A connection to the natural world – even just contact with it – is an important element of your well – being.
Here are some suggestions on how even the simplest ties to the natural world can boost your health:
- Observe an aquarium to reduce Stress. For patients scheduled to undergo oral surgery, looking an aquarium for 30 minutes was more relaxing than sitting quietly or looking a picture of a waterfall.
- Visit a garden to soothe your spirit. For a woman who had suffered a severe stoke, visiting a hospital greenhouse was the turning point in her recovery : “it was the day I walked through that building, filled with green and growing plants, that my anxiety began to ebb.
- View Landscape photography to sharpen your thinking. Research showed that this is associated with enchanted mental alertness, attention and cognitive performance.
- Try wilderness “therapy”. Treatment in outdoor settings has provided a sense of comfort for many, including bereaved people, rape and incest survivors and cancer patients.
Take a moment today to appreciate the song of a bird or the spring your bottled water came from. Your health payoffs could be immense.
