on in the States as well.

Forest bathing is not about getting exercise or hiking but simply being in nature and connecting to it with all of your senses, something that most of us, with our addiction to our smartphones and being engaged in purposeful, goal-directed activities, may find strange at first. Most of us rush around so much that we don’t know how to stand still anymore.

The benefits of forest bathing are real. One study of forest bathers showed decreases in heart rate and blood pressure as well as in measures of depression, fatigue, and anxiety. People at any level of fitness can participate and you don’t even need a forest. Anywhere there are trees, such as a park or garden, will do nicely.

Let’s get back to the surprising effect that exposure to nature has that I mentioned before. Turns out that the more time we spend outdoors, the more our natural creativity is nurtured. Researchers at the University of Michigan had their research subjects spend just one hour interacting with nature and found attention spans and memory performance had improved by 20 percent. And when workplaces are designed with the natural world in mind, employees are not only more productive, they take less sick time.

Ideally, you’ll begin to make time every single day to get outside. That might be as simple as taking your morning cup of coffee or tea out on your deck and standing in the sun for a few minutes or going to a park on your lunch break. This doesn’t have to be complicated. A few minutes a day can have lasting benefits, both for your body and mind. See you outside!

Why It Matters

“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) - was an American essayist, transcendentalist philosopher, and poet whose essays such as “Self-Reliance,” “History,” “The Over-Soul,” and “Fate” gained him worldwide recognition. He was a major influence on generations of Americans, including his friend Henry David Thoreau as well as John Dewey.

---

What We Are Reading 📚

Denise - What I listened to recently, on a long drive from southern California to northern California… a fascinating conversation between Kevin Kelly and Tim Ferriss on Tim’s podcast on the occasion of publication of Kelly’s latest book, Excellent Advice for Living. Listen or watch below on YouTube.

Ellen - Veteran author Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Demon Copperhead, begins with a bang: “First, I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch, and they’ve always given me that much: the worst of the job was up to me, my mother being lets just say out of it.”

And thus begins Kingsolver’s tale, a vivid reimagining of Dickens’s David Copperfield, but this time set in rural Appalachia, exploring poverty and opioid addiction with what Ron Charles of the Washington Post deems equal parts hilarity and heartbreak. Not to be missed!

Did you like this article and learn something new? If so, please let us know in the comments! Questions and suggestions for future articles are welcome, too!

Know someone who would benefit from getting access to the IF Insider? Please share it!

Intermittent Fasting Insider is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.