Mother Nature is a big time healer. She know that by getting more nature in your life with the amount of time we spent in her presence, it would do our bodies a lot of good. Think about it; we as humans evolved to be surrounded by nature. Sunlight gives us vitamin D. Outdoor air keeps viruses at bay. The food we need to sustain us grows from dirt and rain. Studies have shown that even looking at a natural scene helps patients recover from surgery faster than those who don’t have windows that look out at a landscape.
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Getting More Nature In Your Life
The Earth is literally a source of support and strength. And we are usually hovering above it, in a car, or a chair, or even when we’re outside we have shoes strapped to our feet so we’re not in direct contact.
Getting more nature in your life helps ease everything from inflammation to anxiety and depression. Even more importantly, in my mind, is it gives you a mental reset. And oh my goodness gracious, who doesn’t need a mental reset right about now?
I recently read the book How to Do Nothing by Jenny Offill, which I loved. And she talks a LOT about how nature can bring us back to ourselves. It can inspire our thinking, and help us reclaim our fractured attention. Here’s what she writes about being in contact with nature. She talks about how she’s gotten really into bird watching, which she thinks should really be called bird noticing:
“Every time I see or hear an unusual bird, time stops, and later I wonder where I was, just as wandering some unexpected secret passageway can feel like dropping out of linear time. Even if brief or momentary, these places and moments are retreats, and like longer retreats, they affect the way we see everyday life when we do come back to it.”
Take Your Daily Dose of Mother Nature
I think we all need new ways to see everyday life always. And especially right now. Here are some really easy, impactful ways getting more nature in your life on a daily basis that don’t take a long time.
One of the best ways to give yourself a nature infusion is to walk barefoot in the grass. Your feet aren’t just modes of locomotion, they are exquisite sensors that can help you gather all kinds of information from the ground. is it hard, soft, grassy or rocky, slipper or stable? If you’re in shoes all the time, your feet aren’t getting to do one of their primary functions. So kicking off your shoes and walking in the grass–or whatever natural surface you have close to your house–is kind of like rolling down the window for a dog when on a car ride and it just goes on a sniffing tear, smelling everything it can smell. It’s a great way to wake up your nervous system and enliven yourself from the ground up.
Watch The Clouds
Maybe you don’t have grass. Maybe you can spend some part of your morning or lunch break or after work time sitting under a tree. The light that gets filtered through tree leaves is in the middle of the light spectrum and is a tonic for your nervous system. Blue light is stimulating and red light is relaxing. But green light is right in the middle and it helps regulate you. It’s good for you at any time of day.
You don’t even have to leave the house to get more nature in your day. You can open the window and hear the birds. Or look at the sky and watch the clouds. Or both. It’s like the best white noise machine that also happens to be free.
Or you can line your windowsills with rocks and pine cones and other stuff you find outside, or water a plant. Just do something to put in direct contact with nature on a mostly daily basis and your nervous system will be more chill, and you’ll be feeling more like a natural woman or man or gender neutral or fluid person.
Daily Tiny Assignment
Your tiny assignment is to make it a point of getting more nature in your life by coming into direct contact with nature today, whether that’s through your feet, your ears, or your whole body. Snap a pic of your little slice of nature and tag me on Instagram, where I’m @katehanleyauthor. I’d love to see a piece of your world.
Calm The Eff Down
This is an intense time on multiple levels. If you’d like a little handholding and direction on doing the things that help you stay grounded (and not freaking out), I’ve got a gift for you — I compiled all the tips I covered in my 21 Day Calm the Eff Down challenge that I ran here on the podcast starting in late April into a mini ebook that you can download FOR FREE. All you have to do is go to katehanley.com/calmdown and input your email address so I know where to send it. I promise to keep your contact information confidential.
