At any age, the world can feel like it’s all too much, or a problem begins to feel like it’s the end of the world. From a young kid losing their favorite toy to getting off a long shift knowing you have to go make dinner. It can be so easy to get swept up in the hustle and bustle of daily life that you forget to take care of yourself mentally and physically. A simple, yet extremely beneficial, way to help with these life stressors is nature!
Including nature in your daily routine and deepening your connection with nature can improve your mental health and cognitive ability. According to The American Psychological Association, “From a stroll through a city park to a day spent hiking in the wilderness, exposure to nature has been linked to a host of benefits, including improved attention, lower stress, better mood, reduced risk of psychiatric disorders, and even upticks in empathy and cooperation.” Although most people lead busy lives, including nature in your life can be as simple as buying a house plant or taking notice of the nature around you on your commute. Maybe even listening to nature sounds while going about your day. Taking the moment to acknowledge and appreciate the earth can slow down all the stressful thoughts from the day.
We decided to interview people at Arcadia University about their experience with nature and how it impacts their life. Their campus is full of greenery, and is a great place to discuss nature’s benefits. We asked students “What made you want to sit outside today?” and “do you find that having access to nature during school is beneficial to you and your mental health?” In one interview, a student’s response to the first question was, “Honestly, I just love nature, and after a long day I just really need to relax. I need to decompress and nature is the best way to do it for me.” As a college student juggling classes, possibly a job, club, sport, etc, learning to manage some of that stress through nature can be beneficial.
“Stress-reduction theory, proposed by Ulrich (1983), suggests that a positive emotional response to nature allows a person to return from a stressful state to an unstressed state. That is, nonthreatening natural environments reduce stress and negative affect while increasing positive affect. The change in affect and reduction of the stress response then allow a person to maintain higher levels of sustained attention, which leads to cognitive benefits.” (Schertz, 2019) Utilizing the nature around you and taking notice of it can help not only mentally, but in improving skills for learning or working as well.
Another student discusses how some of their classroom environments don’t create a good space for learning. They describe some classes as having no windows, leading them to want to get outside. To remedy this, they go outside and read after class in order to reset. “Experiments have found that being exposed to natural environments improves working memory, cognitive flexibility and attentional control, while exposure to urban environments is linked to attention deficits” (Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 28, No. 5, 2019). As a student, this further shows how tuning in and connecting with nature can be beneficial not just to their mental health, but improve their learning as well.
Though we are looking at student testimony, it is important to encourage people of any age to take steps to include nature in their lives. With as many things we’re forced to commit our time to, moments in nature for the benefit of our health is something simple we can do for ourselves.
Sources
Nature: How connecting with Nature Benefits Our Mental Health (no date) Mental Health Foundation. Available at: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/research/nature-how-connecting-nature-benefits-our-mental-health
Schertz, K.E. and Berman, M.G. (2019) Understanding nature and its cognitive benefits , American Psychological Association. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0963721419854100
Weir, K. (2020) Nurtured by Nature, Monitor on psychology. Available at: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/04/nurtured-nature
Spending time in nature is important and crucial for one’s mental and physical health and rest. But to walk through rows of trees, step on grass and leaves, and smell the different flowers, it is just as important intellectually to distinguish between everything your senses take in. The limits of one’s reality are the limits of their language, therefore one that does not recognize all the unique aspects of mother nature loses the ability to connect with a reality that is intrinsic to living. Therefore, I went around campus and explored the nature we have right in front of our eyes, identified the names of the plants, and included a description of each.
Bigleaf Hydrangea
Derived from the Greek words “hydor” for water and “angeion” for vessel, this beauty is named after its thirst. If you get hungry at all, do not eat her. She will make you regret it.
Chinese hibiscus
As pretty as it is to the eyes, a Chinese Hibiscus has another unexpected use: Shoe polishing. Her shiny petals can make your shoes shine as well. She’s very large and very beautiful not because she has eyes to please, but because she has butterflies and bees to attract. Her beauty, like a lot of ours, is a cunning survival tactic.
Oriental Lady’s Thumb
Oriental ladies did not have thumbs shaped like this, I promise. She’s called a “lady’s thumb” because of her leaf markings similar to thumbprints. The “Oriental” in her name just identifies her East Asian roots.
Oakleaf Hydrangea
As we can derive from the now known roots of ‘hydrangea,’ Ms. Oakleaf is also quite a thirsty one. The Oakleaf in her name comes from the similar shape she shares with oakleaves.
White Snakeroot
These pretty snowflakes are actually linked to the death of Abraham Lincoln’s mother. The toxicity of these flowers entered the meat and dairy we consume from cows which unfortunately got to Lincoln’s mother.
Lilyturf
She’s not actually from the lily family although she often carries the name “Big Blue lilyturf.” She looks lily-like,, but is an actual member of the Asparagaceae family. Proof of how names obscure reality.
English Ivy
Or, as I like to call this particular photograph, the Pacific and Atlantic found among leaves. The rampant growth of English Ivy on certain university buildings are actually what coined the term “Ivy Leagues.”
Tuberous Sword Fern
A plant home to a myriad of small little critters, this beauty gets its name from its thin, blade-like leaves.
