Nature’s Prescription
How 20 Minutes In Nature Can Help
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With the stressors of the pandemic, the natural disasters, and facing the big unknowns with how this election might roll out, we are all facing a double duty triple threat on our mental and emotional systems. I know many people who are feeling levels of stress and anxiety they have never felt before. Heart racing, uncomfortable energy rising in the chest, obsessive scrolling on your phone or watching the news to see what’s next or what else. You know. You’re probably feeling it right now.
And on top of that, we are entering a time where we’ve rounded the corner into full on fall with short days and a low laying sun. This is a time where naturally many people struggle with depression and anxiety heading into winter. But add into it a winter in quarantines and restricted socializing and the increasing polarization and civil unrest… it’s just too much.
But that’s just it. If it feels like it’s too much that’s because it is too much.
It is a normal response for us to feel worried or uneasy right now. It is a compassionate and engaged response to feel upset or angry, concerned and like you need to do something. It is not normal for us as humans to be receiving so much information of events and situations from around the country and around the world all day every day.
It is really only in the last 20-25 years that we’ve had access to a running news reel at any and all times of the day from any part of the globe. The implications of this on the human body, psyche and nervous system are enormous. What happens when we see or read something traumatic are not all that different in our bodies from when we experience something traumatic. Our systems actually go through a similar response because our brain, without our conscious awareness, doesn’t really track the difference between what it thinks about, what it sees, and what it experiences. Our brain releases chemicals that signal that something is a potential threat (stressor) and the body begins to react in one of several different ways in an attempt to protect from that stressor.
Fight — Anger, energy mobilizing, I need to DO something about this
Flight — This is scary, I just need to get out of here, escaping
Freeze — This is too much, it feels like there’s no way to escape the situation, feeling helpless, depressed, checked out
But the wild thing—and what is so unnatural about our overwhelming access to the news—is that the brain and body can be experiencing any and all of these intense reactions while our immediate environment is actually okay. I can be feeling a tremendous amount of stress, anxiety, helplessness and even dread and then come into the here and now and look around to see that I am actually safe in this moment with a roof over my head, with water to drink, and with no actual threat in my line of sight.
I recognize that for some, there is an actual threat in their immediate environment. Perhaps there’s a riot happening outside their front door, or they are getting evacuated due to a fire. For those moments, this does not apply. However, for many of us we can begin to see that we are experiencing a very heightened state of immediate danger nearly all the time right now if we are not careful to bring ourselves back to this present moment in our present environment. And this near constant state of hyper-activation can have tremendous effects on our mental and emotional wellbeing.
So, it’s imperative that we do what we can to help our bodies and minds to balance, recharge, and to simply feel that we are okay in this moment.
The remedy? The best medicine ever.
20 Minute Nature Break
Take in the Sunshine
Get yourself outside somewhere for 20 minutes. This doesn’t have to be fancy—step out on your porch, walk up and down your street, sit by your favorite tree. Whatever you can do to just get outdoors, breathing fresh air and in the sunshine is scientifically proven to dramatically decrease stress chemicals and regulate your nervous system. Added bonus if you walk and add in movement. Just this little bit will shift your physical, mental and emotional well being tremendously.
There are a multitude of chemical reactions that occur in our brains and bodies when we physically engage with nature. Eva Selhub, MD in Your Brain on Nature writes that spending time in nature can reduce psychological stress, depressive symptoms and anxiety, while improving sleep, lowering cortisol levels, lowering blood pressure and pulse rate, increasing heart rate variability and increasing an overall feeling of wellness and aliveness.
Close Your Eyes and Breathe
When we are in a near constant state of looking at screens, our minds are elsewhere. They are wherever the content of the screen is. This activates our sympathetic nervous system to be running at a constant level of stress and varying degrees of fight or flight. Putting down the devices for just 1 minute to close your eyes and breathe helps to quiet the sympathetic nervous system and engage the parasympathetic system giving your brain and body the signal that you are safe and it can relax. Doing this for just 1 minute whenever you think of it will seriously help bring in some resource and balance during times that are particularly tough.
Engage Your Senses
Again, when we are going through incredibly stressful times or are prone to depression or anxiety, we often get caught up in our heads analyzing, thinking, worrying and projecting about what’s going on out there that is likely outside of our immediate environment and out of our control. Finding your favorite ways to engage your senses not only brings you into the here and now, it causes a cascade of feel good chemicals to be released in your body which helps lower stress and regulate your system overall. Smell the flowers, take in the green of the grass or blue of the sky, listen to the birdsong, feel the sun on your skin or the Earth beneath your feet. As my wise and wonderful friend says, “smell in the good shit and dial down the bullshit”.