The Impact of Nature*

I'm reading the book Nature and the Mind by Marc G. Berman. And it is blowing my mind.

He's a scientist who has studied nature on our minds. He talks about his own story integrated into his research and he gives exercises to try, so I've been trying things.

So many findings make a lot of sense. I love being by the water, especially if it's moving in some way like waves or burbling creeks or waterfalls. I love being around trees--they feel especially powerful to me. I feel my breath easing, I feel my heart rate slowing down, and I feel my muscles relaxing when I'm around nature. 

Science is affirming my experience as someone who has ADHD. I know about my problematic executive function and my issues with focus. He says nature can restore executive function and focus. He says directed focus like watching films or using social media can use up executive function. I didn't believe him until I started journaling about my experiences.

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time quietly focusing on the lush trees outside our house and on our street. There are a lot of different heights, colors, and forms. The wind was moving gently moving the branches around. 

And last night, I found a return of my executive function and I got a bunch of things done that I don't usually do at night.

Let me be clear, I thought having good executive function at night was not attainable because of how my brain is.

I'm blown away.

Today I had hard conflict with my spouse so I went out into nature. I was just sitting in our car, looking at the trees right in front of me. I was situated in a way so that other things wouldn't take away my attention.

I started journaling and got so clear, so quickly, about where my part of the conflict came from, and what I was going to ask of her. 

On top of that, I'm writing this at 9:21pm. I'm clear headed, even though I'm very tired. A loud thunderstorm woke me up shortly after 7am this morning.

I need nature in my life every day.

*I'm aware that all of this could be the placebo effect. He tells me it's going to work, so it does. One thing he says over and over again is that you don't have to like the nature or enjoy it to get its benefits. I really really do not like the rock formations in the southwest. In our May trip I got very tired of the same rock formations over and over. Yet my resting heart rate went down ten points.