Don’t forget to turn off your screens and spend time outside; your mind and body will thank you
In this modern world full of sedentary lifestyles, high screen time, and mental health crisis, reconnecting to our roots of nature has never been more important.
“I feel like no matter my mood, no matter what’s going on in my life, at any given moment when I’m able to spend time in nature, everything feels better,” said Johanna Beck, Upper School Latin teacher.
She feels both mental and spiritual benefits.
”It affects my mood, it lifts my spirits, in terms of mentally it helps me feel calm and peaceful,” she said. “Spiritually, I just think it’s amazing to kind of walk through God’s creation and just take the time to recognize it and see it. Appreciate it.”
Spending time in nature isn’t just enjoyable, it’s healing. Scientific studies have found that nature heals us in many ways.
The research shows nature affects our mental health. In 2015 The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published a study where researchers compared a 90 minute walk in nature to in a city. The researchers found that the nature walk, “reported lower levels of rumination and showed reduced neural activity in an area of the brain linked to risk for mental illness compared with those who walked through an urban environment.”
In fact, the lower rate of neural activity in that section of the brain reduces your chances of developing poor mental health.
Another way nature affects our brain is by restoring our prefrontal cortex and attention spans.
“Attention Restoration Theory (ART) suggests that exposure to nature can restore prefrontal cortex-mediated executive processes,” according to PLOS One, a scientific journal.
ART is spending time outdoors, away from urban environments and screens. This works because urban environments and screens can disrupt your attention span with all the sudden loud stimuli like a beeping car or a chaotic video.
While “research indicates that exposure to natural settings seems to replenish some,” according to PLOS One. Because the stimuli in nature are more gentle and don’t hijack your attention.
Nature doesn’t just have mental benefits, there are physical benefits too. Scientists have been interested in this topic for a long time, a study from 1984 published in the Science journal, found that just the view of nature from a window has major effects on our bodies. They compared healing outcomes based on window views from a hospital, one view was a brick wall, one was nature.
“Twenty-three surgical patients assigned to rooms with windows looking out on a natural scene had shorter postoperative hospital stays, received fewer negative evaluative comments in nurses’ notes, and took fewer potent analgesics [pain relief medicine] than 23 matched patients in similar rooms with windows facing a brick building wall,” according to the Science journal.
So even just the sight of nature can help our bodies heal. And because our building has so many huge windows and is located on the parkway, this is especially relevant to Minnehaha Students.
“The amount of green space visible from the cafeteria and classroom windows is positively linked with test scores and graduation rates, GPAs,” said Nancy Cripe, the anatomy and physiology teacher at Minnehaha. “If you can see outdoors from most of your classrooms, when you’re eating lunch, it actually elevates academic performance.” So we are blessed to be surrounded by so much green.
With summer coming up, it is the perfect time to reap the mental and physical benefits of nature for yourself.
One way people do this is forest bathing. Forest bathing, also known as Shinrin-yoku, is a Japanese practice where you soak up the atmosphere of a forest and be mindful of your surroundings.
According to SaimaaLife, a forest bathing organization, “a simple, yet efficient practice it is a great self-help tool to the challenges of our modern everyday life such as stress, haste, fatigue, pressures, and problems with concentration and mental health.”
“Trees secrete different kinds of chemicals… when we’re in the outdoors and we are breathing in some of these chemicals, it has a calming effect on our nervous system,” said Cripe.
And that’s not all.
It also balances our “hormone production and increases feelings of balance, clarity, and attention,” according to SaimaaLife.
Another great way to be in nature this summer is hiking. Hiking is a great way to immerse yourself in nature and has many benefits.
“Benefits may be immediate, such as decreased blood pressure, decreased stress levels, enhanced immune system functioning, and restored attention, or transpire over time, such as weight loss, decreased depression, and overall wellness,” according to the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine.
It’s also pretty inexpensive and accessible. There are many trails in Minnesota varying in experience levels, and it’s a fun thing to do with friends.
These are just a few ways that provide major benefits to both our mental and physical health but you can also implement simpler activities. Like going on walks in local parks, spending time in the green spaces around you, or just being more mindful of God’s beautiful creation all around us.