Nature Connection

The science of how our bodies and brains respond to the sensory experience of natural settings is well established. But it isn’t as well understood in our country as it is in other parts of the world. Much of the neuroscience and cardiovascular research has been done in Asia and Europe, and health care systems in some of those countries even incorporate nature-based therapies into their state-funded health insurance coverage. Research has demonstrated without question that cardiovascular health, brain health, inflammation and other wellness parameters are measurably changed when our senses are exposed to the visual patterns, air and scent components, sounds, and light patterns of the natural world. In some ways, this is not a surprise. We evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to be intimately part of nature, after all.  Removing ourselves from it has, comparatively speaking, been a very recent occurrence in the span of human history. And as far as our nervous system and bodies are concerned, we are still adapted to move within the rhythm and sensory environment of the natural world. It seems so simple. Yet how many of us really know what that may feel like, or what our own lived experience may be if we “dose” ourselves with intentional work with nature.