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I recently moved from a place [br]that had a backyard that looks like this,

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to one that looked like this.

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There are a lot of great[br]things about cities,

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but access to nature[br]isn't always one of them.

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Many days I felt like[br]the closest thing I got to nature

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was looking at grainy[br]cat videos on YouTube.

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(Laughter)

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I'm sure some of you can relate.

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Sometimes you don't realize how important[br]something is to you until you lose it.

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I wasn't like Woody Allen who once said:

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"I love nature, I just[br]don't want any of it on me."

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(Laughter)

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I wanted it on me, and I missed it.

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When I moved for my husband's job[br]from Boulder, Colorado, to Washington DC,

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I wasn't too happy about it.

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But I was still surprised by how swiftly[br]my sense of well-being plummeted.

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I got depressed,[br]I was anxious, I felt irritable.

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My brain felt sluggish and dull.

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I had to get used to new sounds, [br]like overhead aircraft all the time,

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helicopters and those ubiquitous[br]leaf blowers that I hear all the time.

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But fortunately, shortly after I moved,

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I was given a dream assignment[br]by Outside Magazine

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to go visit the national forests of Japan

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to write about an obscure practice[br]called "shinrin yoku," or forest bathing.

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This essentially involves[br]just being on a trail:

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walking, sometimes sitting, [br]sometimes just lying on a boulder

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and letting nature pour[br]into all of your senses.

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So perhaps imagine with me[br]for a minute what this might be like.

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You're sitting there and you're hearing[br]the birds and the crickets.

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You're smelling the rich loamy earth[br]and maybe the scent of fresh pine trees.

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You can feel the breeze on your cheek[br]and the moss under your feet.

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How do you think this makes you feel?

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Well, scientists in Japan wanted[br]to answer precisely that question.

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And so in a series of experiments[br]they sent 84 stressed-out college students

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to go hang out for 30 minutes[br]in these forests

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and then also to go hang out[br]on a city street.

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And here's what they found -

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this is me doing one of the experiments:

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A 16% drop in the stress hormone cortisol.

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A 2% drop in blood pressure.

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A 4% drop in heart rate.

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This is among the forest visitors.

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None of that happened[br]in the people who went to the city.

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And the people who went to the forest also[br]reported less anxiety and better moods,

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whereas the opposite happened[br]in the people who went to the city.

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So, nature has superpowers for us.

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And there's even a dose effect:

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it looks like the more time you spend[br]in nature, better things can happen.

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So in Japan they sent some[br]of these students,

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or some other people, some volunteers,

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to go spend three days at a forest lodge.

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And they found a 40% increase

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in an immune cell [br]called natural killer cells

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It's critical to the immune system.

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When they went to vacation[br]in the city that didn't happen.

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So it's not just a vacation effect,[br]there's something about nature.

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I became so intrigued by this story[br]and by this science

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that I took another assignment[br]from National Geographic.

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And this one sent me to a handful[br]of other countries around the world

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studying this topic[br]to improve the health of citizens,

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sometimes even going as far as[br]to recommend nature as medicine.

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So in Japan, as we just saw, there are[br]these forests therapy trails.

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They have 48 of them.

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Korea will have 37[br]healing forests by next year.

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These are entire forests.

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And to go along with that,[br]they're training 500 healing rangers

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to lead programs for everyone,[br]from digital addicts to school bullies.

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The school bullies, by the way,

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take a train called "the happy train"[br]from the city to the forest.

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(Laughter)

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Also programs for firefighters with PTSD,

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and even prenatal women[br]and cancer patients,

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I mean, it just goes on and on[br]what they're doing there.

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I also went to Finland.

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And Finland has gone so far as[br]to recommend, it's a very precise country,

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they recommended a specific dosage[br]of nature to ward off depression.

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And what they recommend, take note:

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five hours a month of being in nature[br]or a little over an hour a week.

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Now, Finland is really fortunate because[br]it's a country covered with forests

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and coastlines and parks.

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But many parts of the world[br]are not so lucky.

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Already, over half of us[br]in the world live in cities.

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And by 2050 that proportion will be 70%.

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So making cities green and livable

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will be one of the greatest[br]challenges of our century.

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How can cities and civic institutions[br]make spaces of awe and restoration?

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The city of Wellington, New Zealand, [br]has made a space of awe

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by designating and signposting[br]a snorkel trail very close to downtown,

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where you can just jump[br]in the water, swim around,

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and she things like octopus,[br]and butterfish and seahorses.

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How cool is that?

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Seattle offers low-tide walks

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where children love to see[br]sunstars and moon snails.

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In Singapore there are parks [br]interspersed with public housing projects

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so that people from all over the city[br]have access to nature.

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And the city also encourages[br]architects and developers

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to incorporate butterfly-loving[br]vertical gardens

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into corporate and residential towers.

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When my cab driver[br]dropped me off at this hotel,

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he said how handy it was[br]I was staying here,

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because I could just wake up[br]in the morning and start grazing.

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(Laughter)

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The University of California at Berkeley[br]has created a space of awe

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by protecting one of the tallest[br]hardwood groves in North America.

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And this is great because the students[br]can go here to recover from stress

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and psychologists at the University[br]can study it happening.

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So one way to do this

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is they sent students go look up[br]at this grove of trees for one minute

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and they also sent another group

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to look up at a building[br]on campus for one minute.

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And in a clever bit of trickery,

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a research assistant dropped a box of pens[br]in front of each subject.

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So guess who helped her[br]and picked up more pens:

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people in the forest[br]or the people looking at the building?

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If you guessed the forest,[br]you are correct.

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And it only took one minute[br]of them feeling awe

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to behave in a more generous way.

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So it looks like time outside in nature[br]can also make us more creative.

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When we spend time outside[br]in beautiful places,

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a part of our brain called the subgenual[br]prefrontal cortex quiets down.

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And this is a part of the brain

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that's associated with negative[br]self-involved thoughts.

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A researcher at Stanford[br]made the nature connection

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when he sent a group[br]of subjects to go walk

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in a beautiful park[br]in Palo Alto for 90 minutes,

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and he sent another group[br]to go walk in a city street,

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and then he imaged their brains.

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And it was only the people[br]who walked in the park

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who experienced this beneficial change.

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So nature can be so helpful[br]to us in so many ways.

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It can also make us creative[br]in small doses.

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For example, here's Facebook,

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and hi-tech communities[br]all over are now figuring out

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that if they incorporate green roofs[br]and trails into their very structures,

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that this can benefit their business.

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We've known this for a long time.

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Everyone from Aristotle to Beethoven,

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to Darwin, the Brontë sisters,[br]Wordsworth, Einstein,

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the list goes on and on,

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so many people attribute[br]walking in these beautiful spaces

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to being critical[br]to their creative process.

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What happens, though, when we spend[br]even more time in nature,

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as far as our brains and our psychology?

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We know that physiological changes happen,

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which we saw with[br]the natural killer cells.

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But what happens[br]on a more psychological level?

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This was something I was fascinated[br]to actually witness,

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when I met a woman named Tania Herrera.

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She had just returned[br]from two tours of Iraq,

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and she'd been badly injured in rocket[br]grenade fire and also by a car bomb.

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She'd experienced a bad concussion,[br]she'd lost the use of one of her arms.

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She experienced seizures, [br]anxiety, depression.

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She had trouble performing[br]simple tasks and even reading.

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She never wanted to leave her house,

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because she felt like[br]she was a prisoner in her own body.

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But when she'd been young, [br]she'd participated in a program

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to take inner-city kids out into nature.

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And she'd remembered[br]that that had given her some comfort.

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So she signed up for a six-day river trip[br]down the Salmon River in Idaho.

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She and her other fellow warriors[br]on this trip paddled and swam,

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and slept under stars and talked[br]in the camp, around the campfire.

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And I had the privilege of watching[br]them emerge from cocoons of sadness

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to full-bodied full-sensory survivors[br]helping each other,

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relishing their new friendships[br]and the possibilities ahead.

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She said to me:

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"When I'm home I feel overwhelmed,[br]there's nothing to brace on,

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and I'm overwhelmed[br]by bad thoughts and feelings.

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When I'm out here life is simple,[br]there's something to brace on,

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there are good thoughts,[br]there is balance."

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Wilderness advocate John Muir understood[br]the power of wilderness

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to help heal our psyches.

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He wrote:

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"Between every two pine trees, there is[br]a door leading to a new way of life."

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There is a simple recipe to improve[br]the quality and meaning of our days.

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And it's to open Muir's door.

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Go outside, go often.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)