I’ve long been a fan of happiness guru and author Gretchen Rubin. In her latest book, Secrets of Adulthood, she shares bits of wisdom she’s picked up throughout her life, much of it aimed at helping people feel more content. I can imagine the experts consulted for Phoebe Hall’s “nature as medicine” article would approve of this nugget: “If you don’t know what to do with yourself, go outside or go to sleep.”
Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? When you’re restless it feels like you don’t know your place in the world. These are two equally good options to ground yourself: go outdoors and connect with that world, or retreat fully from it.
I didn’t understand the healing powers of nature until the pandemic struck five years ago. I’m very much an indoor cat, so I didn’t expect that working at home, unable to go out socially, would affect me all that much. But soon even I was feeling restless, so I began taking a daily walk in our local park with my son, who was also feeling cagey after a day at google school.
Just crossing the city streets toward out neighborhood park awakened our senses. We’d navigate to the paved path that cuts through the middle, surrounded by tall, old-growth trees on all sides. We’d note changes that happened overnight—a large branch had fallen, great puddles of water had formed, a newly smashed bottle was sparkling in the sunlight (look, this isn’t a Disney movie)—and make our way through what, when I was a child in this park, we called the “forest.” It didn’t matter the temperature or the weather; we just needed a small dose to reinvigorate us, to connect to the world around us.
That went on for a year or so until things went back to “normal.” I can’t get out to the park as reliably these days, so I was thrilled to learn that just looking at a photo of nature has restorative properties. I suspect that even a walk through a park in your memory might help, too.
—Kris Cambra, Editor
