by Sarah Ivens
ARE YOU A BIOPHILE?
Do you feel an emotional, empathetic attachment to nature and other living things?
Do you have a love of life and feel driven to preserve yourself and those around you?
Whenever you meet a puddle do you yearn to jump into it, or when you see a flower do you feel the need to sniff it? Have you ever been left speechless by a mountain view or the sound of the ocean?
If you answered YES to all these, you are a biophile. Being a biophile means feeling a strong attraction for the living world and everything in it.
ARE YOU A BIOPHOBE?
Do you feel an aversion to nature, a dislike for the outdoors?
Do you have a distaste for mud, sudden rainstorms or feeling sand between your toes?
Are you scared by what you can’t control? Nervous of things you don’t understand?
If you answered YES to all these, you are a biophobe. Being a biophobe means ignoring your ancestors and ignoring your grandchildren—and, most worryingly, ignoring the easy, quick, cost-free ways you have at your disposal to feel sunny and upbeat today. Read this book again and become a biophile.
Evie, 46
“During the few times in my life when I have been broken and profoundly sad, it has been nature that has healed me. Getting lost in the forest—a walking meditation—seems to melt my human troubles away. The overwhelming beauty. The remoteness. The possibility of danger. The timelessness. All these exceed any of my temporal obstacles. Nature can heal us, and help us to escape ourselves.”
Forests in your future
How can you serve and cherish your relationship with nature going forward? Clearly, there are imperative, urgent changes we need to make as individuals, communities, countries and as human beings, to protect our planet. We need to tweak our daily habits, re-educate ourselves and our children, and start to think in the long term about what we can do to help the environment. But, very simply, you can make small, impactful improvements to your life and the lives of those around you by becoming a champion for outdoor living. Try some of these:
• Help to run, or start, a gardening club at a local school or park in your neighborhood, or at a senior care home or homeless shelter.
• Join the board of volunteers at a local park, public gardens, community garden, wildlife center or historic home.
• With permission from the relevant authorities, plant trees or plants to beautify your local area.
• Start a vegetable patch or herb garden in your backyard. If you can’t do that, choose to support your local farmers’ market or farm shop wherever possible.
• Set up a local walking, jogging, nature-mindfulness or cycling group.
• Start to compost and recycle.
• Change how you use water, electricity, plastic and your car. Reduce, reduce, reduce.
• Contact your local council about their environmental projects and get on board.
• Be mindful of how you run your home and garden, for the improvement of those around you and the planet. What can you add? What can you take away?
• Keep your local area tidy by picking up litter, and set up groups to do the same.
• Teach your parents, children and neighbors about World Earth Day—throw a party, do a film night. Or gather friends and family to celebrate each changing season, or the summer or winter solstice.
• Donate your time, money or ideas to organizations that encourage environmental protection and the celebration of nature in an area you are passionate about: the sea, farming, animal welfare. Follow your heart.
• Keep a collection of anecdotes, stories, photos and pictures about nature and the impact it’s had on your family, and make it into a scrapbook to hand down to the next generation.
• Build traditions within your family or friendship group that champion outdoor pursuits, from weekly hikes at a local trail spot to an annual camping trip in a forest glen that you all look forward to every year.
Gabrielle, 38
“Having a strong connection to the mountains is in my blood. My father, a New Yorker, moved out to the Rocky Mountains a few years before I was born. When I was growing up, he would take us skiing, hiking and snowshoeing. Until his death early last year, his daily routine included a short hike up the ridge near to my childhood home before putting on his work shoes and heading in to see patients as one of our town’s first family doctors. As he was dying, we set his bed to face out on to the mountain range east of our house. He passed away looking at one of his favorite views. Per his request, some of his ashes were scattered at the top of one of his favorite hikes, others were scattered along that ridge he hiked to start each day, and the rest were split among his children, which we have each scattered on mountains or hills close to our own homes. Now, when I want to talk to him or just feel his presence, I lace up my hiking boots and head into nature. And after doing so independently and instinctually on the first birthday since his passing, my siblings and I now ‘Summit for Pop’ on his birthday, his death anniversary, and Father’s Day.”
True colors
Color therapy—aka chromotherapy—is a jubilant way to bring the outdoors into your interior, to embrace shades from nature that have brought you a sense of peace and well-being and to use them to decorate your home to make it even happier. Make mental notes of your favorite shades when you are out on a forest walk, or by the sea—perhaps take photos to hold the tone in your mind—then reinterpret them and their positive effects on you through paint, meaningful artwork and objects that make you cheerful or chilled. Use colors from nature to create the world you want to live in, even when you can’t be outside.
• Blue Bring the sea and sky to your four walls. Light to mid-tone shades of blue are relaxing, spiritually uplifting and peaceful—perfect for areas of quiet contemplation.
• Green The quintessential color of nature—trees, grass, moss and meadows—green works well in all domestic spaces. Use anywhere you want to promote feelings of health, harmony and well-being.
• Lavender Calming and restful, lavender is perfect for bedrooms or rooms in your home where you like to sit, read or meditate as if relaxing in a field of wild flowers.
• Orange Bright like the sun, use orange for a warm and lively feel. Add it to the most sociable room in your home for a rejuvenating place to hang out.
• Red As romantic as a scarlet rose, this color can make an area warm and cozy (sexy, even) but can be claustrophobic and heavy in the wrong space, so proceed with caution.
• Yellow Like an invigorating walk across golden sand, this color makes us feel bright, confident and pumped up for mental or physical activity. It’s great for social rooms such as dining areas and sitting rooms, but avoid it in bedrooms, as it might make you feel too alert to doze off.
How to maintain a relationship with Mother Nature in trying times
Sometimes we don’t feel peppy and energetic, positive or brave. Sometimes we crumple, crumble and want to hide away, usually indoors, sometimes under a blanket, out of the sun. At these times, you have two options:
1 To remember how much better you’ll feel getting outdoors into nature.
2 To bring the power of nature into your home.
To live the first option, you need to harness flashbacks and get a sense of self-awareness, to remember how much stronger and happier you felt when you did get outdoors and embrace nature. Your mood improved, your energy levels rose, your anxiety defused. And you need to recall how maintaining a nurturing relationship with Mother Nature curtails a myriad of downers, making you more creative, smarter, fitter, nicer with boosted immunity and heart health, and ultimately, studies show, more likely to live a long and happy life. Remembering all this could motivate you to get outdoors.
To live the second option, you need to welcome Mother Nature into your home as a guest while you’re feeling physically or mentally unable to go and visit her. Use photos, paintings and drawings to surround yourself visually with her beauty. Coat your hideaway with
her stress-relieving scents—in your bubble bath, in an essential-oil facial mist, in aromatherapy candles. Treat yourself to a bunch of flowers every weekend. Nurture potted plants or window boxes and hang air plants. Reminisce about favorite moments in the wild, and daydream the day away. Practice the mindfulness you engage in the natural world at home, making a spot that is just for you to be quiet and comforted in. Research shows that just looking at photos of nature or smelling the scents of nature has a positive effect on mental health.
Young at heart
Ultimately, I truly believe, we all have the wish and desire—and the power—to be our best, most blissful selves when we embrace the great outdoors. I know this because we were born this way. As children:
We were explorers
We were enquirers
We were risk-takers
We were caretakers
We were seeking happiness
We were seeking movement, freedom and good health
… and, as children, we knew that nothing felt as good as jumping in a puddle, jumping in waves or getting caught in the rain. And in those moments, we were—and we can still be, even as adults—our best, truest, happiest and bravest selves.
MINDFULNESS MINUTE
Take yourself to a favorite spot in nature, somewhere you can sit quietly and comfortably without fear of interruption or feeling restricted. Close your eyes, breathe in and out, and settle your body into the ground. Feel your way through each limb, bone and muscle. Ease out stiffness and focus on the sound and rhythm of your inhaling and exhaling. Capture yourself in your mind’s eye—your best self. Give yourself a good look over, notice how you’re standing, how you’re smiling, how you’re interacting with the world around you. Now, travel into your thoughts. Acknowledge how you feel, how you want to feel, what makes you happy. Capture this you for the future. Capture the essence of your happiness, individuality, kindness and energy. Open your eyes feeling lucky about who you are, where you are and the control you have over your future.
Acknowledgments
To the wonderful group of people who made this book take flight, thank you—what a breath of fresh air you are! Zoe Ross, my agent, I love your enthusiasm, efficiency and effortless cool and I feel lucky to have you—and the rest of the stellar team at United Agents, especially global go-getters Alex Stephens and Georgina Le Grice—by my side.
To Claire Schulz, it was love at first phone call: thank you for getting Forest Therapy—and me!—and for being such a constant delight to work with, and much gratitude to the rest of the team at Da Capo Press and Lifelong Books for your skills and sense of style. Back in Blighty, thanks to Jillian Young, Anna Steadman, and Jillian Stewart for all your hard work.
Ruth Craddock, my illustrator—I’ve loved your whimsical, charming illustrations for many years now and I’m so happy to have them decorating my words.
To the friends who shared their heart-warming or heart-breaking stories with me to include throughout my copy, your noted connections with nature are now my favorite part of the book and I’m so grateful for your honesty. Thanks to Rosie, who got me thinking that there was a book in this topic. And thanks to my fellow Highland Park Elementary and Crenshaw Athletic Club parents who join me and my rascals in every kind of weather, every day, to let our wild things be wild in the open air.
To my fantastic family, gorgeous godchildren and firmest friends: you are my spring, summer, autumn and winter. Thank you for the year-round happiness you bring me!
About the Author
Sarah Ivens is the best-selling author of eight lifestyle and wellness books, including A Modern Girl’s Guide to Getting Hitched and A Modern Girl’s Guide to Etiquette, and she is the founding Editor in Chief of OK! magazine in the US.
A Londoner turned Southern belle, she now splits her time between Austin, Texas, and England, after five years in New York, where she ran OK!, and two years in Los Angeles, where she worked for the drama development team at HBO television and trained as a certified life coach.
She has a PhD in global humanities from the University of Louisville, Kentucky, and is a contributor to the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph, Stella, Glamour, Marie Claire, the New York Post and YOU magazine. She has worked on staff at Tatler, the Daily Mail, Marie Claire and the Sunday Mirror. She has appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, Access Hollywood and Extra!
Further Reading
Books
Almon, Joan, Playing It Up: With Loose Parts, Playpods, and Adventure Playgrounds, CreateSpace, 2017
Clifford, M. Amos, The Little Handbook of Shinrin-yoku, www.Shinrin-Yoku.org, 2013
Gardner, Howard, and Katie Davis, The App Generation: How Today’s Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World, Yale University Press, 2014
Jordan, Martin, and Joe Hinds, Ecotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, Palgrave, 2016
Louv, Richard, Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, Atlantic Books, 2010
McGeeney, Andy, With Nature in Mind: The Ecotherapy Manual for Mental Health Professionals, Jessica Kingsley Publishing, 2016
Palmer, Sue, Toxic Childhood: How the Modern World is Damaging Our Children and What We Can Do About It, Orion, 2006.
Weaver, Dr. Libby, Rushing Woman’s Syndrome, Hay House, 2017
Williams, Florence, The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, W. W. Norton & Company, 2017
Helpful websites
To find out more about the U.S. National Parks Conservation Association, go to www.npca.org
To find out more about U.S. National Park Foundation, go to www.nationalparks.org
To find out more about the U.S. National Park Service, go to www.nps.gov
To find out more about the Parks Canada Agency, go to www.pc.gc.ca
To find out more about the Let’s Move initiative, go to www.letsmove.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/initiatives
To find out more about the Association of Nature & Forest Therapy in North America, go to www.natureandforesttherapy.org
To get more information from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, go to www.HHS.gov
To get more information from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, go to www.canada.ca
For ideas and inspiration about nature-based travel, go to www.nationalgeographic.com
For more science and statistics
Akers, A., Barton, J., Cossey, R., et al. (2012), “Visual color perception in green exercise: Positive effects on mood and perceived exertion,” Environmental Science and Technology, 46(16): 8661–6, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22857379
Aspinall, P., Mavros, P., Coyne, R., Roe, J. (2012), “The urban brain: analyzing outdoor physical activity with mobile EEG,” British Journal of Sports Medicine, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23467965
Barton, J., Pretty, J. (2010), “What is the best dose of nature and green exercise for improving mental health? A multi-study analysis,” Environmental Science and Technology, 44: 3947–55, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20337470
Berman, M.G., Jonides, J., Kaplan, S., (2008), “The cognitive benefits of interacting with nature,” Psychological Science, 19: 1207–12, http://libra.msra.cn/Publication/6994981/the-cognitive-benefits-of-interacting-with-nature
Children and Nature Network (2012), “Health Benefits to Children from Contact with the Outdoor & Nature,” 46 pages, http://www.childrenandnature.org/downloads/CNNHealthBenefits2012.pdf
Donovan, G., Butry, D., Michael, Y., et al. (2013), “The relationship between trees and human health: Evidence from the spread of the EAB,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 44(2): 139–45, http://californiareleaf.org/trees-in-the-news/the-relationship-between-trees-human-health
Gies, E. (2006), “The Health Benefits of Parks,” The Trust for Public Land, http://www.tpl.org/publications/books-reports/park-benefits/the-health-benefits-of-parks.html
Hanson, P., Matt, F., Bowyer, J., et al. (2016), “The Human
Health and Social Benefits of Urban Forests,” Dovetail Partners Inc. (1 MB PDF, 12 pages)
Kuo, F.E., Taylor, A.F. (2004), “A potential natural treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Evidence from a national study,” American Journal of Public Health, 94(9): 1580–86, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc1448497/
Lee, J., Park, B.-J., Tsunetsugu, Y., et al. (2009), “Restorative effects of viewing real forest landscapes, based on a comparison with urban landscapes,” Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research, 24(3): 227–34, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02827580902903341#preview
Lee, J., Park, B.-J., Tsunetsugu, Y., et al. (2011), “Effect of forest bathing on physiological and psychological responses in young Japanese male subjects,” Public Health, 125(2): 93–100, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033350610003203
Li, Q. (2010), “Effect of forest bathing trips on human immune function,” Environmental Health and Preventative Medicine, 15(1): 9–17, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2793341/
Li, Q., Kawada, T. (undated but probably 2010), “Healthy forest parks make healthy people: Forest environments enhance human immune function,” Department of Hygiene and Public Health, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan, http://www.hphpcentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/5000-paper-by-Qing-Li2–2.pdf