I am from another generation. The generation where we just went outside to play. My mom even locked the door in summer, so we were not running in and out, “I’m not spending money to cool the outside!” could be heard frequently. We would grab our sugar-fueled Kool-Aid and head back to whatever story was playing out at the time.
Nature in the Big City
I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, which differs from the vision of an outdoor mountain hot spot. But we were lucky; we had a vast forest preserve on the other side of our subdivision, Elizabeth Conkey Forest Preserve. In the early 1900s, Chicago was already a fast-growing city, and local leaders had the foresight to preserve land by voting for and establishing a Forest Preserve District in 1914 and acquiring their first public land (500 acres) in 1916. Today the Cook County Forest Preserve covers 70,000 acres across Cook County’s 604,800 acres of land mass in the county. Over 10% of land in Chicago and its suburbs is protected by nature.
When I was a kid (I moved from Chicago when I was only 11), I didn’t understand the importance of the Cook County Forest Preserve Project. I just knew we could run and play for days, unburdened by parents, rules, and expectations. We collected fireflies, tadpoles, and frogs and concocted wild stories that invoked a healthy sense of fear and fantasy into our play. There were no orchestrated, structured play dates. We ran across a fairly busy road with no crosswalk or light and into a field towards the forest and invented, played, and constructed intricate social systems all before the age of 11.
We Need More Nature
Sadly, today, the Nature Conservancy estimates that kids spend less than 4 hours per week outside! That was a “bad” day in the summer for me in the 70s. I don’t think my mom thought about the health benefits of nature in 1974 when we were playing in the woods. I think she just wanted to watch her soap operas in peace. But here’s the deal, nature matters to kids. Maybe we knew it instinctively. However, it only hit home once we had decades of decline in time spent in nature. We didn’t experience the full effect until we had ten years of tablets, phones, television, and electronics under our belts. The “don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone” idea.
“Nature provides many lifelong benefits across physical health, mental health and academic competency. A healthy exposure to Vitamin D promotes bone health and helps minimize issues related to diabetes and heart disease. Even playing with dirt has shown to reduce anxiety and stress levels in children. Introducing different natural environments to children can help them think beyond their immediate surroundings and build well-rounded perspectives. Nature-based learning and education improves a child’s academic performance and critical thinking.”
Taking Nature for Granted
I spent much of my life outdoors as a runner, cyclist, and hiker. I explored, camped, and always knew I’d rather be outside than inside. When I would get stressed, I would go outside. Even years later, living in Las Vegas, a veritable concrete jungle, I sought out the healing trails of Red Rocks and Mount Charleston.
There were few studies, even in the early 2000s, about the effects of nature on stress and anxiety. I hiked because I knew it made me feel better. I never thought about the “why” I just walked in the mountains, smelled the pine, and exhaled the mounting stress and anxiety of my difficult job.
Research on the Benefits of Nature
As we’ve entered an era of nature research, scientists are beginning to quantify the benefits of nature — something I instinctively knew made me feel better. Biologist and journalist Kirsten Weir, in her article, Nurtured by Nature, highlights the importance of getting outdoors.
• Spending time in nature is linked to both cognitive benefits and improvements in mood, mental health, and emotional well-being.
• Feeling connected to nature can produce similar benefits to well-being, regardless of how much time one spends outdoors.
• Both green spaces and blue spaces (aquatic environments) produce well-being benefits. More remote and biodiverse spaces may be particularly helpful, though even urban parks and trees can lead to positive outcomes.
Why the YL?
In 2017, I moved from Rwanda to my husband’s family ranch in Wyoming. It is remote, isolated, and bathed in nature. The YL Ranch sits at the end of the Savery Creek Valley. It abuts BLM land, Big Sandstone, Little Sandstone, and the Medicine Bow National Forest. Every morning when I am here, Shaka and I walk. We walk the .75-mile loop along the Savery Creek on our property, through Water Conservation land, and around BLM back to the ranch. In one section, I feel like I’m walking down a long aisle of a 16th-century European church. The trees rising high on both sides, the long grass coming alongside as I walk the well-worn path breathing in the scents of summer. I’ve come across bears, moose, deer, elk, bobcats, and coyotes on my daily walks. Each time sparking a moment of “awe” and gratitude radiating throughout my body.
The Nature Fix — Experiencing Awe
Two recent books I’ve read by Florence Williams, “Heartbreak” and “The Nature Fix,” both scientifically delve into the healing power of nature and specifically the effects of “awe.”
“Until recently, though, there was surprisingly little scientific investigation of awe, despite the fact that it’s considered one of the core positive emotions along with joy, contentment, compassion, pride, love, and amusement.” Paul Piff, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, says in “The Nature Fix,” “A deeply powerful, awe-inspiring experience can change someone’s perspective for a long time, even permanently.”
Piff ran an experiment to see if awe induces generosity. He found that people in the experiments gave away 40% more lottery tickets when they experienced intense feelings of awe versus those who did not. In another experiment, the researchers took saliva samples to measure levels of cytokine IL-6, a marker for inflammation. Lower levels are more advantageous to general well-being. Higher levels are linked to stress, depression, and poor muscle repair. The findings were remarkable. “Experiencing awe was the only one that predicted significantly lower levels of IL-6. Awe causes us to reinforce social connections, which are in turn known to lower inflammation and stress. Awe wants to be shared.”
Today’s World
So, all of this being said, I am rethinking everything in my life at the moment….or at least the purpose of this beautiful property I am blessed to own. The world is a bit of a mess at the moment. Just getting on a plane in the US fills me with anxiety, unease, and apprehension. Is this the plane that must land because of an altercation by a passenger towards the crew? Is this the day when I’m shopping in Walmart in Craig that someone who has a beef with society takes out their anger on innocent shoppers and shoots up the local Walmart?
People are angry, on edge, and, in all reality, hurting and suffering. There is so much unresolved trauma in our society due to our lack of mental health care, general health care, and, in the case of Wyoming, a “Cowboy Up” attitude fueled by guns and stoicism in the face of personal challenges.
Building a New YL Ranch
The YL Ranch is morphing into a place to reconnect with nature for more than five hours a month. This is the recommended amount by Japanese researchers. If being in nature for five hours a month can reduce our blood pressure, stress markers, and anxiety, what can five hours a day do? The persuasive thought in the study of nature is the “three-day effect” that, given three days in nature, our stress hormones diminish, our overall sense of calm and well-being increase, and our creativity sores. We offer our prefrontal cortex a break from the daily onslaught of technology and work responsibilities.
In Florence Williams’s book, The Nature Fix, she says, “”We seem to be giving our prefrontal cortex a break, so our thinking brain is quieting down and given a rest, so that can refresh our creativity and allow for mind-wandering. People’s self-concept seems to change too. It’s just this kind of wonderful gift to have that time and space to think about those things.”
Do we really need to be told this? Yes, I am living proof. I live in nature, yet I have not taken three days in a row off in years. I am chronically tethered to social media for work. What if I miss that one big donor opportunity? Since I cannot be tasked with going on a three-day break, I will develop a life of three-day effect living. And while I do, experiencing “awe” on this morning’s walk, I will do what I do best. I will help others achieve their moments of “awe” through the nature around me at this beautiful ranch.
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