Journalist, author and podcaster Florence Williams has spent years researching the physical and mental impact of spending time outside. In this episode she shares her research, how she slows down outside and ways to get a nature fix, no matter where you live.
Florence Williams has spent years researching the physical and mental impact of spending time outside. She’s a journalist, author and podcaster whose work focuses on how our environment shapes our wellbeing. In Florence’s book, The Nature Fix, she sets out to explain how the outdoors can improve our health, promote reflection, stimulate innovation, and strengthen our relationships. In this episode, Florence shares with us some of her research, her tricks for slowing down outside and getting our nature fix, no matter where we live.
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Florence Willia...: Even after 20 minutes outside, the research suggests that our blood pressure changes, our heart rate changes, our respiration slows down, we feel calmer. Then after more time outside, it looks like that can really help prevent mild depression. Our brainwaves change, where the energy and blood flow in our brains is going. It's moves from our frontal cortex, that's our thinking and planning brain, and it shifts to our sensory brains. And when that happens, it's really, really good for our mental and emotional health.
Shelby Stanger: Florence Williams has spent years researching the physical and mental impact of spending time outside. She writes about how nature can improve our mental health, help us recover from grief, and restore calm and our lives. I know when I've had a tough day, one thing that always makes me feel better is going surfing. It distracts me from stressors and it forces me to be present. There's also something about being near water, especially breaking waves that helps me breathe deeper and just feel more peaceful. In Florence's book, The Nature Fix, she sets out to explain how the outdoors can improve our health, promote reflection, stimulate innovation, and strengthen our relationships. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living.
Shelby Stanger: Florence Williams is a journalist, author and podcaster. She's a contributor at Outside Magazine and she's written for the New York Times, Slate, Mother Jones, and so many more. She's also the author of two books, Breast, a Natural and Unnatural History, and the book, The Nature Fix. She's got a new book coming out next year. She's also a repeat Wild Ideas Worth Living guest. Her work focuses on how our environment shapes our physical and mental wellbeing.
Shelby Stanger: Florence is passionate about understanding how nature affects us as human, so it makes sense that she also personally likes to spend time outside. However, her move from the mountains of Colorado to the urban landscapes of Washington, DC, was a huge shift for her a few years ago. It was one that led to anxiety, insomnia, and depression. Can you just refresh us how you got involved with the science of nature? I remember you moved to DC to the city and it took a little toll.
Florence Willia...: It did. I've been a science journalist for a long time, and I've long been interested in these connections between human health and nature, or human health and the environment. And sometimes I read about the bad effects of that. For example, the effects of pollution, industrial pollution on ourselves, on our biology. I wrote a book about that, actually about breast health and looking at breast cancer and early puberty. But that book was a little bit of a downer, or it was interpreted that way, right, because I was ultimately talking about the ill effects of pollution.
Florence Willia...: Then I moved, as you pointed out, to Washington, DC, from the Rocky Mountains. And I felt this big psychological shift in myself. And I started to wonder about the science of our landscapes and the science of nature deficit disorder. Was that a real thing? And I was fortunate to get these assignments to really go around the world and talk to scientists who were looking at that exact question. What happens to us in these different environments? Was that explaining what was happening in my own mind when I was feeling depressed and anxious and disconnected?
Shelby Stanger: Can you tell us a little bit in doing that research, which ended up leading to the book, The Nature Fix, some of the things you learned about the benefits of nature? How do I prove to my boss, my spouse, our family, that being outside is really good for us, and we just need more time in nature?
Florence Willia...: I mean, that's why scientists, I think, are interested in studying it because there are things that happen to our brains and bodies and they have a lot of social impact, if we can show this evidence, especially to institutions, to actually make a real difference in our lives. Some of the things that they're finding, and there's mounting evidence, which is what makes it an exciting field too, even after 20 minutes outside, the research suggests that our blood pressure changes, our heart rate changes, our respiration slows down. We feel calmer. And then after more time outside, it looks like that can really help prevent mild depression. Our brainwaves change, where the energy and blood flow in our brains is going. It moves from our frontal cortex, which is where we solve a lot of tasks and took off items on our to-do list. That's our thinking and planning brain. It's where we all really spend a lot of our time in modern life.
Florence Willia...: And it shifts to our sensory brains, right? What are we seeing and smelling and how do our bodies feel in these environments? And when that happens, it's really, really good for our mental and emotional health. We all tend to reside in our thinking brains and our ego-driven brains a little bit too much. And of course there's a lot of science on meditation and mindfulness and the importance of feeling like your own problems in your own self is a little bit less significant, and your connection to nature and to your communities, which also happens, turns out when you're in nature.
Florence Willia...: Those things are really, really good for our wellbeing. I'm particularly interested in the science of awe and as a surfer, I know you can relate to this. When we really feel like we're in the presence of something large and overpowering and beautiful, it's really good for us. And that doesn't always happen in nature. It happens in lots of places, but it turns out that nature is a really readily available and often easily accessed source of that, if we just get out there.
Shelby Stanger: When you did your research, did you also research the amount of time and nature will equal to better mental health, can be even happier if you're out in nature more? Because I'm watching this show Alone. It's a Netflix series and they send people out into the wilderness. They're allowed to take 10 tools. And one of my friends who was a past guest was on season seven. And that's why I'm fascinated with his show. Besides being hungry, they seem to have pretty positive states and they're out in the wild for a long time and they just feel good and connected. And it's almost like the longer they're there in some ways they're more satisfied. Hungrier, but more satisfied.
Florence Willia...: That's really interesting because being alone is a whole different dynamic. It is one that I have really spent a lot of time thinking about as someone who's also been alone in the wilderness a fair amount. But I think to your point, really what you're asking is the dose question.
Shelby Stanger: Yes. How much? What's my prescription?
Florence Willia...: I think the Alone question is a little bit different, but as far as the dose question, I mean, it's one that people are really interested in because we're very practical. We want to know how much broccoli do we need to eat? So scientists are looking at this. I think it really varies a lot in terms of where you are in your life, what you need. There are just times when we just need a bigger hit, because we're going through something difficult, or we need to figure something out. If we are battling depression, we might need more. But in general, the research seems to suggest that yeah, the more, the better, but even the tiniest doses are beneficial. Even looking out your window is beneficial, if you're looking at some nature out there.
Florence Willia...: I've been trying to cultivate this sense of awe and beauty, because I'm really interested in the science of that, but even tiny doses of awe are helpful. So there's this acronym AWE, where if you even walk around your block, see something beautiful, look at a flower or a blossom or a cloud. The A is awareness, attention. Just pay attention to it for a minute. And then the W is wait, so take a couple of breaths while you're giving your attention to this little item of beauty. And then the E is exhale. So what you're doing is you're helping your body slow down by prompting it that way, and that way you're allowing yourself to access the physiological benefits of awe, which do include that slowing down. It's a lovely little practice if you do it a couple of times, really, even a day.
Shelby Stanger: AWE, awareness, waiting and exhaling. I love that such a small exercise can help us slow down and take in the world around us. When we're outside in nature, our bodies physically change. Our nervous system calms down, our blood pressure and heart rate both slow, and so does our breath. Florence personally experienced all of these effects during her research for her book, The Nature Fix. You did some really unique things to test your research. Can you tell us about some of them?
Florence Willia...: Well, I really like using my own body as a proxy for some of these experiments. It's not really science, right? I'm an N of one. So in a couple of instances, actually several instances while I was writing The Nature Fix, I wore a portable EEG cap, which is electroencephalography and that measures brainwaves. I wanted to wear it in different environments. So I wore it on city streets, I wore it in city parks and I wore it in wilderness settings.
Florence Willia...: There were a couple of things that we were looking at. One, which I mentioned are the differences in brainwaves in different parts of the brain, and then also in different qualities of brainwaves. So some are indicative of a really hyper alert state, which is not necessarily relaxing, right, although it's important. And then some are more relaxing states and well having lived in the Rocky Mountains for so long, I'm a little bit of a nature snob, but I'm trying to be less of one. I am less of one, but for me, human noise is really annoying.
Florence Willia...: I have a hard time relaxing when I can hear airplanes, for example, or lots of boom boxes and people running around. It can be invigorating, but it's not necessarily a relaxing state. So for me, I was after alpha waves, for example, and noticing when I got them. I was really only able to access them in the wilderness, in a really beautiful place that was free from a lot of human sound.
Shelby Stanger: I know you also did forest bathing for research. For the listeners who might not know, forest bathing is a mindfulness meditation practice that people can do in the woods. The Japanese word for it is Shinran Yoku, which means bathing in the forest atmosphere. So where did you go to do that?
Florence Willia...: So I went to Japan and then I went to South Korea, and both of those countries are taking forest bathing really seriously. It was promoted in the 1980s as a reaction to a rapid industrialization in Japan, a lot of workers stress. And so there are all these really cool little research stations that just regular hikers can use while they're in parks and in both of those countries. So what you can do is you can go stick your arm in a blood pressure monitor before and after you spend even just 20 minutes or 30 minutes strolling along a trail.
Florence Willia...: It's a way they really open up your senses. It's a shortcut to mindfulness, and that's why it seems to work so quickly, even in 20 minutes. And I found that when I use those blood pressure monitors or those heart rate variability monitors, yes, I did have a really nice reduction in stress response. The question is why, and there are a lot of theories about that, but one of the things I like about the forest bathing pedagogy, and there is one, because now there are so many people training to be forest therapy guides. People talk about smell, and in Japan and South Korea, there are a lot of Hinoki Cypress forests.
Florence Willia...: As soon as you walk into one, it immediately feels like a magical space because it smells crisp. I describe it as Christmas tree meets Vaporub. It's invigorating. And it turns out that these tree aerosols, sometimes called phytoncides, they really seem to react with our immune systems in a good way, react with our bodies, lower our blood pressure, help us produce more killer T cells, which help fight diseases and cancer. At one point I was in a laboratory with this immunologist who studies these Hinoki tree oils. I stuck my arm in a blood pressure monitor, then I opened up a vile of these essential oils, which smells so great. Then I stuck my arm and the blood pressure monitor again and my blood pressure dropped like 10 points, it was nuts.
Shelby Stanger: It's so crazy. I make fun of a friend who sells those essential oils for one of those companies, but they totally work. And there's a certain sage brush. Sage smells really good in the California deserts. So every time I'm running, we rip off sage and we rip off rosemary and I'll just run with it and I can run so much better just grinding into my hand and smelling it. So there really is something about that. Is there a forest bathing in the United States?
Florence Willia...: Oh yeah. There's a ton of it, actually. If you live in a city with an arboretum, a lot of these arboretums are now offering forest bathing hikes with these forest bathing guides. I'm actually getting certified to be a forest bathing guide.
Shelby Stanger: How cool.
Florence Willia...: Because I really want to tack this on to some of the talks I give. I think it'd be really fun to take groups of people out and do this. There's a website, it's the Association for Nature and Forest Therapy, ANFT. And you can look for a guide in your local area, you can put in your zip code. So yeah, I definitely recommend you check it out and it's not just walking through the woods. It's really a distinctive, almost meditative practice where you're not even necessarily walking, but you're sitting sometimes, you're befriending a being like a tree in the woods.
Florence Willia...: It's a way not only to engage your senses, but to rethink your whole connection to the non-human world.
Shelby Stanger: Can you do this in the desert?
Florence Willia...: Yeah, absolutely. I think forest bathing is a misnomer and nature bathing is a much better one. I spent a lot of time with a neuroscientist in Utah, David Strayer, and he's done all his brain studies in the desert showing that after a few days outside, what he calls the three-day effect, and these were in desert spaces, people are much more creative and they get into a different zone of interacting with the world that is helpful.
Shelby Stanger: You took a friend out into the wilderness as one of your experiments, and I think you took him for the three-day effect, you took him camping three days. He didn't believe nature would be good for him.
Florence Willia...: So that was after The Nature Fix came out, I made a podcast for Audible called The Three-Day Effect. And the idea was that we would take different groups of people outside and run all these tests on them. So we did that with my friend, Eric Weiner, who has written a book called The Geography of Genius and in which he argues that cities are actually fantastic for human creativity and development. And he's right. Cities are fantastic, but we got into this funny debate about nature versus city.
Florence Willia...: I really wanted to take him into my world and he hates nature. He hates bugs. He hates the cold. He really likes coffee shops, but he was working on a book at the time and he was facing writer's block. He was also battling some depression that he was open about talking about. So we ran these tests on him, where we tested his blood pressure, we tested his creativity, we measured heart rate variability and a bunch of other things that I've described in the podcast before and after the three days outside. He had this vast improvement on all those measures. And in fact, even though he was cold and complained about some of the hikes being too long, he came home and he wrote three chapters right on top of each other. Yeah, it was really fun to see.
Shelby Stanger: That's it, I'm going to the wilderness tomorrow. I love talking to you about the power of birdsong and their specific type of birdsong.
Florence Willia...: Yes. So there are some bird songs that are particularly conducive to states of calm and also an alert calm, which is a really nice kind of calm because it is wakeful and you can get stuff done. That would be the nice twittery sing song bird song. There's other birdsong that's actually grating and annoying, and that would be the Blue Jays or the Redwing blackbirds. Those don't necessarily have the same effects, but it's interesting to me because it makes sense that when you hear birdsong, there's this feeling that all is right with the world. There's not a huge storm coming and there's not a big predator there. It's like all is right. And so on this really subconscious level, humans respond to that and feel laddy dah This is a nice day. Yay.
Shelby Stanger: So you did all this research and all these experiments to write that book. You obviously learned a ton. How has it changed the way you are personally in nature?
Florence Willia...: I used to think I had to go into this beautiful nature trail where there were no people, in Boulder, Colorado, and have a meaningful wild experience. Now I'm much more open-minded about what constitutes nature. I know that there are benefits to opening my senses. So I spend a lot more time doing things like smelling the pine needles, looking for fractal patterns in trees, even things like eating outside, reading outside. I've definitely changed the dose that I get and how I approach it.
Shelby Stanger: You don't have to go on a backpacking trip to get your fix. You can still access the benefits of nature while you're just walking your dog or drinking your coffee on a bench in the park. Just change your focus. Notice the way the light filters through the leaves or notice the smell of jasmine in your neighbor's yard. These are small changes you can make to take advantage of being outside no matter where you are. When we come back, I asked Florence how the pandemic changed people's relationship with nature. Plus she talks about how to spend time in nature, even if you live in a city.
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Shelby Stanger: For the past a year and a half, our world has been turned upside down. For many of us, the COVID-19 pandemic made our lives much smaller. We spent a lot of our time at home and a lot of us felt really lonely, but amidst all the stress and pain, we also sought refuge in nature. It was one of the few places we could actually go and enjoy ourselves.
Shelby Stanger: The pandemic forced a lot of us to spend way more time on our computers, sitting indoors way more than we usually do. But I also noticed that a lot more people got outside into nature locally. A lot more kids were surfing on the beaches in front of my house. Well, a lot of everyone was surfing a lot more in front of my house. A lot of trails got a lot more crowded and I'm on the West Coast, you're on the East Coast. So I imagine we saw different things, but I'm curious, what did you notice?
Florence Willia...: Yeah, though not that different. The pandemic year was a horrible and difficult and stressful, right, for so many people. The silver lining is that I think on a lot of levels, it caused us to re-examine our priorities and pay attention to our mental health. What I saw was really gratifying, as you mentioned, in terms of people going outside and actually noticing that it was helpful to their mental health. So the things that I've been talking about for a long time, that you've been talking about for a long time, it was like suddenly people got it. And that was really exciting.
Florence Willia...: And people also got how grumpy they were by being on screens all day and feeling confined. So there was this really nice natural experiment set up where people could close the computers and go for a walk and look at the sunset and suddenly feel so much better, and they noticed it. And I think we're also seeing more mental health professionals take it seriously too, which is really important. So more therapists saying, "Well, yeah, you can't go visit your family and you can't go to a bar and you can't whatever, but are you going for walks? Are you getting outside? Are you able to enjoy some nature?" So that alone is also, I think, a big win.
Shelby Stanger: I think that's so interesting. I think I asked you this before, have you read any of Andrew Hubbardman's work? So he has this study and he runs the Hubbardman lab at Stanford. He has this study that shows that our eyes, when we look at screens, essentially have to focus, which causes stress. But when you look at a wide vista, especially a horizon, like a sunset, a mountain, trees, into the distance, your eyes automatically relax, and that relaxes your entire body and being. It causes your stress hormones to relax and subside. It's so fascinating, but I didn't really know that our vision ... you talked about smell, but it is really interesting how the senses in nature can really affect our mental health.
Florence Willia...: That is really fascinating. I haven't heard that, but it makes so much sense. I know for eye health, we also just need vitamin D hitting our retinas. And without that, we're much more likely to need glasses. If you look at young people, especially in parts of East Asia where kids aren't going outside as much because they're in schools all day long normally. And then in the evening, there's a really, really high rate of prescription glasses among teenagers because of myopia, caused by not having enough vitamin D hitting their eyes as they develop. It's really interesting.
Shelby Stanger: The pandemic also saw a lot of folks, especially younger people, dealing with anxiety and depression. Getting outside is particularly important when you're experiencing high levels of stress. It's easy to do when you live a short distance from some water or some trails, but how do you spend time in nature when you live in an urban environment? Florence has a few ideas.
Shelby Stanger: So if you do live in a city, first off, how can we still benefit from nature?
Florence Willia...: So many ways, so many ways. I described that walking around the block awe practice. So we can become better observers of beauty and better observers of nature. So we can cue ourselves. You mentioned going for runs and grabbing bundles of sage. I am also one of those eccentric people. When I go outside, I'm constantly grabbing needles off of evergreen trees and walking with them and smelling them and making everyone who's with me smell them too. I try to pay attention to the birds. I try to look up at the sky, right? Wherever you are in a city, you can go out and look up and still feel like you're part of the universe.
Florence Willia...: Even if you don't see a lot of stars, you can see sunsets, you can see clouds moving, you can see phenomenal impressive, awe inspiring changes of weather, these things that make us feel like part of the living world. And even as I say, things like looking at a window, so having a space in the city where maybe you put your desk or a chair somewhere where it can access natural daylight, even that can be helpful. You don't have to be an uber athlete climbing a deserted mountain top to get these effects.
Shelby Stanger: Are there cities, Florence, that are doing nature right? Like they're installing nature corners, or man, I'd love to see it at Yosemite a blood pressure machine where you can measure before and after hiking up to the waterfall. I don't know if I'd like to see that there, but it'd be cool for people to see it.
Florence Willia...: Yes. There definitely are some cities that do it better than other cities. One thing I love is the trust for public land has a tool for measuring access to parks. It's called park score. You can actually put your city in there and see how it ranks. It measures things like park acreage per capita, distance to parks, what percentage of your city has access to parks? And the key metric that they're interested in is this notion that we all should be living within 10 minutes of a park, a 10 minute walk of a park. My that's a basic human right. When you start to map cities for that, what's astonishing, but maybe not so surprising is that certain neighborhoods have much better access to parks and much better access to high quality parks.
Florence Willia...: In my city, in Washington, DC, you can see poverty from space because you can see the neighborhoods that don't have lots of tree cover. And of course those are the underprivileged neighborhoods. They're neighborhoods with predominantly people of color. So you can really see these social justice issues mapped out on these cities. I think that's something that we absolutely need to address when we start talking about who should have access to parks, how do you improve access and how do you improve the quality of parks? So I think that's a really good start.
Shelby Stanger: You look a lot at the intersection of justice, the environment, nature, all of it, science. I'm really curious, what would an ideal green city look like? Because I work with this organization, Outdoor Outreach, and a lot of these kids are from inner city communities in San Diego and pandemic really sucked for them. They didn't get outside at all. They couldn't run programs. They couldn't go to the beach. Beaches were closed. They don't have access, it's far, but if we could build a perfectly green city today with all the resources we have, what kind of things would be there?
Florence Willia...: Well, we know from the science that trees increase physical health and mental health. So there've been some studies showing that if you have at least 11 trees on a city block, that equals a significant gain in physical health, equivalent to a $20,000 increase in income. And we know that-
Shelby Stanger: Wow, wait, just 11 trees on a block can equate-
Florence Willia...: You have to have a comparison, but this was a study done in Toronto, looking at street trees in cities. I think maybe difference was, I think it was maybe city blocks that had 20 trees versus city blocks that had 11 trees, but it would also be true of city streets that had a dozen trees versus the city streets that had no trees. So if you look at the comparisons, the more trees on a block equals this boost in physical health, especially cardiovascular health, that's equivalent to a big bump in income. And there've been similar studies in the UK showing that, especially in underserved communities, you get a bigger gain in health than in wealthy communities that have more green space. So it's a way to level the health of a population by making the cities greener.
Florence Willia...: So more parks, better quality parks, and I think also the infrastructure that enables people to use those parks. So ideally even schools, right, and other institutions that have green schoolyards and that have recessed. So it kills me that in my city, only 20% of public school kids get the recommended dose of recess. That's in a non pandemic year. I think, as you say, for a lot of kids, they got outside even less during the pandemic. So we need to green our institutions. We need to green block by block more trees, if we live in a place that will support trees. And then if in places where you live, where it's about access to the coast, so we need more access points.
Florence Willia...: And then I think we also need a little bit of a shift in priorities. There are so many barriers to kids getting outside, including parental discomfort with it, the fact that the kids' parents are often disconnected from nature. So we're in a two generational problem now, but organizations like churches, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and other community-based programs can really help make kids feel safe outside, and help them do what they naturally want to do, which is go run around and climb some trees and jump in puddles and have a good time.
Shelby Stanger: You have a wonderful prescription. Tell us.
Florence Willia...: Yes, thanks. I have a little motto that's very simple and it's go outside, go often, bring friends or not, and breathe.
Shelby Stanger: Let's hear that again. Go outside, go often, bring friends or not, and breathe. When we stop and appreciate moments of beauty and our surroundings, we allow ourselves the space to be happier and healthier. Thank you so much to Florence Williams for coming on and talking about the science behind why humans need nature. You can get her book, The Nature Fix, anywhere books are sold and you'll have to keep an eye out for her upcoming book called Heartbreak, which is coming out in February of 2022. You can follow Florence's work at FlorenceWilliams.com or on her Instagram at Florence 999. That's F-L-O-R-E-N-C-E-9-9-9, and Florence Williams, I'm supposed to take you surfing. So let me know when you come down to San Diego.
Shelby Stanger: Wild Ideas Worth Living as part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, written and edited by Annie Fassler and Sylvia Thomas, and produced by Chelsea Davis. Our executive producers are Palo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we appreciate when you follow the show, when you rate it, when you review it, wherever you listen, I read every single one of your reviews. They mean a lot to me. And remember some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.