May 4, 2025: The Healing Power of Nature
In today’s world, technology can be perceived as a double-edged sword. On one hand, the advancements of personal computers, smartphones, and numerous other innovations: facilitate communication, provide fast access to information, and provide organizational tools to manage your life. Social media has become the source for dissemination of news, entertainment, and even a vehicle for commerce and service. There are even tools that can provide critical information on your health, measuring everything from your blood pressure, to sharing information on symptoms and sources of treatments. At our fingertips, we now can be connected in seconds to the entire world, creating a global community.
But its drawback can be that we are continually connected to all the chaos, strife and tragedies of the current world. From anxiety producing headlines, updated multpile times of day, to the unkindness of faceless posts and tweets, we are exposed daily to the stressors of daily life in modern times. Time spent on social media can also be addictive, taking us away from other valuable endeavors and pursuits. Recent research demonstrated that 63.9 percent of the world’s population, are social media users and that the average time spent a day is 2 hours and 23 minutes scrolling through different platforms. https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/
“Social media platforms drive surges of dopamine to the brain to keep consumers coming back over and over again. The shares, likes and comments on these platforms trigger the brain’s reward center, resulting in a high similar to the one people feel when gambling or using drugs.
DR. NANCY DEANGELIS, CRNP, Director of Behavioral Health
There is a powerful antitdote to the maladies of anxiety and stress produced by over exposure to the technology-driven world. We can simply shut it off and spend some time in nature.
. “There are increased benefits of spending more time in nature and leaving technology behind such as improved short term memory, enhanced working memory, better problem solving, greater creativity, lower levels of stress and higher feelings of positive well being.”
— David Strayer, Professor of Cognition and Neural Science
“There are many studies that demonstrate how spending time in nature can improve mood, lower anxiety, and improve cognition and memory. Making time for nature is important in order for us to maintain resiliency and promote self-care in a world that demands a lot from us.
Mayo Clinic nurse practitioner Jodie M. Smith, APRN., C.N.P., D.N.P., M.S.N
In a busy life, deliberately choosing to spend time in nature, can seem like one more demand. But one study showed that spending time in nature can calm and regulate our nervous system in less than five minutes. (https://mcpress.mayoclinic.org/mental-health/the-mental-health-benefits-of-nature-spending-time-outdoors-to-refresh-your-mind/ ) It doesn’t seem to matter what age this powerful antidote can impact. Children who spend quality time in nature have improved academic achievement, higher self-esteem and creativity.
What are some ways to bring nature back into your busy, modern day life? Opening your senses to the beauty and wonder of the natural world is the first way. It focuses your attention on the present moment, pulling you out of the rabbit holes of worrying about the future. It can be as simple as gazing in awe at the vibrant vista of a sunset, revelling in the sound of waves crashing on a beach, savoring the delicate scent of a flower, tasting freshly picked berries, and/or tracing the softness of a feather. Bringing our attention and appreciation to the gifts that surround us in the natural world, can be a powerful antidote to the over-stimulated mind. You can even bring nature indoors, with artwork, plants, and sound recordings of natural phenomena. One of my personal favorite ways to start each day, is to sit quietly with a cup of tea and watch all the avian activity on my deck while the sun rises.
While technology can save us time allowing us to be more efficient and productive, it also can distract us and keep us from being present in our own lives. What are the ways you can carve out time each day for the gift of the natural world, leading to a calmer, healthier and happier life?
Thank you for taking the time to reading my thoughts. I’ve once again gathered quotes to inspire you on your own journey to reconnect with nature. I welcome your thoughts or quotes that inspire you in the comments below. And I invite you to share this with someone who might find it meaningful. A love of nature can help connect us in a too fractured world.
In kindness and peace,
Wendy Oellers-Fulmer
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
“Walk in nature and feel the healing power of the trees.”
Anthony William
“When you bring your attention to a stone, a tree or an animal, something of its essence transmits itself to you. You can sense how still it is and in doing so the same stillness rises within you. You can sense how deeply it rests in being, completely one with what it is and where it is, in realizing this, you too come to a place or rest deep within yourself.”
Eckhart Tolle
“Nature itself is the best physician.”
Hippocrates
“Go outside. Don’t tell anyone and don’t bring your phone. Start walking and keep walking until you no longer know the road like the palm of your hand, because we walk the same roads day in and day out, to the bus and back home and we cease to see.”
Charlotte Eriksson
“An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.”
Henry David Thoreau
“To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter… to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring — these are some of the rewards of the simple life.”
— John Burroughs
“Looking at beauty in the world, is the first step of purifying the mind.”
Amit Ray
“When we spend time outside in beautiful places, a part of our brain called the subgenual prefrontal cortex, quiets down, and this is the part of the brain that is associated with negative self-reported rumination”
Florence Williams
“The earth has music for those who listen.”
William Shakespeare
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”
Rachel Carson
“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.”
Frank Lloyd Wright
For a time, I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
Wendell Berry