Touch Grass: A Philosophy

[Music] it's a fluffy old metaphor but it's true that we are all on a path of some kind if I was to ask you what path are you on how might you respond you might think about a goal the destination you might think about not being on the correct path instead you might think about where you've come from how you started you might be trying to work out which fork in the road to take paths open up Trail off disappear some feel pre-written some are laid down fought for By Us by others so maybe it's a useful metaphor but is it more than a metaphor humans think in lines we are a line making species we follow lines often using them to think into the future the world would be a chaos without lines lines help us to live coherent lives we use lines to weave to make ropes to thread and to sew we use lines to navigate the Seas using the constellations we use lines to plot on grids and plans we make roads and paths we fly we draw we paint and of course we write symbols letters words and sentences in lines so lines like Pathways point us somewhere sometimes metaphors like lines and pathways are more than just abstract ideas they borrow from one thing to help us understand another they mirror the world metaphors can structure our experiences orientating Us in space helping make sense of things a battle of Minds a weak point in an argument that boosted my spirits his mood sank she's on the wrong path we evolved in a relationship with our environments and as such it has a direct effect on the way we think how we think it's possibilities and its limits our mind after all is matter so can we change our minds by changing our environment despite spending 99 of our evolutionary history Outdoors we now spend 93 percent of our time either indoors or in vehicles to add another twist Studies have consistently found we're almost always happier outdoors and in 2008 we crossed a new Milestone the majority of the planet now lives in a city there are a lot of studies to back up what we know is pretty obvious that this can be harmful in one study of 400 londoners life satisfaction fell by 0.5 percent for every extra 10 milligrams of pollution in their area in another study of 2000 men environmental noises like traffic of 50 decibels led to a 20 increase in hypertension or high blood pressure another study of 5000 adults find that a 10 decibel increase in noise at night resulted in a 14 rise in hypertension other Studies have found things like being in a school near an airport leads to lower scores on things like reading tests sound is our primary sense for alerting it causes autonomic involuntary bodily responses the raising of the heartbeat the twisting of the neck the tensing of the muscles the shifting of the eyes It's associated with the release of cortisol that fight or flight mechanism the neuroscientist Robert sapolsky has pointed out that it's micro stressors that can build up over time into chronic stress in the office does constant distraction have the same effect we're either sat at a desk performing a task on a singular path or we're distracted by all of these other paths around us that we're not on but could be what changes when we get outside onto a different path walks in the forest have been found to decrease cortisol levels by 12 blood pressure by 1.3 percent and heart rate by six percent for days and days after Studies have confirmed that being in nature reduces anxiety and improves mood one experiment took 120 individuals and showed them films of accidents and Workshops the researchers measured things like sweat levels heart rates blood pressure then showed one group scenes of Nature and another Urban scenes those who were sharing the scenes of nature were back to their Baseline in five minutes whereas those watching Urban scenes were only part way back 10 minutes later another study groups of businessmen hiking in the woods for a few hours each day it found that immunity boosting white blood cells were 40 percent higher after the war can still 15 percent higher a month later compared with those who didn't go on the walks the scent of oil from hinoki Cypress trees has also been found to increase those white blood cells too other Studies have shown creativity improvements by up to 50 percent sustained three days after hiking the smell of pinene has been shown to lower our heart rate and blood pressure hospital rooms of Windows looking out over nature led to patients needing less time to recover housing Estates with views of nature have less crime one study of 40 million people find that those who live in Greener areas have lower death rates [Music] across Europe while 60 of work-related health issues are physical bad backs Etc 14 are now psychological attributed to stress depression anxiety and so on the Finish have a phrase for it burnout syndrome now all of this is quite intuitive it's no surprise that a good walk is well good for you the more interesting question is why nature isn't all bird song and flowers it's dangerous can be stressful capricious too but reminding ourselves that we are part of nature it might be that the natural world holds clues about the mysteries of how and why humans think in the ways that we do that it might help us to think differently first there might be some obvious reasons why nature might be associated with well-being for example you might need time for recreation which is associated with Leisure so you're more likely to have that time in the first place you also need more money to live next to a park or a nice area walking improves your cardiovascular fitness Fitness is associated with well-being so fitter people might already be happier but I think there are some more interesting philosophical and psychological reasons for the change too and they're the reasons we're interested in now it's not just about feeling good but in thinking in a different way first there's the simple difference between what we're doing indoors and Outdoors the brain has two modes they're called the executive mode and the default mode the executive function is office mode it's paying attention usually through the prefrontal cortex to tasks at hand thinking through something putting the pieces together intense concentration resisting compulsion reasoning logic it's also difficult it's a strain we're actually not that great at it it's very methodical and slow it's tiring which is why spacing out feels good it's also very narrow as in we Fade Out what else is going on our surroundings the radio conversation and we focus on one thing at the cost of everything else in other words we're on one very specific narrow difficult path mentally of all the things in the universe we could be attending to we're attending to this thing a single thread of concentration important maybe but singular all the same then there's the default mode default mode kicks in when we're not using executive mode but when we get tired when we're not doing something specific when we're chilling out you cannot be using both modes at the same time default mode is Meandering daydreaming sometimes random and chaotic takes us down surprising interesting and different and creative paths oh the late 19th century psychologist William James had a beautiful way of describing it most people probably fall several times a day into a fit of something like this the Eyes Are Fixed On vacancy the sound of the world melts into confused Unity the attention is dispersed so that the whole body is felt as it were at once and the foreground of Consciousness is filled if by anything by a sort of solemn sense of surrender to the empty passing of time our default mode is fascinating because on the one hand it seems to be wild and Untamed pulling us away from the task at hand away from discipline and purpose away from the present moment but on the other hand it could be the source of something more foreign it's difficult to see the path you're on when you're on it and there's a modern tendency to believe in a singular path that we keep on treading down continual Improvement steady progress a single linear destination this mirrors the way we've understood history in the modern era a linear progression towards technological political and Industrial Improvement we just need more more productivity more wealth more scientific facts and all will be well Charles Dickens satirized this view in the opening pages of his novel Hard Times his character the teacher Thomas grad grind proclaims that now what I want is facts teach these boys and girls nothing but facts facts alone are wanted in life plant nothing else and root out everything else you can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon fat nothing else will ever be of any service to them and this is the principle on which I bring up these children stick to facts sir what we tend to forget is that this idea of a singular rational logical path working away with our executive office functioning isn't just singular rational and logical it's also what philosophers call contingent it's accidental it has particular causes it's the product of certain values beliefs cultural ideas motivated by wider sociological contexts ideologies change economics other people the singular mode of thought is totalitarian but paths are multiplicitous [Music] so what's it mean to change those Pathways of firing neurons there are plenty of studies that show that nature not only makes you feel better it makes you think differently some have found that people walking in nature ruminate over negative thoughts less which is a change in a way of thinking in another researchers showed one group of people scenes of nature that were simple flat and predictable while showing another group scenes of nature with winding paths unpredictable landscape and obscured scenery seems that a vote to sense of adventure and mystery the latter group remembered the details of the scene's more successfully in other words exploration activates parts of the brain a change in the way of thinking walking also gets you into a flow State a state that's an odd combination of default and executive functioning one thought easily follows another in a state of deep absorption a change in a way of thinking psychologists Rachel and Stephen Kaplan have argued that nature can be restorative when we are fatigued from too much attention they call it attention restoration Theory and they've shown how nature provides the gentle but not too over engaging stimuli required to be gently distracted from your own conscious thoughts creating a relaxing internal mindset they call it soft Fascination when attention is held by gentle stimulation that there's something about those rolling clouds the sound of a stream the green of the hills the movement of leaves that allies a person to reflect and introspect in a restorative way all of this adds up to what we all really know in a rut get outside [Music] so many of our great minds agreed Nietzsche said all truly great thoughts are conceived while walking Beethoven said the woods the trees and the Rocks give man the residence he needs Rousseau said there is something about walking that stimulates and enlivens my thoughts he wrote I can only meditate when I'm walking when I stop I cease to think my mind works only with my legs and writer and architect Frederick Law Olmsted wrote in 1865 that nature employs the mind without fatigue and yet exercises it tranquilizes it and yet enlivens it and thus through the influence of the Mind Over the body gives the effect of refreshing rest and reinvigoration to the whole system so there's a gentle changing of Pathways that you can get from being outside but there can also be an extreme change of Pathways too foreign [Music] politician Edmund Burke wrote an influential Treatise on that feeling we get when we see something fantastic and awe-inspiring a towering waterfall an imposing Mountain a stormy sea a snowy landscape the sublime he said the passion caused by the great and Sublime in nature when those causes operate most powerfully is astonishment and astonishment is the state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended with some degree of Horror [Applause] oh what is this astonishment and why horror the sublime he says is our sense of all over the power that something seems to have over us our sense of comprehending it of understanding it our sense of being insignificant in the face of such vastness [Music] Emerson wrote standing on the background my head bathed by the Bligh there and uplifted into Infinite Space all mean egotism vanishes I become a transparent eyeball I am nothing researchers have found that people who have watched all inspiring videos are more likely to then help them pick up pens that they pretended to drop in other words they become Kinder experiencing the sublime has also been shown to lower stress markers oh might be able to put us into a mode of thoughts that is more reflective of the whole of the interconnectedness of all things so we need to return to the question what's at the root of all of this the new array scientist Antonio dimasio has influentially argued that we think with our bodies as much as with our minds that we feel Sensations emotions effects on our bodies the pressure on the feet the photon on the eye the quickening of the heart before we think he says feelings point us in the proper direction take us to the appropriate place in a decision-making space where we may put the instruments of logic to good use in other words the mind is larger than the mind because quote it's neurally connected to almost every nook and cranny of the remainder of the body by nerves he continues that if body and brain interact with each other intensely the organism they form interacts with its surroundings no less so their relations are mediated by the organism's movement and its sensory devices [Music] [Music] there's a form of therapy called Horticultural therapy speech therapy tries to get a patient talking after something like an accident or an illness a speech therapist shows a patient an apple and says Apple but a Horticultural therapist takes the patient into the garden where they can feel the Earth taste hear see the movements of the apple tree this Sparks memories and is a much more effective way of doing the therapy I think this tells us a lot about how the brain works when we're trying to work through an argument build a presentation write a letter finish or start a project think through a problem whatever it is if you have a block a frustration even if you don't switch up on as many Pathways as possible physically mentally neurally sensory feel touch smell move and then the corresponding neural Pathways will switch over to we feel thought as much as we think thought thought comes through feeling through the moving of legs and the beating of the heart the senses sensation provide the raw mechanical movement that puts motion into thought that fuels thought each sense can bring a different perspective firing the neurons and combining neural Pathways in new and different ways so if your thinking is flat find a hill if it's gray find green if it's silent find the gentle notes of rustling or Birdsong the smell of piney mixed powerfully with memories and dopamine get outside and think thank you to all of these incredible patreon supporters these videos take a long time to research write and make I do a lot of reading they're always sourced and there's a bibliography in the description below I've written something short on why I think this kind of well-researched long-form content is worth supporting it's through the link below too if you agree then you can support then a night by pledging anything from a single dollar per month and get your name in credits access to scripts early and become a member of the Discord server if you can't do that I know everyone says this but please do subscribe hit the Bell like leave a comment these things help 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Channel: Then & Now

Views: 51,351

Keywords: benefits of nature, health, inspiration, nature thinking, outside, philosophy, romanticism, the nature fix, touch grass

Id: BSnZNXkMflg

Length: 22min 24sec (1344 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 14 2023