Unbound potential, right under your feet!

5-minute read

Here's to the weekend!

I’ll be honest with you.

I struggled with this one.

More than any other topic in health and performance, being in nature speaks to something so deeply routed in me that presenting evidence of its importance just feels, well, obvious.

There’s an alignment we have with the natural world that intuitively resonates.

Practically speaking, however, if urban areas didn’t hold appeal and opportunity through convenience and connection, they wouldn’t exist. So how, with our modern lives and primal needs, do we have our cake and eat it?

Today I’ll buzz you through the four strategies research and experience indicates offers the biggest nature-based bang for your buck.

The squad;

• Getting grounded

• Fractal foraging

• Hunting the horizon

• Morning sunlight

Before we get into the tools, one finding throughout the research is very clear.

We do better in nature.

Not only that, but we do worse in its absence. These sound like they mean the same thing.

They don’t.

For example, in their 2019 review, University of Chicago psychologist Marc Berman, PhD, and student Kathryn Schertz, reported that green spaces near schools promote cognitive development in children and green views near children’s homes promote self-control behaviors.

Similarly, adults assigned to public housing in neighborhoods with more green space showed better attentional functioning than those assigned to homes with less access to nature.

Findings also showed that being exposed to natural environments improves working memory, cognitive flexibility and attentional control.

On the flip side…

A massive study by researchers in Denmark examined data from more than 900,000 residents born between 1985 and 2003. They found that children who lived in neighborhoods with more green space had a reduced risk of many psychiatric disorders later in life, including depression, mood disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and substance use disorder.

For those with the lowest levels of green space exposure during childhood, the risk of developing mental illness was 55% higher than for those who grew up surrounded by nature. Fifty-five percent!!!

Nature adds to mental health and performance, AND, an absence of it makes us much worse off. Most of us intuit this pretty well, but knowledge is only powerful when it’s applicable.

So what can you do?

Let’s dive in.

1- Getting grounded

Take your shoes off.

Done.

On to #2…

Juuuust a minute!

Grounding, or earthing, while it does just involve taking your shoes off and walking on the ground, is more than it meets the eye.

More than that, it’s WILD!

We’re talking;

• Improved sleep

• Improved electrical activity in the brain

• Pain reduction including post-exercise muscle soreness

• Reduced stress and anxiety

• Shifting from sympathetic (fight or flight) to parasympathetic (rest and digest)

• Increased heart rate variability

• Improved blood flow and enhanced wound healing

And that’s the short list.

We’ve even seen massive real time reductions in inflammation shown in medical infrared imaging.

REAL TIME, LIVE, AS IT HAPPENS!

The earth carries an endless supply on negative electrons. We, on the other hand, build up a positive charge just by going about our normal day-to-day of eating, moving, working etc.

That build-up needs discharging somehow, something that - up until the industrial revolution - we’d have done naturally by walking barefoot or sleeping on the ground.

Failure to disperse our positive charge can lead to a host of baddies like rising heart rate and blood pressure, stress and anxiety, muscular tension and pain, and a generally busy, frantic mind.

Grounding for as little as 30-minutes can have a profound impact.

Ideally, we’re looking for at least 10 minutes every few days to persistently neutralize the build up of excess positive electrons and benefit body and mind.

Harvey Martin, human performance coach for the San Francisco Giants MLB team has been a long time proponent of grounding with his athletes, spanning across MLB, the NFL and NHL.

2 - Fractal foraging 

A fractal is a never-ending series of infinitely complex patterns that are “self-similar across different scales”.

The grandest fractals are found in nature, and they’re absolutely perfect.

Think a tree trunk sprouting into branches, into smaller branches, even smaller branches, and the leaves on those branches (which contain their own microscopic fractals).

Think tiny trickles that start off high up in the mountains, running down into small streams, into ever growing rivers, ending up at the mouth of vast oceans.

Rock formations, the human body, clouds in the sky, all absolute works of genius, fractal art.

Using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) and other tools, researchers have found that viewing fractals can reduce stress levels by 60%.

Looking at fractals increases the specific “alpha” wave frequency in the frontal lobe of the brain responsible for decision making, problem solving, language, voluntary movement and cognitive acuity.

Increased alpha waves promote relaxation and general well-being, boost concentration and combat mental fatigue.

3 - Hunting the horizon 

There’s a phenomenon we experience when put under pressure. One of the first things that happens. Tunnel vision sets in.

Hyper-focused.

Dialed in.

A laser, pointed straight at source.

Useful in some cases. Catching dinner, evading predators, kicking a field goal, hitting a baseline forehand.

All quick, short term actions.

When they’re over, every one of our systems benefits from us reverting to “rest and digest”, for the majority of the time.

To do that, and to induce a calm, relaxed state, allowing your vision to expand to the limits of its periphery reduces the heart rate and disengages the stress response. The knock-on effects include improved executive functioning, decision making and creativity.

We live in a world of right angles. Supermarket aisles, house lined streets, high-rise grid cities.

Blinkers everywhere.

One of the big reasons the mind and body calm down when we’re near the ocean is that we escape those constraints. The eyes adjust and expand to a broader purview, and everything comes into focus.

(Montauk, Long Island, NY - Dec' 2022)

4 - Morning Sunlight 

The natural world is a system of cycles, and we’re no different. Across the ages of our evolution, our biology lined up with the daily rise and fall of the sun.

Professor or neurobiology and ophthalmology from Stanford University and host of the Hubermanlab Podcast, Dr. Andrew Huberman has talked at length about the immense benefits of (safely) viewing morning sunlight and evening dusk.

Morning sunlight exposure produces a 50% increase in cortisol, epinephrine and dopamine, which contribute to increased energy, immune function and mood, priming you to hit the ground running to start your day.

You may have heard of cortisol as being the body’s stress hormone, something that needs reducing, not elevating.

While this is true later in the day, higher morning cortisol is part of the natural, healthy hormonal rhythm our bodies go through everyday.

Exposing ourselves to natural light in the morning regulates and manages those rhythms, perfectly, bringing them down 12 - 14 hours later as we prep for sleep.

If you’re an early riser like me, live in a part of the world with shorter days, or it’s winter time, “SAD lamps” (10,000 lux intensity) can be an effective way of mimicking natural light until the sun comes up.

Huberman suggests between 10 (brighter conditions) and 30 (duller conditions) minutes of morning light to reap the health and performance benefits of the body’s natural charging station.

There’s a fantasy that exists for many, of living off the land, immersed in nature.

“The way things used to be.”

With remote work and ever improving connectivity, that may be more reality than fantasy for many.

While I think I’ll always hold faith that “nature knows best”, that doesn’t mean vibrant health and performance can’t be accessible to people who choose not to fully immerse themselves in it.

Whatever your path, I hope these tools offer you access to new levels of vitality and vigor - After 75 Days of Testing, These Are the Best Light Therapy Lamps Light therapy lamps may improve mood, energy, and sleep. To find the best light therapy lamps, we tested 15 top-rated options for 5 days each. www.verywellmind.com our true, natural state of being.

In love and health,

Alex

Disclaimer: This post is for general information purposes only and is not intended to treat or diagnose any medical or psychological conditions. This information is not intended as a substitute for medical advice and readers should always consult their doctor, physician or registered healthcare practitioner before implementing anything they read in The Edge.