A breeze gently blew across my face, bringing the smell of the desert along with its warmth, as I sat five thousand feet above the Earth. Below me was the lowest point in North America - salt flats that looked rather like a blanket of snow over the desert - and in the same panoramic view was the highest point in the region - a snowcapped mountain range. The contrast left me in awe of the vast landscape around me, taking my breath away and making me feel small in the best way. The sky was changing shades of yellow, pink and blue by the minute and the desert sands glowed.
Silence overtook the few of us who ventured onto the peak of Dante’s View at dusk in California’s Death Valley National Park and I could not have been more grateful for it. In that undisturbed space calmness, peace and perspective washed through me as I looked out in front of me. I was elated.
It was in that moment that I understood for the first time why people touch their foreheads to the Earth or hit their knees to pray.
Nature is a powerful force that is not only important for providing the resources to sustain physical life, but also in regards to human mental health. There is some literature and foundations of theory in psychology that do not operate under the idea that the human-nature relationship matters or incorporates the healing power of nature into its practice. That, though, is constantly being unsupported by new empirical findings. The lack of acknowledging nature’s healing value was the birthplace of ecotherapy. Ecotherapy is an umbrella term that challenges that perspective in the mental health field that does not incorporate using nature to heal.
Nothing about feeling nature’s mental health benefits is new - we have heard the narrative time and time again from people like Ralph Waldo Emerson to Elizabeth Gilbert to the impassioned call from Frederick Law Olmsted, the man who created New York City’s Central Park, to California to save Yosemite Valley in 1865, reaching all of the way back to a sixteenth century physician who noted that the art healing comes from nature.
Empirical evidence has continually been published with the same verdict - the human psyche benefits from surrounding oneself in nature. Mental health professionals have been citing this evidence in prescriptions of nature as a way to manage symptoms of a variety of disorders in replacement of psychiatric drugs. Remember that ecotherapy is comparatively low in cost compared to antidepressant drugs, let’s say. Ecotherapy does not have to be practiced in the presence of a mental health professional or in the ranges of mountains or along the coast of an ocean in order to get the benefits.
A study done at Stanford found that participants who walked in a natural area for ninety minutes versus someone who walked for the same amount of time in an urban setting showed a decrease in activity of the brain region that is associated with depression. With positive findings such as those found for a frequently diagnosed mental health disorder, imagine the benefits to the general public that could be gained by simply taking a nature walk before a work presentation or an exam or when you find yourself feeling upset or sad.
Ecotherapy can be useful to people who are suffering from mental disorders and those who are not; the benefits are not tied to any certain disorder or type of person. For me, nature allows me to gain perspective. It reminds me that I am a creation of the universe, I fit into the circle of life, that my existence affects the environment around me and that everything, living and not, is connected. Allowing myself to sit outside to read, take a walk on a nature trail in my neighborhood, or moving across the country to a place with mountains views is a gift of self-care to myself.
Nature is a powerful force - embrace it, feel it, and allow it to heal you in whatever way you may need.
