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Author Florence Williams talks trees, cities, and creativity in her new book "The Nature Fix."

You Spend 5 Percent Of Your Day Outside. Try Making It More. At a time when more than half of all people live in cities, the influence of the natural world is at a low ebb, while our understanding of it keeps growing.

Try Spending Some Time Outdoors - It Lifts Your Mood Level

For two decades, Florence Williams could sit on her porch at night and watch the alpenglow on the Rocky Mountains. Then she moved from remote Colorado to Washington, DC, and started noticing the changes.

“I felt disoriented, overwhelmed, depressed,” she writes in her recent book, The Nature Fix. “My mind had trouble focusing. I couldn’t finish thoughts … and I wasn’t keen to get out of bed.”

Williams was suffering, she says, from nature withdrawal. She spent the next three years digging into the science of how nature works on our brain. In short, it makes us more relaxed, more creative, and more socially connected. She traveled to Japan and Finland, the deserts of Utah and the urban forests of Singapore, to study just how much we stand to gain by bring nature back into our lives.…

That lifestyle is what drew us here. We wanted to provide a different type of upbringing for our three young girls: one that focused on adventurous time spent in nature. So for the past two years we’ve been committed to finding fun and imaginative ways to spend as much time as possible out in nature. Over time we’ve grown from a family that considered a trip to a local park an adventure, to one that hikes and camps, fishes and skis.

We’ve grown closer as a family as we’ve grown to embrace our new lifestyle. And our difficult daughter? Well, we still have our moments, but almost never outside.

At first we didn’t know exactly why we wanted to raise outdoor loving kids – it just instinctively seemed like a good idea. If we did have a specific motivation, it was the hope that by starting them early our girls would grow up physically strong and healthy, and with a lifelong love for outdoor activity. Over time we’ve come to learn that the emotional benefits of more time in nature probably outweigh the physical ones.

BENEFITS OF SPENDING MORE TIME IN NATURE AS A FAMILY

It builds confidence.

Did You Hear About This Discovery? Our Body Is Home To About 100 Trillion Bacteria And Other Microbes, In And On Our Body Collectively Known As Our Microbiome – 10 Times The Number Of Body Cells And We Have Not Even Known About This In Western Countries Until Recent Times. But Some Countries In Europe Have Been Practicing Healthy Diets Etc To Look After It For Generations. In Doing So, It Confers Many Benefits. This Microbiome Consists Of Healthy And Unhealthy Bacteria And The Ratio Varies From Person To Person. A Healthy Microbiome Is One Of The Reasons Why Some People Are Blessed With Really Good Health. Having A Diet And Sleep And Exercise That Favours Healthy Flora (bacteria) In Your Microbiome Is A Good Way To Ensure Against Things Like Overweight And Cholesterol And Strengthen The Integrity Of Your Immune System.

Looking After Gut Flora (Bacteria)

Have you heard of Kefir and Kombucha, Kimchi and Sauerkraut? They are fermented drinks and food staples you feed and nurture your Microbiome with that favours healthy bacteria over unhealthy bacteria and outnumbers them. So incorporating some practices to multiply them will help them to play a dominant role for you so you enjoy better health.…

HOW IS IT THAT JAPANESE PEOPLE OFTEN LIVE TO 100 YEARS OR MORE? AND HOW IS IT THAT THEIR KIDS ARE SO HEALTHY? COULD IT BE THAT THINGS START AT AN EARLY AGE AND CONTINUE AS A LIFESTYLE THROUGHOUT LIFE? COULD WE REAP SOME OF THE BENEFITS BY ADOPTING SOME OF THEIR SECRETS INTO OUR LIFESTYLE? WE SHALL SEE. RESULTS VARY WITH THE INDIVIDUAL OR FAMILY.

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Want To Live Longer? Borrow These 6 Healthy Habits From The Japanese

By Samantha Cassetty, RD from Today.Com August 2020

Japan has more centenarians than almost any other nation on earth. Take  these 6 secrets to a longer, healthier life.

Want to live to 100? Take a page from the Japanese. Japan has the highest number of people per capita over the age of 100 than anywhere else in the world. There may be some genetic differences at play, but there are also diet and lifestyle practices that lead to longer lifespans with fewer of the chronic illnesses — like heart disease and type 2 diabetes — that are common in the United States. You can improve your health by borrowing these six habits that are rooted in Japanese culture.…