Why we need it,  and what just a little dose can do for you.

I was not always a nature nut. In fact, growing up I hated being outside. I grew up in rural Minnesota, and if you’ve ever been to Brainerd Minnesota, you’d know it’s not exactly a place of picturesque views and amazing weather. It’s cold and snowy for a lot of the year. It's flat, and unremarkable.  In the summertime, you can’t even be outside without being attacked by the billions of mosquitos that thrive in the land of 10,000 lakes. The weather is mostly abysmal at best, and I hated it. At 17 years old I joined the Navy to see the world… or rather a lot of the water around the world. It did afford me the opportunity  to briefly experience places that I had only seen in photos and books, and this made me  feel a great sense of wonder in these new environments. My love for the outdoors stems from much more than the Instagram worthy landscapes. Simply being in green space has become an integral part of my physical, mental, and spiritual health and it turns out that the positive effects I have noticed are not just a fluke unique to me. However, I don’t think that my friends and family in Brainerd Minnesota, or any other place that lacks an abundance of greenery for a good portion of the year, are totally SOL (shit out of luck) when it comes to the health benefits during the dark, dismal winters, or fleeting bug infested summers. In fact research supports that a little Vitamin G (1) goes a long way. So let's chat about the benefits of green space or Vitamin G as some researchers are calling it, and how spending time in these spaces, even if it’s a room with a few house plants can reduce stress, and just make you feel good. 

I’ll be honest with ya’ll a few years ago I was in a dark place. I was working a full time demanding job within the tech industry while in my second year of my undergrad learning how to be a health coach. I felt like a failure despite my good performance in both work and school. I was learning all these things about stress management, healthy eating, and exercise, but struggling to implement them myself. I thought to myself  how can I be a health coach to others if I am constantly stressed, not taking care of myself, and one bad day away from a complete mental breakdown? I felt overwhelmed. My studies taught me that in order to break this cycle, I needed to interrupt the stress response in my mind and body. I needed to seek out and make time for environments and activities that made me feel calm and relaxed if I wanted to keep pushing myself to excel. The alternative was continuing down the path of burnout, and a likely chronic illness due to constantly being in a stressed state. It was time to practice what I was preaching no matter how small the steps.

  I decided that tackling overwhelm was the most important step I could take as this seemed to be the root of my inaction. In order to combat overwhelm, it is important to take time away from the overwhelm inducing environment (2). I wrote down places and activities that I could remember making me feel relaxed and calm. One recurring theme I noticed was that I actually felt these feelings of calmness and relaxation just sitting outside, or doing activities outside when the weather was comfortable. Would adding more time in nature help me cope with the enormous amount of stress I was under in my life, and is there any scientific evidence that supports this? In my research, I learned that how stress reduction in the body occurs in green space is not fully understood, but the practice of forest walks for mental health is something that is widely accepted and studied in other countries as a form of relaxation and significant stress reduction (3). I hypothesize that this is in part due to the human need to feel transcendence, or connectedness to something bigger than ourselves (4). When I spend time in green space, I feel connected to something that feels extremely vast and outside of my full understanding or knowledge.  This helps me to gain perspective and understanding that I am part of something more than just the stresses of my daily life. I found that the more often I could expose myself to green space, the better I was able to return to my work with a clear and focused mind. Especially in times of extreme stress and overwhelm. Taking a timeout for only 20 minutes and going for a walk through the home depot garden center left me feeling more capable and level headed than before. Maybe it's the plants just being there, living unapologetically beautiful that inspires calmness.  Maybe it's the exposure to an oxygen rich space that helps cultivate these feelings, either way I am very grateful for the experience, and I wish to share these positive mental health benefits with others.

Here at OQR Wellness, we believe in evidence based research on health and wellness topics, here are links to our sources quoted throughout this blog post.

1. Groenewegen PP, van den Berg AE, de Vries S, Verheij RA. Vitamin G: effects of green space on health, well-being, and social safety. BMC Public Health. 2006;6(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-6-149

2. Brené Brown. Atlas of the Heart. New York Random House; 2021.

3. Morita E, Fukuda S, Nagano J, et al. Psychological effects of forest environments on healthy adults: Shinrin-yoku (forest-air bathing, walking) as a possible method of stress reduction. Public Health. 2007;121(1):54-63. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2006.05.024

4. McCarthy VL, Bowland S, Nayar E, Connelly J, Woge A. Developing a New Perspective in Late Life: The PATH Program. Journal of Adult Development. 2018;26(4):304-320. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10804-018-9319-8

5. White MP, Alcock I, Grellier J, et al. Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing. Scientific Reports. 2019;9(1).