Nature Therapy and Feng Shui: PACER Integrative Behavioral Health

Alrighty. So let's go ahead and get started. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on integrated behavioral health. Today we are talking about nature therapy and fun. Remember on the week the the morning shows, we cover physical aspects of health and wellness on Mondays and affective aspects on Tuesdays. Cognitive aspects on Wednesdays. Environmental aspects on Thursdays and Fridays are relationship aspects. So today being Thursday, we're talking about the environment and how that impacts our mental and physical health. The gap between the natural setting for which our physiological functions are adapted and the highly urbanized and artificial setting that we inhabit and is a contributing cause of the, quote, stress state. A walk in nature has been found to improve memory as well as reduced anxiety. Reduce anxiety. And this is true whether it is indoor nature, like an arboretum, or even just looking at a fair amount of pretty greenery. So a couple of plants. Spending time in nature in studies has been found to reduce cortisol levels and HPA axis activation, including respiration and blood pressure. Now, we talk a lot about the correlation between a dysfunctional HPA axis and autoimmune diseases. Stress, anxiety, pain, sleep disturbances, hormone disturbances. There's a lot of stuff, stuff that gets thrown out of whack when our HPA axis is over activated when it's constantly in that stress state. So infusing nature therapy can be one complimentary approach to addressing some of the stressors. I want you to think before we get into some of the nitty gritties. I want you to think and kind of look around your space right now. And I'm looking around my space and thinking, okay, I really need to straighten up a little bit, but what is it in your space that makes you happy, that makes you feel calm and content? And was it. What things in your space do you try to avoid even noticing? It can be sights, smells, sounds. The things that you try to block out or avoid noticing are things that increase your stress, the things that you don't like. For example, I'm not a huge fan of overhead fluorescent lights. Y' all know that. It's one of those things that I can't really escape right now because that's just the way my office is set up. But if I had my druthers, I would certainly have alternate lights set up. So just thinking about those and thinking about how your environment impacts you when you walk into a beautiful atrium at a hotel or, or a resort or wherever, how does that make you feel? Here in the Nashville area, we have the Opryland Resort and they have a gorgeous Indoor arbor. I call it an arboretum. I don't know what they call it, but it actually has a lagoon that goes through it, it has waterfalls, it just has all kinds of plentiful greenery. And it is such a beautiful break anytime, number one, because it's climate controlled. But in the winter, when everything else, most everything else seems to be kind of dead or, you know, dying because of the color, because of the cold, I'm sorry, you can go in there and you can get a, an infusion of, of greenery and almost a sense of invigorated life sometimes, or at least I think that they found in studies that visual stimulus of nature, unscented roses or live house plants that don't actually have a smell to them. So they took out the olfactory component. But the visual stimulus alone, even indoors, is correlated with a decrease in HPA axis activity. Even three dimensional visual representations promoted a modest level of relaxation. It wasn't as effective as the real thing, but virtual reality three dimensional representations can promote modest levels of relaxation olfactory stimulus. So smells with live plants and certain essential oils were also found to reduce cortisol levels. So your brain does recognize nature when it senses it. Likewise, auditory nature sounds are also associated with reduced cortisol and HPA axis activation. Now we're going to talk a lot about cortisol and HPA axis because those are easy to measure. You can measure free floating levels of cortisol in the blood. You can measure people's respiration, their heart rate, their blood pressure. And all of those go up when the HPA axis is activated and go down when it is downregulating itself. So that is one of the easiest ways to, to identify the impact that these things have on people. Because remember, there is no easy way right now, no widely available way to measure the function of the neurotransmitters in the brain. We have serotonin receptors, dopamine receptors, norepinephrine receptors throughout our entire body. So when people get a blood test for, for their neurotransmitter levels, all it is telling you is the amount that's circulating in the blood. It's not telling you specifically how much is in the brain. So it's not super helpful when we're talking about mood disorders. However, measuring cortisol levels, measuring thyroid levels, because when cortisol is up, thyroid has a hard time. Thyroid becomes less available and there's less thyroid stimulating hormone. So cortisol blocks that thyroid hormone so people start feeling foggy. It also suppresses a lot of Your gonadal hormones, and those are both thyroid and gonadal hormones, can also be measured in blood levels. I digress. Some of the benefits of nature therapy are thought to be attributed to extrasensory factors that, such as microbes and ions, the way the plants actually impact the environment through their own respiration and photosynthesis and all that kind of stuff. And I will give you links to these articles later. There were three that I found that were particularly well written, helpful and in depth. So you didn't have to read like 17 articles, but I found them to be quite fascinating about the impact of even modest amounts of nature. Nature therapy has been found to be beneficial in general medical recovery. Multiple studies have shown that flowering plants, and even just foliage, so you know, your green house plants in hospital rooms can be are attributed to enhanced recovery rates, less post operative medications and more positive physiological responses such as reduced blood pressure and increased respiration and normalized heart rate. Lower anxiety is basically what they're talking about. So that's awesome. When our body is stressed, you know, let's think about this going back to that HPA axis. When our body's stressed, it's in fight or flee. So the immune system is suppressed. That's bad mojo for recovery from anything. The immune system's suppressed, cortisol levels are up, hormone levels are suppressed. That works against recovery, that works against your immune system. And when that immune system is suppressed for too long, when cortisol levels stay too high or stay high for too long, it actually contributes to increased inflammation. No wonder people want to get out of the hospital more quickly, because being in a hospital environment can be very stressful with all the dinging and noise and somebody coming in every four hours to poke and prod at you. So people have evidenced much faster recovery rates in environments that are more calming and less stressful. And nature therapy has been found to help with that in increasing the numbers of, you know, green plants, greenery within each hospital room. Also providing access, when at all possible, to those big picture windows so people can actually see outside, especially if what they're looking at is greenery. If all they're looking out on is a major metro area, it doesn't have the same effect. Nature therapy is also beneficial in immune system improvement because of that HPA axis down regulation. So we don't have, you know, the immune suppression going on. But also when you're actually outside, the body is able to manufacture vitamin D to take in vitamin D from the sun. Vitamin D is known to be an immune system enhancer. And an anti inflammatory substance in our body. Vitamin D is also. Vitamin D receptors are also very plentiful in the areas of our brain that are associated with with mood and closely associated with places that are high there that there are high concentrations of serotonin. Vitamin D is a good thing. It's also associated with improved oxygenation. When people are more relaxed, they tend to breathe more slowly and more deeply instead of that shallow chest breathing that we often do when we're stressed. The improved oxy bath. Sorry, I can't talk today. Oxygenation is also another, if you want to call it, side benefit of nature therapy. Pain reduction is also associated with nature therapy. Patients exposed to images of nature. So this isn't even real nature, this is images of nature have been found to be much more likely to change from stronger to weaker pain medication during the recovery process. Patients exposed to nature images also reported significantly less anxiety. A lot of times there's something about nature that tends to attract people's attention. And we're going to talk about mindfulness again in a few minutes. But one of the reasons they hypothesize it helps with pain is because nature images attract people's attention. So they're thinking less about that pain that they've got right now and their attention is focused on something outside of themselves which can be helpful with pain. Additionally, it improves mood, especially if they're seeing nature images that make them happy. Exposure to increased levels of sunlight for patients having undergone spinal surgery resulted in reduced pain, stress and use of painkilling medications. The hypothesis is twofold. The sunlight in patients that underwent spinal surgery, getting out in the sunlight helped set their circadian rhythms which helped regulate their HPA axis. And it also increased their levels of vitamin D which may be associated with improved mood, increased serotonin and we know serotonin helps with reduction of a perception of pain or increasing pain tolerance. And it also, vitamin D itself is something of an anti inflammatory. So there are a lot of beneficial effects of modest levels of sunlight. Obviously sunlight and, and the sun's rays can be damaging in excess, but some level of sunlight can be beneficial in terms of mood. Viewing scenes of nature is associated with an elevated production of serotonin. Now that's serotonin in the body. We don't know exactly where that serotonin was going necessarily, but serotonin circulating levels did increase when people viewed scenes of nature and it stimulated a positive thinking, reduced aggression and reduced post stress anger, which I thought was really interesting when people were shown nature images, which is one of Those little things that we can take and say, well, hey, if that's the case, then maybe when people have a stressful moment or a stressful day or they get angry about something, going out and taking a walk in nature could be helpful. Which, you know, I'm always a strong advocate for making sure that there are landscaped patio areas at the very least for people to go out and experience. Even rooftop gardens can be super helpful. So there's really no excuse for not having nature somewhere. You can get broad spectrum lights for growing indoors. Hydroponics, they're great. You can get little hydroponics things that you set on your kitchen counter now. So it's, it's really easy to get hydroponics setups. You can look online on YouTube, something called the Kratky method, K R A T, K Y. And that is one method of hydroponics that doesn't require virtually any setup. It doesn't require bubblers, it doesn't require. The only thing it requires is the lighting. So it's a much simpler setup than a lot of hydroponics setups that do the, the flood and drain and all that other kind of stuff. So my point being, even in office buildings, it is really not insurmountable to set up a lounge area, even if it doesn't have access to natural light that is supportive of some greenery. And you can choose greenery that is designed for low level indoor light. You don't have to have, you know, something that needs lot 8 hours of direct sun. There are a lot of house plants that are awesome for indoor settings and they do really well under artificial grow lights. So that's something to think of. Oh, and those artificial grow lights actually do come in LED now, so they don't put off near as much heat and they don't use a whole ton of electricity, which is. And they last like forever. So all of those things are super awesome. Obviously, I am a strong proponent of hydroponics and natural lighting when possible. So those are things that you might consider adding to your environment because it has been shown to be so helpful. Horticulture therapy, which is actually gardening, not just looking at it, but growing things, has been shown to improve mood state, reducing stress, and the contributions of stress to coronary heart disease. So people who have high blood pressure have shown benefits of from engaging in some gardening activities. And this can include raised bed gardening or even hydroponic gardening, because I know a lot of people have difficulty, especially as they get older, getting up and down to garden in the ground. So those Raised beds can be very helpful. They're a little pricey, but they can be helpful if you want to use soil. And then obviously, like I said, there are a lot of options for tabletop hydroponics. Now nature therapy has also been found to be beneficial in the treatment of ptsd. Now it doesn't do everything. Nature therapy doesn't do everything. What I'm talking about is another tool in your toolbox to help reduce that HPA axis over activation. People have been found to be restored in natural environments because they escape from the usual settings and become fascinated by stimulation and natural ecosystems that take their mind off the day to day problems. Outdoor adventure, wilderness therapy, outdoor experience and even green space based eco therapy. And that's when they have designed green spaces in urban areas so people can go into this little oasis. And any of those things have been shown to be effective as a therapeutic means for people coping with ptsd. It doesn't do everything. It doesn't take away the night terrors, but it does in many cases with these veterans in this study, help them reduce their feelings of hyper vigilance at that point in time. It helped them get their get out of their own head and focus on the beauty of nature for a time. In terms of adhd, nature therapy has been found to, to be somewhat helpful. And you can look up attention restoration theory and nature therapy is, is very intimately connected with attention restoration therapy. But Art proposes that contact with nature and natural ecosystems actually supports attention, attention enhancement and mindfulness. And that kind of goes along with what we were talking about the other day with awe and wonder. Because when we are in nature, a lot of times we are noticing things and we are fascinated or you know, I don't want to say overtaken because that sounds bad, but we are, we are immersing ourselves in what we are experiencing. We're seeing the squirrel crawl up the tree, we're hearing the woodpecker peck. We, at least for me, I'm always looking for the groundhogs. I love groundhogs. But whatever it is for you, just going to a park and walking around or going to a field and walking around can be interesting. In a field you may find a great big bumblebees. I mean honeybees are awesome. They're very useful. Love honeybees. But I like the great big fuzzy bumblebees and I love seeing them on flowers because they look like teddy bears with wings. Of course I think that jumping spiders look like teddy bears with legs. So whatever. I guess I've got a fascination with teddy bears. I digress. Again, dementia, exposure to nature and natural settings has been found to decrease agitation and appears to have a positive effect on morale of people with dementia. But it does not always reduce disruptive behavior. And one of the reasons for this is because a lot of times people with dementia become quote, disruptive because they are having difficulty communicating what they need, what's going on. So putting them in nature isn't necessarily going to meet that need. We need to explore the behavior in terms of communication, especially for people who are less able to communicate cognitively. This was a really interesting study. They did a longitudinal study which is a study that's done over time and found that children in low income families, where the families were relocated to houses that were closer to nature that increased levels of cognitive functioning and enhanced ability to direct attention in the children. And that continued for several months after, after the children were returned to their original urban based houses. So and then obviously they saw that effect diminish over time once they were removed from that natural setting. I thought that was kind of interesting. Now there are a lot of unaccounted for variables here, but it is something that's interesting to consider. Finally, nature therapy has been found to be beneficial in improving a sense of well being and life satisfaction. Even short term walking interventions, particularly in green spaces, energize and enhance personal well being and vitality. Now walking down your street, walking down the, the sidewalk in downtown may have some beneficial effects, especially if there's some plants around. But it's also important to balance that out. You know, walking down the street in downtown, you're also inhaling all of the exhaust from the cars and you know, other fumes and stuff that aren't quite so good. All the pollution. The real benefits from nature therapy are seen when you can get away from some of that pollution, some of those toxins that are stressful to the body. So let's move on to talk a little bit about Feng shui. And I am not a feng shui expert by any, any means. I do recommend if you're interested. My favorite beginner book, if you will, is Feng Shui for Dummies. It does provide a lot of good information in a concise package that's easy to look through and go, okay, I could try that. No, not going to try that. May try this over here. Gives you some great tips on, on things to look at and things to do to get, get started in fun. There are multiple schools of thought in fun and positioning of the bagua and, and things like that. So it's important not to get too caught up and, and down in the weeds and the details. At first, you know, if you want to go there eventually, great. But at first, let's just start with some of the real basics. There are parts in our brain that are still programmed to be on alert for danger. We don't like to be surprised. And when we can't see the entrances and exits of the rooms that we're in, we feel more vulnerable. When we are super close to those entrances and exits, we often feel more vulnerable because we have less time to react if something bad comes through that door. So it makes sense from a very primitive standpoint. Therefore, in every room that you're in, you know, try to consider where the commanding position is, where you're going to put your sofa, where you're going to put your bed, where you're going to put your desk and the stove that is evidently the center of the kitchen. For, for a lot of people, you want to have it in the spot furthest from the door, but not in front of it. You don't want to have your bed, for example, directly in front of a doorway where, where you're, you're looking out the doorway. Um, you also don't want to have your bed under a window. So obviously, you know, if you're sleeping, you can't see that window. You don't want to have your sofa likewise in front of a window or with your back to it because again, you can't see what's happening there. At night, you want to pull your blinds down. And if it gets, you know, when it's light inside and dark outside, you can't see because of all the reflections. Pulling your blinds down can be relaxing for a lot of people. If you cannot be in a position where you can see all the entrances and exits, judicious use of mirrors can be really helpful. And you can get some pretty mirrors. You don't have to get the ones like they used in, in elementary school so you could see people coming around the corner. You can get those. But you can also choose other things so that, that are prettier that you can look at and see what's going on around you when you're at the stove. I know a lot of us have a stove that faces a wall and our back is to everything else. They suggest putting mirrors, or at least a mirror on the backsplash of the stove so you can see, see people coming up behind you. That's one of those things a lot of fun. Shui is Visual, but some of it is also auditory. You want to be able to hear people coming up behind you. So having your music blaring is actually somewhat stressful to the, to the body. Likewise, not being able to hear, having earplugs in for many people increases their stress because they cannot hear a potential threat approaching. And, you know, that's all dependent on the individual. That's not true for every single person. But those are some things to consider. You know, how do you feel if you have earplugs in? How do you, how do you feel if you can't see the doors? So making sure you can hear, putting pleasant sounding sounds, just going back to that nature. Because feng shui really involves integrating nature into your living space. Adding waterfalls, you know, running waterfalls, even the tabletop ones, can be super beneficial to energy in, in your house. So consider adding one of those. And there are certain places you can put it that, that are more effective, like having it at the entrance to your home where the water is flowing, looks like it's flowing into the house. That's one of those tips that they will give you. But you want to be able to also balance the elements and think about rooms that you're in. Black is a color that absorbs, you know, black absorbs all colors, white reflects all colors. A lot of times in fun, they recommend having a black element in your room because that helps absorb some of the excess stimulation. Not everybody likes that, and then some of us kind of go overboard with black. But it is important to have a balance. And in fun, they talk about five elements. Wood, water, fire, metal, and earth. And just like you would think, wood is more your browns, water is blue and fire is your reds. Metal is your grays and earth is your greens for the most part. And I will show you in a, in just a second, a website that. I think, ah, here we go. This website is on the spruce and it's linked. I will put a link in. The notes for this show goes very quickly through a lot of the basic premises of feng shui, so you can start easily applying it. It talks about the commanding position, talks about the bagua map, which, remember I said, depending on the school of feng shui, placing the bagua can be a little bit different most of the time. I encourage people when they're first getting started, not to get too caught up in where to place the bagua, but more to focus on balance and what helps them feel energized and relaxed. They talk about the different bagua areas, the family, for example, and that Area is a place for family and new beginnings. Shapes to enhance that area would be columnar or rectangular. And colors would be greens, blues, and teal. Wealth is purple and also columnar and rectangular. Health is your browns, your oranges, and your yellows. So you can go through this. You know, I don't need to spend a whole bunch of time going through it. And then down here, it talks about the different colors as they apply to the different elements. So having a certain amount of brown, orange, and yellow in a room brings that earth element in. Having a certain amount of white and metallics in a room can bring that metal element in. And for me, I know I have a lot of white coat, circular coasters that are in my room. It doesn't have to be something that is super obvious. Water, the shapes are wavy and curvy, and it's associated with black. And wood is associated with greens and blues. According to this article, some articles put blues to be associated with water and fire. You know, I don't think anybody argues the concept of fire being associated with red, triangle and pointy. So thinking about rooms that you're in, you know, just kind of looking at them and thinking, is this overdone? Is this excessive? In, for example, like I said, I tend to go overboard with black and browns. Those. I love my earth tones, but I love. I tend to stick with blacks, browns, and maybe a little bit of pale yellow. And my daughter gets on me. She's like, you need a little bit more variation. And she encourages me to bring in greens and reds and purples and things like that. And it adds more dimension, it adds more life and more energy in the room. When you have a variety of colors and shapes and. And those sorts of things add beloved objects above. Whoops, above cabinets. That is another tip that they have suggested, because that area above your cabinets in the kitchen can be very dark a lot of times. So if you add some LED rope lighting up there and put plants or vases or something, that when you look up there, makes you feel happy, makes you feel relaxed. And that can also be a great place to start incorporating some of those alternate colors and shapes that can be very beneficial for the energy in the room. And a lot of people, you know, kind of look at me cockeyed when I start talking about energy in a room. But when you go into rooms, and I challenge you for the next four days, when you go into a room, just stop for a minute and think about what's the energy in this room? Is it stagnant? Is it oppressive? Is it encouraging? Enlightening? Relaxing? What does this room feel like the minute I walk in? And once you start to become more mindful of it, you will actually start to notice when you walk into rooms what kind of energy it's communicating. In feng shui, there is a strong emphasis on the power of three. So if you're going to have plants in a room, for example, they suggest having three plants or, or something that's a multiple of three. Try to use natural materials and real plants as opposed to fake plants. It's better because of the nature therapy. And like I said, there's a theory that the plants themselves actually alter the environment by the microbes and the ions that they put off through their living processes. So having real plants in the room can be really helpful using natural materials. You know, number one, you're seeing nature, so that's beautiful. But natural materials also tend to have less of those VOCs and the hormone disrupting chemicals and the stressful chemicals that you may not even notice because the smell is so faint, but they can be stressful on your. On your body environment. Think of qi or energy that we're talking about with feng shui. As a guest, make sure your house is inviting into all the right places. When you walk into the through the front door, where is your natural tendency to go? Do you stay? Stop? Are you stuck? You don't know where the living room is? You're like, do I go upstairs through this door? What am I doing? Or is it very clear that where that warm, inviting, open, welcoming area is, you want to make sure that it's clear where the energy should go in that. In. In your house. One of the big tips here is to make sure that doors are closed to the places that you don't want people necessarily just wandering into, like the bathroom and closets. Our coat closet is also another place where we keep a litter box. So keeping that door closed is beneficial. It keeps the chi in the areas where peop we want people to congregate, and it blocks it from going into areas that it's not necessarily needed. Ensure you can see people approaching the house. Feng shui and nature therapy is not just about necessarily inside, but also outside. What kind of feeling do you get when you're approaching your house? Do you look around and you know there's lots of debris in your flower beds? Or when you walk up, is it a very inviting, peaceful, harmonious sort of view? It doesn't have to be super ornate, but you want to focus on making sure that, for example, if you've got flower beds that they are tended. They don't look like they're in disarray. Your outside, whether it's, you know, the room you're in or the outside of your house, your outside often reflects your inside. So if your outside looks in disarray and is got weeds growing through it and it's, you know, disheveled and obviously hasn't been taken care of in a while, you know, that kind of communicates what kind of energy may be going on inside and inside of you. So paying attention to what energy you get walking up to your house, the other thing you want to be able to do. Is see people approaching the house. A lot of us have our front door set back and the, and the garage comes out a little bit so we can't see when people pull into the driveway. Good ways to do to address this, go back to your mirrors again. Um, but by the same token, you also want to make sure that the walkway going to your house is clearly lit. Just like you want Santa to be able to see how to get into your house. That used to be what my son was concerned about. Um, you want to make sure that you there's a clear direction for that energy to flow where people know where to go, even at night. So solar path lights can be very helpful for inviting chi at any time of day, not just during the daytime hours. And finally, another little tip I picked up from Feng Shui for Dummies was try not to come into the house from, from the garage. Number one, the garage is usually in disarray, so there's some chaotic energy out there. But that's also a place where there's often toxic fumes. So by coming in through that door, yes, it's only but a minute, but by coming in through that door, you're letting in, you know, chaotic energy as well as potentially toxic fumes. And you know, that's not something you want in an energizing, relaxing sort of environment. So those are my tips for getting you interested in fun. This is not even an introduction to feng shui. I would strongly encourage you to look at that article by the Spruce. There's a ton of stuff that you can look at online if you go just Google fun and click on images. There are a lot of infographics people have made. Most of the basics for fun are very practical. Encouraging energy, encouraging positivity and nature sounds, the use of wind chimes so you can hear when the air is flowing. All those things are things that you can consider adding to your environment. To infuse nature, to infuse energy, and to promote relaxation. Are there questions? Now remember, if you have particular topics that you want me to go over or go over more in depth, feel free to let me know what those are. You can leave them in the comments after the video is done. We do go through those comments periodically and make lists of any requests that people have. And you can also, during the live presentation, you can also put it in the chat stream if to make sure that we see it, like right away. So, everybody, I hope you have an absolutely amazing, awesome day. I do encourage you from now until Monday or even after, every time you walk in a room, just stop for a second and ask yourself, what is the energy in this room and why? Start becoming more mindful of what helps you in particular feel relaxed and you in particular feel stressed.