Nature and Health - The Best Natural Ways To Relieve Stress
Spending time in nature is a wonderful and powerful way to relieve stress. This is something we all benefit from, but unfortunately, it is not something we do often enough.
One thing that we have all known since we were kids is that nature brings us fresh air. By fresh air, of course, we mean air rich in oxygen and without air pollutants that are common in cities.
Another well-known benefit we notice in nature is the calm.
Once we are past the dramatic change of scenery, or to be more precise the improvement of the scenery from the city environment, we start to notice how quiet nature is. The first impression is that deafening silence (except the birds and wind) that is almost surprising. Once we are accustomed to that, we start noticing other benefits... that it is one of the natural ways to relieve stress.
What do our days look like?
Nowadays people are creatures of the inside. We don’t choose anymore to live between concrete and steel walls. We only continue the tradition of living indoors which has become the norm since first civilizations. In the beginning, it was the only way to survive. Then we started organizing our lives into larger groups which increased the chances of survival and increased the number of buildings until the first organized settlements emerged. After that, we came to the idea to create our environment to be as we like it. We started decorating and began to love our indoor environment even more. A couple of thousand years later, we have beautifully decorated homes, practical and nicely organized (at least some of us) offices and workspaces. We spend most of our lives indoors, so it is logical to make it as suitable for us as possible. But somewhere along the way, we forgot one thing... We are part of nature. We kind of pushed away this very important piece of our existence. Occasionally, we bring in some small pieces of nature in our homes but it sometimes feels like having pictures of distant ancestors. And we are still missing the real thing. It feels kind of stressful, doesn’t it?What are some natural ways to relieve stress?
There is nothing wrong with being at home. It is where we feel safe; where we can relax and enjoy family after all the work we had to do during the day. But at some point, we may notice being indoors starts to bother us. Remember how it feels after being sick? "Cabin fever"... you can’t wait to get out in the open and breathe in fresh air, even if the busiest highway is just a few feet away? We are not too different from houseplants, as those can have everything they need, but if they don’t have enough sunlight they die. The same thing is happening to us. When closed inside for a long time, even with short periods of outside, depression starts to kick in. Depression causes us to lose interests in daily activities. It changes the way we think and feel. Long-lasting depression can turn into serious illness if not treated. According to www.webmd.com, depression can also increase the risk of physical illness, as well. Now imagine if you are depressed, you lack motivation and it starts affecting your ability to work. To be honest the workplace is a great opportunity for stress. There is no other like it. The train we got aboard at stress is working its way towards depression at full speed.How good are we under the stress?
This is one very popular question in job interviews... Have you noticed that? "How well do you work under pressure"? Stress is a big issue in modern life. We can feel it everywhere, especially in places we appreciate the most. Those are the environments we put a lot of effort and emotions into. Family and job. Even though it may look like we don’t get very emotional about our jobs, we actually do. Emotions are what drive us to be good at what we do. Stress puts a lot of pressure on our immune system. Hence, if we have already challenged our immune system with depression, stress is going to wreak havoc upon it. Fortunately, both of these illnesses are treatable. We don’t have to have depression to experience stress or vice versa, but those two walk hand in hand more often than not, so if we have natural ways to relieve stress, should we do it? The impact on our physical health due to stress is through a weakening of our immune system response to the causes of infections. This is something we can easily improve. Bio-Pro Plus is the natural immune system booster which increases the natural production of T-cells which are one of the most important parts of our defense system.
Mother Nature
But we still need to improve our psychological state. What are the best ways to do it? What are the best ways to relieve stress and depression? We need to get outside, in nature. This doesn’t mean sell the house and start wandering the plains, but spending each evening on a walk or taking off for the weekend in nature is a good start. The wonderful thing about nature is that it also provokes you to be physically active. The physical activity is good for your health but in nature, it comes with even more benefits for our mind and body as well. This paper sums up the impact of nature on our immune system. Forest Bathing, a popular pastime in Japan, has proven to directly improve immune system function.Qing Li, a professor at Nippon Medical School in Tokyo, measured the activity of human natural killer (NK) cells in the immune system before and after exposure to the woods. These cells provide rapid responses to viral-infected cells and respond to tumor formation, and are associated with immune system health and cancer prevention. In a 2009 study Li’s subjects showed significant increases in NK cell activity in the week after a forest visit, and positive effects lasted a month following each weekend in the woods. QuartzWe need to accept our need for nature. We may have grown a bit distant from it, after all, it was the price of our development as a species, but our health is still dependent on it. In order to maintain it, we need to get back into nature. We can take care of our immune systems with Bio-Pro Plus in a natural way, as well. But to stay healthy, nature has the best natural ways to relieve stress.