The Outdoors Is a Healthy Healer for Your Inner Self

By Tanner Purdy

Photo by Tanner Purdy

The more humans investigate the links between time in nature and mental health, the more benefits we find. The concept seems pretty recognizable to the many adventurous-spirited people who live throughout Alaska. It’s a knowledge that hums in the core of our souls: being outside is good. Although much of the world seems to be forgetting that, research will guide humans back.

In psychological research, spaces of nature are referred to as green space. Research into the positive impacts of green space has been a growing area for the past decade. A 2019 study published in Scientific Reports found green space can have a large positive impact on our mental health and well-being, as long as we spend at least two hours immersed in nature a week [1]. Importantly, they found that it didn’t matter how people spent time in green space, just that they were in it. This indicates it has strong positive effects on our well-being whether there is physical activity involved or not. This makes exercising in green space a win-win for human’s mental and physical states. 

When I think of my favorite greenspaces to roam, my mind goes back to a little bay called Pasagshak on Kodiak Island, my old summer job. The hills behind my fish and game cabin stretched out for infinite lush miles, with four-wheeler trails snaking most places you’d like to walk through and dry creek beds in others. Although the research says the benefits of being in nature plateau at around five hours a week, I feel the more the better. The freedom of hiking as far as I wished, sloping down into bay after bay as the trails tracked through the pass and along the coast, was intensely peaceful. There is something indescribably freeing about nature that just goes on forever. My favorite thing to do was always standing on a mountain looking down at the ocean.

The ocean always makes me feel small in the most pleasant way. Its depth and distance are unimaginable, even when looking right at it, reminding me it could take me anywhere. Its indifferent power and persistence also remind me that I am little more than a blip in the universal timeline. I can feel the possibility and power in the wind that flows up from the waves, blowing anxiety off like an unsecured sunhat. To me, the wind coming off the vastness of the ocean is one of the most spiritual sensations in the world. 

Photo by Tanner Purdy

That feelings of overarching largeness and wonder spark a sense of awe, something else psychologists have been linking to mental health and well-being improvements. A 2018 Berkeley University study found that awe experienced during any kind of nature interaction improves well-being and reduces stress [2]. It was beneficial to many ages in both extraordinary and daily experiences of awe in nature. 

After the long coldness of this spring, a little awe was what I needed to get through the year’s final push. My roommate and I decided to hold our inpatient butts to the fire and bomb down to Anchorage for an Easter weekend camping trip. Needing a pick me up from the interior’s dryness, my trip checklist included Cane’s Chicken, and seeing the ocean. On the way down I couldn’t help but revel in the wonder of Alaska’s grand landscapes. 

Running down to Anchorage didn’t save us from the cold. Car camping became huddling in a metal ice cube, but it didn’t matter. After well over two hours of detaching from regular life to gaze wide-eyed at nature, my mood couldn’t be swayed even by the chilliest of feet. By the time we made our way down to the water, the wind was at a speed so fast its chill felt like blades. The cold worked past my clothes and burned against my whole body, but it did the trick. The deep shaky breaths seemed to inflate me, taking me right back to that Kodiak summer state. 

Alaska is extreme and the harsh climates can be difficult to work through, but for all the trials, there is a shining and inescapable beauty. No matter the weather, Alaska’s natural landscapes provide a recharging space for anyone willing to brave a few hours of it. As breakup sets in and everything melts, the constant drips off cutters and porches remind me water is right around the corner. When summer approaches again, remember to revel in the sunlight all you can: it really will make everything feel better. 

Photo by Tanner Purdy

Sources:

[1] White, M. P., Alcock, I., Grellier, J., Wheeler, B. W., Hartig, T., Warber, S. L., Bone, A., Depledge, M. H., & Fleming, L. E. (2019). Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and Wellbeing. Scientific Reports, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-44097-3 

[2] Anderson, C. L., Monroy, M., & Keltner, D. (2018). Awe in nature heals: Evidence from military veterans, at-risk youth, and college students. Emotion, 18(8), 1195–1202. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000442