Go Outside – Nature and Gratitude
Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction. ~E. O. Wilson
I’ve been keeping a gratitude journal since 2011 after I read “One Thousand Gifts” by Ann Voskamp. The format has changed a few times; from a few loose leaf notebook pages to a bound journal. Currently I’m jotting 3 things I’m grateful for on my daily calendar page. Looking back through my pages, I find a lot of the things I’m grateful for are things I see/hear/feel when I’m outside in nature. Just a few from my March list: a cardinal singing in a tree by my garage, a pair of robins by the shrubs, fog over wet fields, sunshine through the trees, rain puddles on the sidewalk, wind trying to blow my scarf off, squirrels nests high up in bare trees, and the light of a full moon. As you may have figured out from my earlier posts, I grew up in the country and spent a lot of my childhood outside in every season. When I first started living in a bigger city, I remember sitting in traffic feeling glum then glancing up at the sky. My heart sank when I realized I hadn’t really noticed or looked at the sky in weeks. I tell this story to illustrate the connection between nature, our well-being, and gratitude. After that, I started taking notice of the sky, the weather, and the phases of the moon. These were once daily habits of country living but I had soon forgotten them in the shorter horizons of the city. Noticing and being thankful for the cycles of nature increases feelings of hope which are vital to getting through troubled times. You can believe that if winter turned to spring last year and all the years you can remember, then chances are excellent that spring will arrive again this year even if you get an ice storm in April!
Personal stories aside there is science that is proving that nature, and gratitude play important roles in our physical and mental health. “People have been discussing their profound experiences in nature for the last several hundred years—from Thoreau to John Muir to many other writers,” says University of Utah researcher David Strayer. “Now we are seeing changes in the brain and changes in the body that suggest we are physically and mentally more healthy when we are interacting with nature.”While gratitude and time in nature are each linked individually to increased personal well-being, bringing them together in a practice of gratitude for the gifts of nature and being grateful while in nature may further deepen the benefits of well-being. Here are some of the benefits of practicing gratitude listed in an article on www.positivephsycology.com:
increased happiness and positive mood
more satisfaction with life
less materialistic
less likely to experience burnout
better physical health
better sleep
less fatigue
lower levels of cellular inflammation
greater resiliency
encourages the development of patience, humility, and wisdom
And here are some of the benefits of spending time in nature:
Walks in nature help your memory
You feel happier
Nature can literally heal
You can concentrate better
It prompts weight loss
Your vitamin D supply improves
Nature limits your stress
You age less painfully
It strengthens your immune system
It lightens feelings of depression
I hope all these benefits are enough to convince you to add a gratitude practice and some nature walks to your habits and routines. If not, take a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lXYZ6s3Dfk
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