Does nature restore you? – Part 2
In my previous post, I shared the evidence of how nature can restore you. I appreciate that not everyone in London lives within easy access to a green space, and it turns out that it may not be necessary to visit the green space just look at a green space.
This first occurred to me a few weeks ago, when I was in Manchester. In the hotel reception they had screens playing a short video clip of a roaring log fire. A roaring log fire just happens to be another of those things that I find both calms me, reduces my stress levels and restores me. What I noticed is that I had a positive response to the video clip, even though it was just a film of a log fire rather than an actual log fire. So this made me think, would just looking at a picture of nature on your PC have the same positive impact as going out in nature.
Li & Sullivan in a randomised controlled experiment demonstrated that views to green landscapes promote attention restoration and help individuals to recover from stress. In another study, researches in China, have discovered that viewing nature based scenes were restorative and those with more openness but no people were more lived to reduce stress. So maybe you could just look at a picture instead.
So for those of you where its not practical to spend 5 minutes in nature per day, why not look at a picture of a green landscape (without people) on your mobile phone or tablet or pc, and see if it boosts your attention levels and restores you.
References
D Li and W C Sullivan, Impact of views to school landscapes on recovery from stress and mental fatigue. Landscape and Urban Planning, vol 148, 2016, pp 149 – 158.
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Mindfulness versus Meditation
Mindfulness is gaining popularity as is meditation. Advocates recommend both as tools to assist us with our modern 24/7 non-stop busy lives that are packed with conflicting demands and uncertainty. But Mindfulness and Meditation are not synonymous. Meditation is one technique for practicing mindfulness but not the only one. I know many people, including myself, find meditation difficult as it requires dedication and practice. So I was very interested to read Ellen Langer, (of Harvard University) who is considered the mother of mindfulness, define mindfulness as the "simple process of noticing new things.". One of the things that puts busy people of Mindfulness is the misconception that is requires effort. So if you thought mindfulness was just as easy as mindlessness would you be more mindful?
Spiritual Connection
The holistic approach has the view that we are spiritual beings in physical bodies; that we take on our physical form at our birth and return to the spiritual dimension after out death. It is important to get ourselves out of the hurly-burly of everyday life and to expand our state of awareness and consciousness by becoming more away or our own spiritual nature. People often suffer without realising it, from longing to connect to their own spiritual nature. Religious belief, prayer and meditation are the most well-known way to expand out awareness, consciousness and reconnect with our spiritual nature. Often it is an intense shock of a diagnosis of a life threatening disease e.g. cancer that awakens people to the reality of their spiritual connection. For the rest of us, there are often fleeting moment of spiritual connection when we are in nature, when we meditate, when we pray or experience moment of intense joy, beauty or pain. Others feel the reality of the spiritual dimension through experiencing the loving presence of a loved one who has passed away, spirit guides or divine beings. The purpose of mediums is try to contact this spiritual dimension to provide evidence of life after death. For the skeptics amongst you Michael Newton's books the Journey of Souls and the Destiny of Souls may provide more evidence to support the idea of life after death and a the concept that we are spiritual beings in physical bodies. Buddhists and Yogis believe that the material world and even our emotions are the illusion and that the spiritual dimension is the only reality. They maintain that our preoccupation with the material world stops us from experiencing the bliss and freedom of the spiritual dimension. For myself, I believe we very much live in this material world with jobs to do, children to parent and bills to pay so I always try to have my feet firmly routed here on earth. While I am not religious, I find being aware of my spiritual self and actively trying to increase my spiritual connection as it nourishes me and give me a sense of perspective and peach of mind which I find reassuring in my everyday life. So while my feet are firmly routed here on earth my head is in heaven.
Does mindfulness meditation help you if you are depressed?
Mindfullness is very trendy right now because it is claimed to help you cope with anxiety and stress and build resilience. But does it help you if you are depressed? This is the question that researchers from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine tried to answer in a recent study. During the study, 31 women most of whom had done nothing to help themselves to deal with their depression in the last 12 months, participated in an mindfullness group. They practicied mindfullness meditation and yoga on average 150 minutes per week. Before starting the study 45% said they had no experience of mediation and 71% said they had never tried yoga. The primary outcome, depression and secondary outcomes (stress, mindfulness, functioning, well-being and depression stigma) were assessed at start of the study and then again at weeks 8 and 16 weeks . The depressive symptoms significantly decreased during the study, in addition the stigma of depression increased from the start of the study to 8 weeks and then significantly decreased between 8 to 16 weeks of the study. A significant decrease in stress and significant increase in mindfulness was found at week 8 and the end of the study when compared to the start of the study. In addition, the women reported increased sense of well-being including self-acceptance and growth. In conclusion mindfulness medication can reduce levels of depression and stress as much as powerful drugs and psychotherapy do. Reference I E Burnett-Zeigler, M D Satyshur, S Hong, A Yang et al, 2016, Mindfulness based stress reduction adapted for depressed disadvantaged women in an urban Federally Qualified Health Centre, Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice; 25; 59 - 67 see >> http://www.ctcpjournal.com/article/S1744-3881(16)30072-X/abstract
