The Stress Prescription: Seven Days to More Joy and Ease by Elissa Epel

Author:Elissa Epel [Epel, Elissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HD Cover
ISBN: 9780143136644
Amazon: 014313664X
Publisher: Penguin Life
Published: 2022-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

DAY 5

LET NATURE DO THE WORK

Imagine this: For over a year, you are commanded to stay home. Everything closes; there is no place to go. You do all your work via computer, bathed in the blue light of your laptop or monitor. There is no socializing. You can communicate or interact with others only through the big screen of your computer or the small screen of your phone.

Too familiar, I know. Unless you were a first responder or essential worker (which came with its own unique and intense stressors), this was probably your reality for at least part of the pandemic. We were inside a lot, staring at our screens for the majority of the day: suddenly, it was where we did everything from working to socializing to collaborating with colleagues. There was no other way. Even before the pandemic, the amount of time that we were all spending inside, away from the light of day and the rhythms of the earth we live on, was already at a historic high. Now, the more we were in front of screens for work, the more frequently we were checking news, social media, and other sources of global bad news. Across the board, surveys revealed unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, sleep problems, and burnout.

During lockdowns, there was a common way that people coped with pandemic anxiety: they went outside, into nature. With everything closed, it became the only option for getting out of our houses and taking a break. Studies have since measured how much “blue-green space” people were getting—exposure to urban parks, woods, rivers, and coastal areas. A survey conducted by the UK’s Mental Health Foundation showed that 62 percent of people in the UK reported finding relief by going for a walk in urban gardens and parks.[1] And there appeared to be a dose-response effect: the more time outdoors in the natural world people got, of any age (the survey looked at people of all ages, from children to older adults), the better their mental health. In Spain, during the initial COVID-19 wave when the country was under a strict lockdown, those without views of or access to nature had much worse mental health, regardless of income.[2] Nature, it seemed, was a powerful antianxiety drug.

I live in a city, and I have a city mind—I am habituated to the ambulances, fire engines, and car motor sounds, all of which surely add to my yellow mind state of vigilance, even though I’m no longer aware of it. Every day, I take my dog for a walk. No matter how busy I am, there’s no option to skip it. I have to set aside my to-do list and just go. I walk him out by the ocean, where I can hear the waves, or in Golden Gate Park among the trees, where the musical rustle of wind in the leaves causes me to—however briefly—forget my worries and snap into attunement with the world around me. The contrast reminds me, I need more

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