Time In Nature, a weekly series by Nicole Carullo.
When life gets hectic, more often than not, we look for our escape through moments of quiet introspection. In these fantasies, we are lounging on a chair during vacation, or in the middle of a relaxing massage. Maybe, instead, we are staring out at the sea, or tending to a garden, or in the hush of a museum exhibit. All around us, there it is: perfect silence.
Life, though, is typically loud. Not just loud, but deafening, in both literal and metaphorical ways. On the literal side, there are honking cars and crying babies. On the metaphorical side, things get even more maddening, with parking tickets and never-ending to-do lists. The perfect silence we seek feels further and further away, impossible to attain.
The truth is, the sense of calm we are looking for is within our reach, but it doesn’t exist in a noiseless vacuum like we may picture. Instead, it can be found in little pockets of everyday life.
Take, for instance, your lunch break at work. It’s monotonous, sure, and it would be easy enough to spend those 30 minutes stuck in the same laptop slog as the rest of the day. But there is a softer way to spend that time–sitting in the sunshine, or diving into a book, or walking around the block.
Nature in particular is an excellent conduit for calm. In his book Lost Connections, Johann Hari wrote, “Nature offers us a kind of solace that nothing else can provide. It reminds us of our place in the world and connects us to something greater than ourselves.”
This interconnectedness is a crucial piece of the puzzle when it comes to finding peace in our day-to-day lives. The feeling isn’t a constant–no feeling ever is–but it is a worthwhile equilibrium to strive for, especially in our increasingly disconnected and demanding culture.
One study shows that engaging with nature can lead to “increases in happiness, subjective well-being, positive affect, positive social interactions and a sense of meaning and purpose in life.”
These are abstract notions to wrap our minds around, but the reality is remarkably simple: when we are connected with nature, we feel calmer. After all, what more could we want than that?
