The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative

by Florence Williams

Overview

An intrepid investigation into nature’s restorative benefits by a prize-winning author.

For centuries, poets and philosophers extolled the benefits of a walk in the woods: Beethoven drew inspiration from rocks and trees; Wordsworth composed while tromping over the heath; and Nikola Tesla conceived the electric motor while visiting a park. Intrigued by our storied renewal in the natural world, Florence Williams set out to uncover the science behind nature’s positive effects on the brain.

In this informative and entertaining account, Williams investigates cutting-edge research as she travels to fragrant cypress forests in Korea to meet the rangers who administer “forest healing programs,” to the green hills of Scotland and its “ecotherapeutic” approach to caring for the mentally ill, to a river trip in Idaho with Iraqi vets suffering from PTSD, to the West Virginia mountains where she discovers how being outside helps children with ADHD. The Nature Fix demonstrates that our connection to nature is much more important to our cognition than we think and that even small amounts of exposure to the living world can improve our creativity and enhance our mood. In prose that is incisive, witty, and urgent, Williams shows how time in nature is not a luxury but is in fact essential to our humanity. As our modern lives shift dramatically indoors, these ideas—and the answers they yield—are more urgent than ever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393242713
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/07/2017
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

A contributing editor at Outside magazine, Florence Williams is the author of Breasts, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and The Nature Fix. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic, and many other outlets. She lives in Washington, DC.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Cordial Air 1

Part 1 Looking for Nature Neurons

1 The Biophilia Effect 17

2 How Many Neuroscientists Does It Take to Find a Stinking Milkvetch? 33

Part 2 Nearby Nature: The First Five Minutes

3 The Smell of Survival 59

4 Birdbrain 85

5 Box of Rain 105

Part 3 Five Hours a Month

6 You May Squat Down and Feel a Plant 131

7 Garden of Hedon 149

8 Rambling On 169

Part 4 Backcountry Brain

9 Get Over Yourself: Wilderness, Creativity and the Power of Awe 187

10 Water on the Brain 203

11 Please Pass the Hacksaw 221

Part 5 The City in a Garden

12 Nature for the Rest of Us 241

Epilogue 253

Acknowledgments 259

Notes 261

Illustration Credits 281

Editorial Reviews

…fascinating…Williams…presents all of this with the zip of a trail runner covering a lot of ground sure-footedly. She's got the pop-sci presentation down pat—breezy enough to draw in the lay reader, thorough enough to satisfy the expert.

The New York Times Book Review - Jason Mark

10/17/2016
Outside magazine contributor Williams (Breasts) writes frequently about the environment; in this extensively researched book, her travels take her to Japan, Korea, Singapore, Scotland, and elsewhere in search of hard evidence that exposure to nature causes positive changes in the brain. Her curiosity was piqued when she and her family moved from Boulder, Colo., to Washington, D.C.; soon, she found herself yearning for the mountains, and feeling disoriented and depressed. The idea that the open air enhances creativity and outlook isn’t new; Williams traces it as far back as Aristotle. What are new, however, are current and ongoing studies by scientists (many of whom readers will encounter in these pages), who are using forests and natural landscapes as laboratories to learn more about how nature affects human health. Williams brings some intriguing observations to light; in the forests of South Korea, for instance, she learns that time among the cypress trees reduces stress and lowers blood pressure. Within the U.S., she finds programs using nature to help kids with ADHD and veterans with PTSD. She also reveals how city planners can successfully bring nature into the urban environment. This powerful environmental call to arms proposes that for optimal well-being, regular doses of nature are not only recommended but required. Agent: Molly Friedrich, Friedrich Agency. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"…Fascinating…"

New York Times Books Review

"…Engaging…"

San Francisco Chronicle

"The Nature Fix is a beautifully written, thoroughly enjoyable exposition of a major principle of human life now supported by evidence in biology, psychology, and medicine."

Edward O. Wilson

"Williams’s findings are eminently reassuring, and perversely specific."

Atlantic

"Florence Williams, keen observer, deft writer, creates a fascinating mosaic here. What are the costs—to us!—of humanity’s increasing disconnection from nature? What are the likely benefits—to us!—of retaining that threatened connection?…Large."

David Quammen

"[A] lively exploration of what modern research has to say about the myriad health benefits of the great outdoors. . . Ms. Williams resists the tendency of so much nature writing towards easy epiphanies, adopting a tone that is, instead, pleasingly puckish. . . [She] puzzles out the pros and cons, concluding, on balance, that there’s a good case for connecting with nature to extend both the quantity and quality of life. . ."

Wall Street Journal - Danny Heitman

"[The Nature Fix] has much to offer to anyone interested in human health, from city planners and health practitioners to educators, scientists… and anyone concerned with their own well-being."

Esther Jackson

"The Nature Fix offers a cross-continental rumination on nature’s feel-good effects in a world that’s increasingly concrete-centric."

Portland Monthly

"I’m no tree hugger, but The Nature Fix made me want to run outside and embrace the nearest oak. Not for the tree’s sake but mine. Florence Williams makes a compelling, and elegant, case that nature is not only beautiful but also good for us. If Thoreau were steeped in modern neuroscience and possessed an endearingly self-deprecating sense of humor, the result would be the book you hold in your hands."

Eric Weiner

★ 2016-11-20
A journalist explores the relationship between nature and human well-being.In this upbeat, brightly conversational account, Outside contributing editor Williams (Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History, 2012) travels widely to track down the best science behind "our deep, cranial connection to natural landscapes." Nature restores us, making us "healthier, more creative, more empathetic and more apt to engage with the world and with each other," she writes, echoing the thinking of writers over the centuries, most recently biologist E.O. Wilson, whose concept of biophilia posits a bond between humans and nature, and Richard Louv, who wrote the important Last Child in the Woods (2008). Williams draws on interviews with psychologists, neuroscientists, and others, as well as experiences on wilderness field trips, in search of credible evidence of nature's benefits. Her stories of scientific findings are fascinating: how leisurely forest walks have led to decreases in cortisol levels in one study and, in another, to increases in immune-boosting killer T cells in women with breast cancer after two weeks in a forest. In the stress-ridden, rapidly urbanizing Asian nations, the author encountered, with skepticism, "healing forests," whose smells are said to alleviate disease; the author notes, "the power of belief is hard to overestimate." In outdoor and nature programs in Finland, Scotland, and elsewhere, she finds much encouraging anecdotal evidence of nature's benefits. Former military members suffering from PTSD describe the therapeutic effects of a wilderness trip along the Salmon River; adolescents with learning disabilities appear to benefit from outdoor activities. Many scientists are convinced of such benefits, but their studies, however suggestive, have been small, and they leave unresolved the importance of other factors (exercise, social contact, etc.). "These are difficult things to quantify by science," says one researcher of "the power and mystery of the great outdoors." Nonetheless, there is no doubt that nature is good for us, concludes Williams. A thoughtful, refreshing book with a simple but powerful message: "Go outside, often, sometimes in wild places. Bring friends or not. Breathe."

Kirkus Reviews

Did you know that breathing in the scent of pine trees can immediately lower your blood pressure? That’s just one of the facts listeners will learn in Williams’s exploration of how exposure to nature can affect our well-being. Unfortunately, Emily Woo Zeller inserts herself a bit too much into the narration, which distracts from rather than enhances the text. A more straightforward reading would have better served Williams’s fascinating book. As she participates in studies, shares research findings, and tries to find nature in her adopted Washington, DC, neighborhood, Williams eventually arrives at this cogent advice: “Go outside, often, sometimes in wild places. Bring friends or not. Breathe.” J.M.D. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

MAY 2017 - AudioFile