In case you're just recently joining us or however long you've been a listener of the show,
you may not realize that we have years and years of incredible episodes in our archive.
We've had so many wonderful guests that we've decided to hand pick one of our favorites that
may be new to you, but if not, is definitely worth another lesson. We hope you'll enjoy this episode
with Florence Williams. We don't spend that much time in nature. We are sort of epically disconnected
from it, and because of that, we don't know how it makes us feel.
Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance
of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward
negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have, instead of what we do,
we think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking,
our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living.
This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
how they feed their good wolf.
[Music]
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Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Florence Williams, a contributing editor at
Outside Magazine and a freelance writer for The New York Times, New York Times Magazine,
National Geographic, The New York Review of Books, and numerous other publications.
Florence is also the writer and host of the Audible Original Series, Brest Subbound.
She's a fellow at the Center for Humans in Nature and a visiting scholar at George Washington
University. Her work focuses on the environment, health, and science. Florence's first book
Brests, a natural and unnatural history received the Los Angeles Times book prize in science and
technology. Her latest book is called The Nature Fix. Why Nature makes us happier, healthier,
and more creative. Hi Florence, welcome to the show. Hi Eric, thanks so much for having me.
Your book is called The Nature Fix. Why Nature makes us happier, healthier, and more creative,
which is something that I'm very excited talking about because I think I've learned that
over the last number of years about myself and it's not something I would have thought was true,
but we'll get into all the science of that in a minute. But let's start like we always do with
the parable. Okay. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says in life,
there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents
things like kindness and bravery and love and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things
like greed and hatred and fear and the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second and he looks
up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says the one
you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in
the work that you do. I think my reaction to that parable is a little bit contrarian. I guess I
would say it seems just too simple to dismiss one wolf as the bad wolf and one wolf as the good wolf.
And I guess maybe because I'm a writer and I like to sort of plumb the complexities and depths
of people's psyches, you know, I kind of like knowing that both of those wolves can offer
us something, you know, and it's sort of too simple, I think, to identify one as being one we
should starve and one that we should feed. I guess I feel like sometimes being friends, you know,
with the dark wolf, you know, and sometimes you can learn something from that darker place.
So I guess that's just something I've been thinking about lately. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree.
I agree 100%. So let's talk a little bit about the book. The title is The Nature Fix. So let's just start with happier. And what ways
does nature make us happier? There have been a lot of studies actually over the last, I would say
10, 20 years showing that when we spend time in pleasant natural environments and even sometimes
unpleasant natural environments, it can really boost our mood. And this is something environmental
psychologists, you know, noticed, I would say in the 70s, especially with people who were depressed,
you know, after they spent, you know, a certain amount of time outside or in a garden or in a forest,
they just reported feeling happier, feeling less frustration, less anger, less aggression.
And I would say in more recent years, that psychology has been really confirmed with neuroscience
with biomarkers. So for example, there has been research coming out of Japan that shows that cortisol
levels or stress hormones decrease even after just 15 minutes of being in a sort of peaceful
forest environment. And then your blood pressure drops and your heart rate variability shifts in
ways that are sort of more resilient to stress. And I think some of us would think, well, that's
kind of obvious, you know, we know we feel good after a walk in the park. But I think what was
less expected was sort of the level to which our nervous system and our physiology really reflects
that. Yeah, the happier goes hand in hand with healthier. And in the book, you cite studies that
talk about blood pressure and cortisol levels. And you even cite something called NK cells,
natural killer cells. What are those? Yeah, natural killer cells are part of our immune system.
And they are, for example, natural killer T cells, which can fight cancer and other diseases.
And again, this research out of Japan, it seems sort of controversial, is showing that our natural
killer cells seem to increase after, you know, just these short walks in natural areas.
And then also even these natural killer cells, if you put them in a petri dish, they seem to
increase and count and sell count after exposure to certain aerosols from cypress trees,
which is kind of fascinating. And in a way, if you think about it, I mean, these aerosols
from trees are designed to protect the tree. So, you know, trees will emit these in order to
sort of ward off pesticides, for example, you know, it could be that there's really something about
our human immune system that can converse with these aerosols as well. It's really fascinating.
Yeah, you talk about aroma therapy in the book a little bit and you talk about the smells.
And what I thought was interesting and sort of a theme that runs through the book is that you're
on one hand, you're deconstructing why being in nature makes us feel better. There's lots of
different theories, whether it's smell or sight or hearing. And so you go through the science of
each of those and that you're also referencing a lot of classical figures, a lot of poets,
different people who are sort of not deconstructing it and saying, take it sort of as a whole thing.
And I just thought that was interesting the way you kind of bounced back and forth between that
and the book. Yeah, I mean, I think the science writer in me was really drawn, you know, to the
research, to the sort of latest evidence. And of course, we live in an evidence-based society.
And so I wanted to make the case kind of based on what they were telling us,
you know, and each scientist kind of lives in a silo, right? So the physicist was convinced
that the reason we feel good in nature is because of the fractal patterns, you know, that somehow,
you know, converse with the perceptual systems in our brain, you know, and this psychologist
working bench, you know, that it had to do with our stress reduction levels. There were other people
who had, you know, felt like it, oh, it has to do with the color green or the color blue or the smell.
And yet I am a humanist also. And I think part of me was resistant to the idea of, you know,
so compartmentalizing this really kind of magical, spiritual relationship that we have with
the natural world. And maybe it's not just because of, you know, one particular kind of sensory
system. And I think that, you know, it's the poets really and the philosophers who kind of take us
back to this more kind of full, immersive, full sensory kind of engagement with nature that also
appealed to me. There's lots of great quotes in the book from various writers, but one that I
loved was Walt Whitman's "When he warned of the city's pestiferous little gratifications."
And I thought that was such a great description for how sometimes I feel when I'm just in the city or
just sort of doing city like things over while it just starts to feel like whatever the
gratifications are they just become I would never use a word like pestiferous but I probably
should.
I love the word pestiferous and I think it is so appropriate you know and especially
now and we do have these little gratifications that are so tied to our technology you know
which of course really didn't exist in Walt Whitman's time but isn't that just a perfect
description for you know what we feel when we get you know a text message coming in or
you know when someone responds to or likes a twitter post I mean it's it's this little
gratification that that also just like nods at our soul and on some level we know it's
really bad for us even though it kind of tickles our dopamine system.
Yep the idea of seeing this as a holistic thing versus the reduction of science piece reminds
me of when I started getting into eating whole foods because there was this idea that
when you deconstruct each of these like an apple well here's the nutrient that's got this
nutrient in that nutrient but there's really an idea that there's something else that
the inner play of all those different things makes an apple greater than the sum of its
parts and I think that's very similar to what you're saying here with nature.
Yeah exactly I mean I felt like I had to sort of draw apart the evidence and explain
it you know but ultimately you know whether we believe it or not comes down to how we
feel when we're outside and that depends on paying attention to how we feel when we're
outside and I think you know you said it so well at the beginning of the show when you
said you know I didn't really realize how happy I was going out into nature.
I think that's kind of where a lot of us find ourselves that we don't really pay attention
we're on our phones maybe when we're walking outside we have our earbuds in we're mulling
over you know our to-do list we're you know how it is and we're all multitasking so much
and we're not really tuning in to how we feel and I think you know if there's one kind
of lesson I would love people to take away from this book it's just to you know go outside
and also just pay attention to what makes you feel good.
Yeah you say in the book that some of us don't even realize how nature can make us feel
better we're so distanced from it as a culture at this point and I myself I don't think
had any sense of that it was really when I met a gentleman named Lou Duane who I loved
to bring up he's now passed away but he ran a little retreat center in Ohio called
niches and he was the first person I really got that idea of nature deficit disorder from
that there's something in us that is really lacking if we don't have some degree of exposure
to nature.
Yeah that's right I think it's kind of a vicious cycle as you mentioned you know we
don't spend that much time in nature we are sort of epically disconnected from it and
because of that you know we don't we don't know how it makes us feel and so we undervalue
it you know we tend to think other things will make us feel good like shopping or you
know bingeing on Netflix or ice cream and those things do make us feel good but we don't
really give nature sort of a fair shot you know in that competition and of course when
we when we go outside in nature really the side effects are mostly positive and we also
get exercise we also sort of clear our heads and you know our cognition can improve you
know we may sleep better because we're you know kind of sinking our cycles to the sun you
know the benefits are just sort of on and on and yet you know we'd rather just take a pill
or eat some ice cream.
Yeah you mentioned in the book how a lot of the science about being in nature is coming
out of Japan and South Korea and you were talking about how they sort of look at this a little
bit differently than Americans do yeah what made me think of that was when you said you
know take a pill and you sort of made a joke like well if Americans if we could get the
benefit of nature in a pill that's how we do it yeah I mean we definitely want the
quick fix I think there's no question that you know Eastern and Western philosophies about
nature are really divergent I mean here we consider ourselves really apart from nature
we're separate from it we think of it as something other and I think you know in a lot of
Eastern spiritual traditions and just in daily life even today nature is just more integrated
into daily life it's not necessarily pristine nature or wilderness but you know the emphasis
on blossoms and on you know flower arrangements on you know zen gardens there's just this
notion that that we can integrate nature into our daily lives and I just don't think we
do that as much here and then I also think the questions that the two cultures are pursuing
are really different and sort of fascinating I felt like in many parts of Japan and South
Korea and even in Europe too I think more of the research is focused on sort of emotional
states like psychology how do we feel better how do we help prevent depression you know
maybe part of that is because those cultures really care about prevention and preventative
health there's state-funded you know health care for example the research in this country
is sometimes more focused on how can time and nature actually make us work harder how can
we be more productive how can we drain more blood you know from office workers by maybe
providing a break in nature or a roof garden you know like the one found on Facebook the
Facebook campus has this beautiful roof garden but you know let's not kid ourselves it's
really still designed toward productive workforce right that leads me to another topic I
want to mention which was meditation and meditation has gone through a very similar thing right
there's meditation for the spiritual benefits and there's meditation for you know being
happier or healthier but then there's also meditation for being more productive you know
you've got the army doing a lot in meditation and I thought that was an interesting parallel
to nature but also to tie it back in you talked about how one of the scientists was saying
that nature might be a better option for a lot of us then meditation because meditation
so many of us give up on yeah I thought that was really interesting this was from a psychologist
at Pennsylvania state and he said we can get a lot of great benefits from meditation I mean
this has been well proven you know there's a ton of neuroscience on this the problem is
really the the stick to itiveness the adherence and meditation is also the thing you have
to learn and not everyone gets there you know I find meditation to be challenging I feel
like my you know my brain is always turning a million miles a minute and yet when I just
go for a walk you know eventually maybe maybe not right away but after 20 or 30 minutes
7 or 8 days straight you know I'm supposed to quiet down that's it's my mind I guess but but
I also I discovered that there are shortcuts so of course I like that too I like the shortcuts
there are ways that we can engage our our minds you know when we're walking outside that
can that can sort of help us get into that zone you know a little more quickly and because
now I live in a big city I live in Washington DC I feel like I I have to sort of maximize
you know my strategies for getting the most out of the nature that I can find here so what
are some of those strategies some of the strategies involve for example trying to pay attention
to my surroundings I mean that's kind of the overarching theme so yeah so I really do take
my ear buds out like I don't I'm not one of these people who will listen to a podcast you
know while I'm on a hike don't listen to the hurt people keep listening to this show
with just ignore that last piece if you're on a hike right now put the show on pause and come
back to it later yeah I mean it's it's too bad I mean I would love to be able to multitask
as much as I can you know I'm a working mom I've got two kids I have a long to do list it would
be great but I also know that I will get the most benefit from actually trying to hear the birds
trying to you know pay attention to which birds are nesting right now I've kind of made friends
with this nesting pair of hawks you know that hang out along the river where I walk most days
I will you know try to look at the fish that are jumping you know in the canal or in the river
I will look at the sky and notice what the clouds are doing I often walk in the evening because
I have a dog and she's got to go out before bed and you know I'll sort of check in with what the
moon is doing like they're just little little elements of nature that I can kind of cue into
that that I find just kind of put me in this more relaxed restorative state you know pretty quickly
we all know that genuine self compassion and self love are absolutely crucial in the quest
for healing transformation and everyday growth but what if we struggle to get there one of the
most powerful yet effortless ways to settle our nervous system and reconnect with our true selves
is by spending quality time in nature it's for this reason that this august I'll be offering an
in person awakening in the outdoors retreat at the beautiful kropalo center this summer I'll be
co-teaching the retreat with Ralph De LaRosa who's a three time guest of the podcast author
psychologist meditation teacher and friend during these five days together we'll enjoy hikes
outdoor meditations art insightful workshops and lively discussions our goal is for you to walk
away feeling restored with a firm awareness of new resources and a new relationship with the
gifts nature holds for us to learn more about the special retreat and sign up go to oneufeed.net/nature
you know one thing I've learned whether it was running a software team or now running the
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to play without purchase. Answer number 23rd, but bonus plans, number 2nd. Monopoly is a registered
trademark of Hasbro. Copyright McDonald's. You talk about bird song and how effective that is,
or how useful that is for a lot of people. And there are studies showing that it's one of the best
sounds we can listen to. It's true, although what I also learned was it depends on the bird.
So it's more melodic and sort of chirpy and happy the bird, the more relaxed and alert we will feel.
But there are some birds that are really grating, the Jay kind of call or the Magpie.
And that turns out does not have quite the same restorative effect.
Yeah, and ever since I learned how smart crows are and that they can remember faces and keep grudges,
their sounds have been a little bit more, are they kind of evil? Chris is saying they're evil.
I don't know if they're evil. What they are is wicked smart. So now I hear their cause a little
differently and they are. It reminds me of that old joke. What does the crow say when he sees a
friend crossing the road? I'll leave it to Chris where he wants to edit that out. So yeah, I thought
the studies on bird song were very interesting. You know, businesses at institutions are starting to
use this research in some interesting ways. So for example, British petroleum petrol stations
in the UK are now piping bird song, apparently, into the restrooms of these gas stations.
Because they think that it will leave people with an impression of cleanliness and freshness,
and then they'll go spend more money in the mini-mart. Interesting. Well, I wish they would,
I wish the places we're doing it would pump bird song into where you're getting your gas instead
of a TV show or a news or all the other racket that comes out a lot of those gas pumps these days.
My gas station plays classical music and it's actually quite wonderful. That is nice. Most of my
gas stations don't play anything, but there's a couple where it's like a, you know, the news plane
or a special show trying to get you to go and buy different things inside. Yeah, that's definitely not
relaxing. No, one of the interesting things you mentioned was that walking in nature versus walking
in the city you're likely to have less negative thoughts when you're walking in nature.
There was a really interesting study that came out of Stanford a couple of years ago,
and the psychologist there actually imaged people's brains. So he scanned people's brains to
find out, you know, which parts of their brains were lighting up in different environments.
And so he sent a group of volunteers to walk along a city street, like a pretty busy city street
for 90 minutes, and then another group to walk in a city park. But by no means a wilderness area,
you know, just like a nice city park. It's a Stanford dish, you know, outside of Palo Alto.
And what he found was that in the nature walkers, but not in the city walkers, a part of the brain,
the activation became reduced. There was less activation in this part of the prefrontal cortex
called the subgenual prefrontal cortex. And it's actually a part of the brain that is associated
with rheumative thought or negative thinking. And then we know that that part of the brain
is kind of the worry box. It's the part of the brain associated with depression, actually.
And so I thought it was so interesting that it was after walking in nature that that part of
the brain really calmed down. But of course, I think the fascinating question, and we don't really
know the answer to this yet, is well, if there's less activation in that part of the brain,
where is that activation going instead? And the theories to that are, well, maybe it's going
to parts of the brain that are more associated with things like long-term thinking, empathy,
compassion, you know, self-concept. The things that we kind of, when we really can space out for
long periods of time away from technology, you know, we start thinking about our goals and our dreams
and who we are. You know, those are the kinds of big questions that I think so few of us really
have the time to kind of tackle anymore. Yeah, it was interesting. Some of the studies in the book
talk about, you know, the benefits of walking with others. And then there's lots of quotes in the
book. You're, again, referencing lots of great thinkers, Plato and Nishi, and lots of other people
about how walking alone is where they get so many of their ideas. And so you kind of talk about
the benefits of doing each of those things. Yes, exactly. I mean, we know that when we're outdoors
with other people, we can really strengthen those bonds. The social bonds, the bonds are friendship.
I know we know when my family is outside, my kids get along with each other better. I think we,
you know, we all have the shared experience. You know, it can be a really beautiful thing to actually
be outside with friends or family. But at the same time, I know for myself, there are times when I
really just crave the solitude. And I really need it because I'm working out, you know, issues with
my work or issues with my personal life. I need the time to kind of zone out and not have an agenda.
And I think some really, really powerful things can happen when we allow ourselves to have that time.
And in fact, in part of the book, I talk about wilderness, you know, and time and wilderness.
And of course, there's a long tradition, right, of rights of passage. People having vision quests,
solo fasting, I mean, there's a long, long spiritual tradition of this. And I think we'd be smart
to kind of reconsider that, you know, in this kind of frenetic, crazy life that we all live now.
Yeah, my son recently went on a couple of week outdoor trip and part of it was a solo thing. So
I think it was definitely very interesting and useful for him. What did he get out of it?
That's a great question. Maybe we should call him and ask him because I can't remember.
But it made an impression on him. It made an impression. I think what he was struck by was how much
harder it was than he thought it was going to be not necessarily to be in a loan. It was I think
it was being in the woods for that long. They got rained on an awful lot. And so I think that was
a somewhat sobering experience. No, I thought he really liked it. He loves to be outdoors.
And I, you know, I think we just don't turn off our phones anymore and their tremendous
benefits from that. So I think, you know, one of the questions when we look at the benefits of
nature, how much of it is really attributed to nature itself and how much of it is attributed
to sort of being away, you know, from the things that kind of stress us out. And I'm not sure the
answer to that is necessarily important. But I do think it's an interesting question.
Yeah, it's probably some of both. I think people way before we had cell phones and all that have
been talking about the beneficial effects of nature. You know, a lot of the people you're
quoting in the book were, you know, writing hundreds of years ago in some cases and we're getting
the benefits of nature. So it's probably some of both. I think that's right. There were a couple
different theories that you mentioned about how nature might help us. But one of them that I was
really intrigued by was attention restoration theory. The general idea there, you can correct
me if I'm wrong and then add on to it was that a lot of our sense of mental unease comes from
the fact that we've kind of worn out our frontal cortex or our executive thinking. And that's
what makes us feel bad. And that by going into nature, it gives that part of the brain a rest.
And that's one of the reasons why it feels so good does. Yeah, I think that that theory really
has a lot of traction. And it was developed by a couple Rachel and Stephen Kaplan at the University
of Michigan in the 1970s. So again, long before there were cell phones, long before there was an
internet, you know, there was still a sense that our daily modern lives are fast paced and frenetic.
And you know, our to-do lists are very long. We're constantly working on tasks. We're constantly
responding, you know, to external stimuli. We have a lot of information coming at us. And when
we do that, it makes us tired. It fatigues our frontal cortex. And we get a little bit grumpy.
Even if we don't realize it, we're just on some level kind of overtaxed. And when we go outside,
the theory is that our attention is drawn kind of involuntarily, just toward things that are
beautiful. We may notice a butterfly or we may notice a sunset. So our attention is gathered away,
but if it's not a demanding kind of attention, it's just this kind of slower paced fascination.
We have this sort of fascination. And when that happens, our frontal cortex actually
relaxes. It sort of adiabits.
activates. And this has been shown in some of these brain scans as well. Our frontal cortex
deactivates. And so when we go back to the office or when we go back to work, we actually
feel refreshed. It's kind of this reset button.
Yeah, that theory makes a lot of sense to me too because as we were talking about, you know,
I talk all the time about like when I check my phone a lot every day, I can't really explain
what it is, but I feel like it has some negative effect on me that I can't quite put my finger
on exactly what it is. But I think fatigue is a good word for it. Mental fatigue kind of feels
like what that is. Yeah, I think there's just this certain amount of, you know, it's just kind of
strain. You know that, oh God, here we go again. Somebody wants something for me or I have to respond
to something that your time isn't totally your own. And your mind isn't allowed to kind of wander
on its natural path. I know my kids go off to summer camp and they're teenagers. So they leave
their phones behind and this really causes a lot of anxiety at first, you know, until like not have
their phones. But I asked them how they felt about it when they got back and they were gone for weeks.
And especially my son said, oh my God, it was so great not to have my phone. Like I just didn't
feel like I had to be beholden to it, you know, in a way that that we all are just 24/7.
Yeah, I definitely agree. I'm going on a silent retreat here in the not too distant future and I'm
looking greatly forward to not having the phone or frankly any kind of stimulation. Although
about halfway through, I'm sure I will be singing a different tune. I'll be like, give me
anything, a fortune cookie to read. I'll take a fortune cookie. Right, the graffiti on the wall.
Something truly. I mean, I remember when I did one of these before I'd stand there by the message
board. You're just so used to having something that we put in our brain. And when you take
everything away, boy, it's an interesting experience. It's true. We're just not used to that
level of kind of low stimulation. But when you're in nature, see that's not what happens.
When you're in nature, there actually is a lot of stimulation. There's a lot to draw our interest.
Like it's coming at us at a sort of more human pace, right? It's the pace of walking or it's the
pace of, you know, lying in the grass and looking up at the sky. It's really the pace that our brains
evolve to travel in. So there are some recommendations that come out from this about the amount of time
we should spend in nature. Obviously more is better. But what did you learn about how often we should
aim for? Yeah, I'm so fascinated by that dose question. And I think a lot of people have it,
especially in the Western world. It's like, okay, so what's my prescription? You know, how much
time do I need to spend? Right. And there have been some really interesting studies in that area.
And it looks like there is kind of a dose curve. So there are effects actually positive benefits
from just looking out your window for 10 seconds or two seconds at a green patch of, you know,
grass or a tree. If we take a micro break by looking at greenery, we can actually have a
slightly better working memory, slightly better attentional focus when we go back to what we're
doing. But of course, the greater emotional benefits and psychological benefits really come from
from a deeper immersion. And I was so interested to talk to researchers in Finland because in Finland,
suicide rates are up, depression is up, alcoholism is up. And so they're very interested in trying
to prevent some of those things. And they have come up with a very specific recommendation,
which is that to prevent depression, people need a minimum of five hours a month in the woods.
And of course, that's what they have. They have woods all over Finland. It's not necessarily a place
where you learn a lot about canyons or deserts. That ends up being about 30 or 40 minutes twice a
week. And they say, you know, if you can do 10 hours a month, it's better. But if you can do five
hours a month or those 30 to 40 minutes twice a week, you'll actually go a long way towards
preventing depression. So that was so specific. I thought that was kind of interesting.
I work by a place that has like a pond. One of those almost corporate ponds, right? But it's got
beautiful trees and it's a nice pond and there's birds. I'm like, is this count? You know, there's
a road next to it. But I know that it, you know, for me, it does count because I definitely can tell
the benefit of, you know, making myself go out there for 15 or 20 minutes. It's way better than
nothing, which is kind of what we always talk about on this show that a little bit of something
is better than a lot of nothing. So if you're not going to do five hours, do five minutes,
but anything helps. Well, it's true. From the Japan studies, we know that even 15 minutes,
you know, will reduce your blood pressure and improve your mood. So, you know, that's huge.
15 minutes actually can kind of reset your mood for the whole day. But I think, you know,
when you say, for you, you know what makes you feel good, I think that that's a key to sort of
acknowledge that there's going to be a lot of individual variation. And I think that there are
times in our lives or times in our week when we're more stressed out and we need a bigger dose of it.
So again, I think it just comes back to sort of paying attention to your own kind of mental state
in your emotional state and how you feel. You know, you may know that, oh man, you really need to go
look at the ocean. You know, that's what's going to make you feel good. Whereas for someone else,
you know, the ocean might kind of make them feel anxious, you know, they don't, they don't like
all that open space. So know what you like, know where your emotional state is and then, you know,
try to make it happen because the rewards will be worth it. Yep. As Chris sits here and pets
is dog while we talk, it makes me wonder how animals fit into the nature piece. I mean, we know they
make us feel better, but I just was kind of struck me. We were talking about the natural world.
Yeah, absolutely. I'm with them on that. You know, Ed Wilson, the Harvard biologist or entomologist,
talks a lot about biofilia. And I talk about that quite a bit in my book that, you know,
our brains evolved in nature that we have this innate affiliation with other living creatures,
other living plants, for example. And wildlife, certainly, we do have this kind of compulsion,
I think, to have a connection to other living creatures. And a dog certainly can release oxytocin
in us when we make eye contact with a dog. We know that petting a dog releases happy hormones,
can also lower our blood pressure. So absolutely, my dog's absolutely a therapy dog. And I,
I'm so fortunate and grateful I have her. I cannot imagine what a basket case Chris would be without
these dogs. Meet me too, actually. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show.
I like you. I love being able to put some of the science to things I already know. I love when
science, what we're learning now, matches kind of what we either intuitively know or what we've
learned from poets or spiritual teachers. When all that comes together, I always, it makes me feel
doubly sure about the value. I agree. Thanks so much for having me. Okay, take care. Thank you. Bye. Bye.
[Music]
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