Longevity
Why Nature Matters for Your Health
Healthy living requires deep conviction, not immediate results. Research shows that nature connection, sunlight, and cold exposure strengthen immunity and support mental health.
Longevity
Healthy living requires deep conviction, not immediate results. Research shows that nature connection, sunlight, and cold exposure strengthen immunity and support mental health.
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"Healthy living," as we keep explaining, has much to do with belief. In the German language, belief and knowledge are somewhat at odds.
The English word "faith" captures this better—it describes more of a deep conviction. And that's the kind of belief we mean. And we can back it up.
Many things that kill modern people happen only after many decades. Take a heart attack, for example. Prevention would be the antidote. Through exercise, for instance, a certain diet, and smart supplementation. That keeps arteries healthy in many people.
But we don't have immediate feedback that exercise and diet work in this regard—no "proof" that impresses us right now. Instead, we rely on scientific evidence and so on.
Eating healthily and exercising, then, requires deep conviction that we can significantly reduce our risk of cardiovascular disease. We get personal proof of that only after many years or decades.
The same applies to nature's healing power. We now know about the importance of light for our health. Light keeps us healthy—not just through effects on the brain and mood. Sunlight itself has positive physiological effects, not only through vitamin D production.¹
Cold exposure, too—such as swimming in a cold lake—is increasingly proving to be a healing agent. Just a few years ago, the prestigious journal Cell Metabolism published scientific work showing that mild, regular cold exposure significantly improved an animal model of multiple sclerosis.²
Nature heals. Nearly two decades ago, Japanese researchers at Nippon Medical School (Tokyo) impressively showed that "forest bathing," as it's beautifully called today, stimulates certain immune cells. Forest air contains certain chemical substances that apparently have positive physiological effects on us.³
While it's comparatively well-established that the sight of nature has positive health effects on us, researchers now want to learn more about how nature's air affects us. After all, "through the olfactory pathway, (anti-)inflammatory effects" can be triggered.⁴
Just at the start of this year, another remarkable study from Texas A&M University was published, which calculated a so-called NatureScore™ for Texas residents. In short: the more connected residents' lives were to nature in their area, the lower their likelihood of depression and mental illnesses like bipolar disorder.⁵
And very recently, a study showed that one month of indoor gardening increased skin bacterial diversity and had an anti-inflammatory effect. After all, it's known that increasing urbanization leads us to live "too clean," which promotes immune system disorders.⁶
Here's the point: we can't see or hear any of this or grasp it any other way. It just works on us, day and night. Hopefully to our advantage. But we usually have to do something about it.
That is: of course we can live in the city. But it's reasonable to assume that stressful city life, compared to peaceful rural life, is for humans what factory farming, for example, is for animals compared to life on the pasture... or of course in the forest. There does seem to be something to "mass human habitation."
Even though we fully believe people should choose where they want to live, we health-conscious folks should keep reminding ourselves that maintaining health has much to do with deep conviction.
And here's the key: nature seems to keep us healthy. That's worth remembering. Since belief, as we've shown, comes before action... those who are now convinced will take the dog for a walk in the forest ;-) The others will stay put.
