On a field trip with Pops.
If there can be anything positive about this pandemic . . . sheltering in . . . quarantining . . . keeping six feet from another human . . . one thing might be that people are getting outside more than usual. Or not.
Our interest in outdoor recreation peaked in the 1980s and early 1900s. That interest has been dropping steadily ever since. This has been shown by the number of park visitations, fishing license sales, campground attendance, and other outdoor recreation recordings. In other words, the amount of time we spend outdoors has declined for several decades.
A study done at the University of Michigan found that sending people for a 50-minute walk through parks found that it measurably restored their cognitive skills, whereas a walk through a city’s busy downtown degraded it.
Regardless of a person’s mood, weather conditions or other external factors, the improvements in brain function were observed. It also noted that peacefulness alone, such as sitting in a quiet room, could not reproduce the observed cognition benefit. that a walk in the park reproduced. There is something about the kind of moderately interesting stimuli found in nature—even those stimuli found in a city park or along a quiet pathway—that is restorative for our brains.
So, what is keeping us inside?
The underlying reasons for this trend are debated, and likely still evolving. Numerous studies point to our growing preoccupation with indoor entertainment, beginning first with television and videos, then progressing to internet browsing, social media and online gaming. These technologies of course offer countless benefits for entertainment, education and social interaction, but they come at a cost to our personal well-being.
Richard Louv chronicled a growing body of scientific evidence that spending time outdoors is critically important to the developmental health of children in his best seller, Last Child in the Woods. Citing many scientific studies, Louv traced declining outdoor activities to a dizzying array of psychiatric disorders, obesity and other maladies, and coined the term "nature deficit disorder" to collectively describe them. His follow-up book, The Nature Principle, found that nature-deficit disorder also affects adults. Imagine that?!?!
This new edition reflects the enormous changes that have taken place since the book was originally published ten years ago. It includes:
- 100 actions you can take to create change in your community, school, and family.
- 35 discussion points to inspire people of all ages to talk about the importance of nature in their lives.
- A new progress report by the author about the growing Leave No Child Inside movement.
- New and updated research confirming that direct exposure to nature is essential for the physical and emotional health of children and adults.
This brought back childhood memories . . . in an era when the social media platforms were telephone party-lines, only two channels on a small black and white TV (KXII in Ardmore, Sherman & Denison and KTEN in Ada), Jimmy Fidler in the KIHN 1340 Hollywood Studios broadcast out of Hugo, and. . . and. . . and. . . that was basically it.
Those were about the only three reasons to be in the house unless one was interested in cleaning it.
Even when is was raining cats and dogs, the words I hear my mother say were, "Get outside and go play."
To which I responded, "But, Mom. It's raining outside."
To which she responded, "You're not going to melt, cupcake."