Why we need regular interaction with the natural world...

Connection To Nature Is Essential For Mental Health...

If you feel more relaxed and recharged after a day at the beach or a hike in the mountains, there is a psychological reason for that. Interacting with the natural world is good not only for our bodies but for our minds and spirits too.

What we know intuitively is that interacting with the great outdoors is good for us - is now supported by a robust body of research that provides evidence that contact with nature lowers stress, reduces ruminations, and lessens anxiousness. Interacting with nature also fosters creativity, produces states of calm, restores attention fatigue, and can affect pro-social and pro-environmental behaviors.

One of the areas of psychology that has contributed to our understanding of the impacts of direct contact with nature is ecopsychology. This field of study focuses on understanding the human-nature relationship. A core assumption of ecopsychology is that the outer world and our inner world are intimately connected. After all, we are nature! Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we need regular interaction with the natural world in order to thrive as individuals and as a species.

Yet we are spending less time in the natural world than ever before. We’re spending more time than ever focused on screens, at work, school, entertainment, and socializing. (A 2019 Nielsen report showed that the average adult spends nearly 12 hours per day interacting with some form of media). Studies show that kids are staring at screens for far too long each day on average and spending only four to seven minutes per day in unstructured outdoor play.

During the lockdown of the COVID pandemic, we were even more removed from nature and from one another. Health professionals are concerned about a growing epidemic of loneliness, not only among older adults but among young people as well. Recent studies point to loneliness as a major health risk, rivaling smoking. Some researchers suggest that our loneliness may also be rooted in “species loneliness“ - our disconnection from other life on the planet.

#kikao #ReconnectWithNature #sustainability #environment #conservation #reforestation #ecosystems #climatechange #climateliteracy #citizenscience #habitatrestoration #savemotherearth #RestoreOurEarth #climaterestoration #environmentalliteracy #kewci #environmentaljustice #KikaoEcoWildConservation