This 1 Thing Can Rewire Your Brain & Unlock the Focus Your Phone Steals From You

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Guest we have the inspiring professor mark berman in the house so good to see you and you are the world's leading environmental neuroscientist and and psychologist and your professor as well and you're teaching people about the power of nature and how it truly impacts our brains in an empowering way and i'm glad you're here you've got a book called nature and the the science of how nature improves cognitive physical and social well being and in a world where there's just seems like at least in the western culture there's so much anxiety depression stress overwhelm disease mental disorders it seems like we're missing our roots literally and spiritually and nature is something you've been studying as a neuroscientist and a psychologist of understanding the power of nature so my first question for you is what kind of effect does nature have on our brains and if we're not using nature the way it's meant to be used how will it hurt our brains so.

I think the thing that we should kind of that we focus on about why nature is so beneficial to us actually has to do with attention and we think that nature has the ability to restore our attention and we think attention is almost critical to so many different human behaviors like if we want to achieve our goals if we want to have self control if we want to be cooperative if we want to live life with a lot of meaning you have to have attention you have to be able to direct and pay attention and we do think that in modern times now there are a lot of things that are robbing our attention social media streaming services all the advertising that we see we're just bombarded with information and it's really taxing us and you know i and other people like jonathan haidt has his book the anxious generation that all of this social media that's around us is making kids in particular more anxious and we think that part of that is because all these different technologies are kind of robbing our attention now this isn't to say that all these attentions are all of these technologies are bad it just means we have to be careful and so what we think interacting with nature does is it has this ability to restore our ability to direct attention that we become refreshed so if we're mentally fatigued nature can restore our attention so we talk about humans kind of having two kinds of attention so one kind of attention we call directed attention and that's the kind of attention where you as the individual person are deciding what to pay attention to so presumably louis you're deciding to pay attention to me even though what i'm saying might not be the most interesting thing in the environment and it's thought that that kind of attention is fatigable or depletable you can only kind of focus or direct your attention for so long before you become mentally fatigued and you can't focus it's kind.

Of like schoolwork if i'm not interested in schoolwork or being in a classroom listening to something that i really could care less about or i'm thinking more about a girl or whatever from school or sports or playing my friends or video games i only have so much attention as a fifteen year old in a classroom to hear something exactly i have to really like focus my energy and pay attention i guess right but you're saying that can only go so.

Far exactly and we've kind of all had that sensation like at the end of a long workday you might be staring at the computer screen and you can't really focus anymore you start daydreaming or thinking about other things we call that like a directed attention fatigue state that's the time to take a break and the kind of break that we think you should take is something involving.

Interacting with nature interesting it's interesting because maybe like eight years ago i used to live in an apartment and i had my studio in the apartment so i'd work out of there i live there and i would record interviews out of there from the school of greatness and usually halfway through the day i'd be like gosh i just need to get out and like throw a frisbee and i'd go in the park and i'd throw a frisbee for like twenty minutes and it gave me a lot more energy just like stepping aside being in the grass even though the city was around me i was still in grass i could see some trees and i was playing that really gave me more attention to go back and do.

The next thing exactly and so one of the reasons why we think interacting with nature is so beneficial is that we think interactions with nature activate a different kind of attention that we call involuntary attention or sometimes people call it like bottom up attention and that's the kind of attention that's automatically captured by bright lights loud noises things that automatically capture our attention and we don't really have control over it and we think that a lot of natural stimulation like trees forests rivers those things automatically capture our attention which gives our direct attention a chance to kind of take a break or replenish another thing that you mentioned louis which is interesting is that you said when you were playing frisbee you kind of like got out of your studio environment and went somewhere else and one of my mentors steve kaplan used to talk about this that he thought many natural environments give people the sense of being away like getting away from their regular day to day which could also kind of activate this involuntary tension and give the direct attention a.

Chance to replenish so how many types of attention are there so we think.

There'S kind of two main kinds so one is this directed attention that's the one where you are controlling what you're paying attention to even if it's not the most interesting thing unfortunately you can kind of only do that for a limited amount of time and then you kind of can't focus anymore that's different from this involuntary tension that we think is automatically captured by interesting stimulation in the environment and it's thought that that kind of attention is less susceptible to fatigue or depletion so you don't often hear people say oh i can't look at that beautiful waterfall anymore it's just too interesting i can't look at it anymore or oh i can't watch this movie anymore it's just too interesting i have to shut it off so the idea this is what's called attention restoration theory it's a theory about why interacting with nature is beneficial the idea with attention restoration theory is that if you can find environments that don't put a lot of demands on directed attention while simultaneously having interesting stimulation to activate this involuntary attention you can restore or replenish this precious directed attention resource and so.

Directed attention so i'm getting it right is you saying i'm going to focus my attention on a thing yes like a person a thing my studies my work whatever it might be i'm gonna pay attention and think about this thing and what i'm hearing you say is that there's only so much willpower where you can hold that focus for a certain amount of time maybe that's thirty minutes maybe that's three hours but eventually you're gonna get fatigued is what i'm hearing you say whereas involuntary attention is less susceptible to fatigue where you could pay attention longer and maybe you just get bored but it's not like you're not exhausted from paying attention right and that comes from being in nature but i'm hearing is it also comes from like bright lights or flashing movies or things like that that are just easier to watch is that what you're saying.

Things that are just kind of inherently more interesting and you can kind of think you know sometimes too we can kind of get into these like flow states where a task is really interesting to do and you do want to pay attention to it that doesn't really require as much directed attention when we're talking about directed attention it's like oh i've got this really challenging i don't want to do this i don't want.

To do it you'll play video games.

Hanging out with friends exactly i don't it's kind of almost think about like you said willpower it's like this mental energy i know there's this hard thing i need to get it done it's hard to do and when you turn your directed attention to try to finish that task it's just you don't have an unlimited amount of that direct attention resource to finish the job are there.

Any other health benefits besides improved focus that being in nature gives the body.

And the mind yes it's true but one thing i want to kind of mention is that we don't want to minimize attention because we do think you know when when people think about attention they think a lot about kids squirming in their seats in school not being able to pay attention or you know oh i just couldn't finish this project you know at work but we think attention directed attention is fundamental to many many other behaviors like we think if you don't have enough directed attention you might become really irritable you might become aggressive you might be less likely to be able to achieve your goals you're going to be more impulsive so i think one of the interesting things that we're saying here is that attention is not just about focusing in school it's about almost like being our best selves that we need to have this mental energy this directed attention to be able.

To achieve our goals so directed attention is what allows us to set and stay focused on our goals through challenging times exactly because when you set a goal there's going to be obstacles challenges you're going to need to have repetition of something you know you became a professor you wrote a book you're leading a department now that took decades of of research time energy and focused attention for you to accomplish skills build relationships develop bodies of work research that was probably like tedious long days long years of not getting a lot of results right away that stack over time and that takes directed attention focus in order to do that exactly and if you're lacking the ability to develop that then you're probably going to struggle at becoming your best self is what i'm hearing you say accomplishing your goals moving projects forward getting a pay raise whatever it is you're looking for that's right and so the whole goal that we should be having based on what i'm hearing you say as a neuroscientist and environmental psychologist and all these things is that we should be learning how to optimize our brain and our body for attention.

Is that what i'm hearing yes and treating it as this precious resource because again there's a lot of things in the environment that are vying for our attention and one other concept that i think is important too to talk about is the kind of stimulation that activates the involuntary attention okay so we think that you want to be to get this restoration benefit to restore directed attention we think that the environment has to have what we call softly fascinating stimulation so when i say softly fascinating it means it captures your involuntary tension but it doesn't sort of capture all of your attentional resources it's not constantly like.

Stimulating you like this right so like.

When i look at a waterfall or when you look at a waterfall it's interesting you look at it but you can still kind of mind wander and think about other things if i'm in times square that's also super interesting but it sort of captures all of our attentional resources and doesn't let go you.

Can'T focus on like creating something in.

That space no it's too overwhelming you're.

In stimulation mode you're just like ah this is amazing but you're not able to focus attention on actually creating something.

That'S right it leaves no room for.

Any kind of reflection so as a as a neuroscientist then studying this what are five key things that you do or you have in your environment every day to maximize your attention for growth in your personal life and professional life.

So a few things so one i try to be really really mindful of when i'm getting into a directed attention fatigue state and i don't usually try to power through you don't no i say i need to take a break and the reason why i say that is you know powering through you might be able to get it done but i don't think you're going to be as efficient it's not your best work it's not your best work so i think i the first thing i do is when i feel like i'm getting in this direct attention fatigue state i'm getting irritable i can't focus i can't concentrate i say you know what i gotta go take a break and i gotta go take a break in nature.

Really yeah okay so first key is take a break and take a break in nature right and when you feel exhausted or tired or yeah yes mentally.

Fatigued it's like i have physical energy i don't have to go to sleep but i can't mentally concentrate exactly yeah.

Now i'm assuring this sometimes you might have to you don't have the luxury of doing that or at school and you have long days or you've got your four kids and it's like we've got to get something done here right.

So there's moments where you're pushing through.

That'S right exhaustion mentally right but your goal is to try to do that.

When you can that's right exactly and we can talk too you know a lot of us don't have easy access to nature and the good news is is that we we find that you can get benefits from listening to nature sounds looking at nature pictures looking at nature videos the effects aren't as strong as going into the real thing as to going in real nature but you can still get benefits that way from the simulated nature so that's really really.

Good okay so that's the first thing take a break in nature the second thing that you do or you you.

Focus on so the second thing i focus on is sort of what i don't do so i don't do social.

Media stare at your phone yeah when.

You'Re tired i don't i don't stare at my phone i'm tired i don't do much social media stuff you know i try to be because those activities even though they feel restful they actually.

Aren'T that restful it's interesting because sometimes when i'm tired and i want to break i'll take my phone out and go into i guess the involuntary attention which feels like it's less fatigue because i'm being fed a movie or content that is just allowing me to like not think about the task i was just doing yep but you're saying that.

That'S not a good thing it may not be because it's not it may be kind of taking you out of what you're doing before but it might not actually be a restful behavior so when you actually try to go back and do the thing you might actually have less energy less directed attention you're still tired than you had to begin.

With yeah so take a break in nature and don't get on social media or your phone if you can unless.

You'Re like for a break i mean i'm not again i'm not trying to demonize social media it's just not restful.

It'S not restful right okay third thing.

Third thing is so i've got kids and i like them to interact with nature and i like to get them out in nature but i don't count that as my break really no because.

That'S you having to still wrangle kids and like make sure they're not dying you know or falling on something right.

Right and they whine they don't always want to go out right so it takes a lot of mental energy for me to get them out of the house to do it so it's not.

Like you're sitting there sunbathing in the forest or whatever relaxing when your kids.

Are out there exactly you have to pay attention to them i'm using mental energy direct attention get your shoes on we're going no i don't want to go dad no we're going out there right that takes directed attention so that doesn't count as a break for me that's good for my kids but it's not it's not my break the other thing maybe we'll call this like the fourth element is that when i go into nature i don't have my earbuds in i don't look at my phone and i go by myself.

So you won't listen to music and also kind.

Of no no because i want all of my senses to be captured by the softly fascinating stimulation in nature you go alone and i go alone you.

Don'T want to go with anyone of your family or it's not that's not it's a different it could be different.

It'Ll be different like for example i do you know sometimes when my wife and i if there's something we're trying to figure out or something tricky that we're trying to understand we will walk in nature together and talk about that issue which can be good but it's not it's almost like the nature like helps us in communicating but it's not like a break for me or for her so when i want because when you're having a conversation with somebody you're using a lot of directed attention you are so this this this is kind of a solitary process interesting and is.

There anything else that you do a.

Fifth thing a fifth thing what about.

In your personal environment at home to set up to make sure that you have nature involved in some way so.

We do and and my wife i really thank her for doing this she we have this nice bay window in the front of her house and she's got all these plants growing in that bay window some of these are really like big plants like these huge leaves it's just really gorgeous to look at my office doesn't have great lighting but we have artificial plants in my office i kind of want to do more like even having like a fake green wall and things like that so we do try to bring nature indoors into the home as well.

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Com slash lewis is there benefits to having fake green plants in your home or office as yet instead of having a living green plants well i would.

Say living is better but you can get benefits from the artificial too and it's interesting there have been studies in hospitals where a lot of these hospital environments have to be really sterile and there's maybe not much natural light and they'll put fake plants fake greenery into these hospitals and people report feeling calmer in the hospital they're not as agitated even when they know it's a fake plant so that's kind of interesting too so sometimes even just being able to mimic some of these patterns in nature can can have some of these benefits.

What are the health benefits besides focused attention that being in nature has for.

People yeah it's it's really amazing actually and it it has really important consequences so maybe i'll start with a study that we did in toronto so we had health data from about thirty five thousand people in toronto and we had this incredible data set where the university of toronto forestry department cataloged every single tree on public land in the city of toronto so we had data from five hundred eighty thousand trees in the city of toronto wow we knew where each tree was we knew the species of each tree and the diameter of each tree at breast height so like how big or how old the tree.

Was just like google maps for trees yes you know every tree every street every alley like exactly wow and so.

One of my students omid cardan what he did is he calculated how much tree canopy each individual tree provided and we related that to this big health data set that we had and we found that if you had eleven more trees of average size per city block that reduced cardiometabolic disorders by about one percent that's crazy but that sounds kind of modest one percent doesn't sound like much but to get that equivalent one percent benefit economically you'd have to give every household on that city block twenty thousand dollars and and have them all move to a neighborhood with the median income that's twenty thousand dollars wealthier or make people about one and a half years younger wow so that's pretty powerful now again that's that cause and effect or is it core right so that's the good question so i can't claim strong causality there because the worst case scenario would be maybe just healthier people choose to live in neighborhoods that have more trees but they can't be younger they can't be more educated they can't be wealthier because we're controlling for that here's another study that's even cooler so roger ulrich in the nineteen eighties he looked at a single hospital corridor in a hospital in philadelphia and he was looking at patients recovering from gallbladder surgery and it just so happened that some of these rooms hospital rooms on this single hospital corridor in philadelphia some of them had views of modest nature like some trees or some grass and some had views of like a brick wall like the hospital like coming back around amazingly the patients that had the views of nature out of their window recovered from gallbladder surgery a day earlier come on and they used less pain medication than the people had the views of the brick wall and what's really cool about this study is that the patients are randomly assigned to the different rooms so so it's not like younger people or healthier people get the nature view they're just randomly assigned to whatever room is available so there you can almost claim causality there the thing that's really interesting about this is why why does having the view of nature out of.

Your window and they weren't going in nature every day they were in a.

Hospital yeah they were recovering from gallbladder looking at nature looking at nature so.

Why do you think this impacts our health by just looking at nature so.

This is what's kind of crazy so if we just if we go back a second to the study we did in toronto okay having more trees maybe the air is better maybe having more trees maybe i'm more willing to go outside and exercise but that's not the.

Case in the roger oliver not getting.

More oxygen through the yeah through the window i don't think so so what.

We think might be going on there is that there's something about the aesthetic of nature seeing the fractalness of nature the curved edges and that maybe our brains process that more efficiently and that that could have health benefits because again mind and body are one so things that are good for the brain are going to be good for the body just like things that are good for the body are going to be good for the brain so that i think is really interesting and somewhat counterintuitive that actually processing the sounds and the visuals of nature could have health benefits that's.

Interesting so looking at nature this study proves that there's a health benefit to recovering from sickness or disease or anything you might have in there whereas staring at a brick wall takes you longer to heal and recover yes that's crazy when i think about people that live in like new york city or or that have no light coming through their window or just looking at a building right next to them when they wake up or something like that if someone does live in a concrete juggle with no access to parks or nature what's the next best thing for their brain to heal and feel optimized so i.

Think there's good news that we find even in our research that looking at nature on a computer screen can have benefits really listening to nature sounds can have benefits and again in some of these hospital settings people that are getting some painful procedures in hospitals sometimes they bring in like nature posters or use virtual reality where they show people nature stimulation and that helps with pain management so it does seem like that artificial nature like nature pictures nature videos nature sounds they can improve attention but they can also have some healing benefits now i want to caution that it's not going to be as good as the real thing the real thing is the best but it's good to know that for a lot of us that don't have easy access to nature these simulations.

Can be beneficial if you had a friend or someone that reached out to you who is trying to recover from some type of sickness disease hospital surgery and you were able to set up the perfect conditions for them to heal using nature and they could use any tool in the toolbox and you said if you do these things it will drastically support your body and your brain's ability to heal itself faster what would.

You tell them to do i mean i would almost tell somebody to kind of try to heal almost in like.

A greenhouse like live in a greenhouse.

To be like surrounded by the nature to get the natural light coming in like andrew huberman talks about the importance of natural light natural light is a big thing but you want to be seeing all of these patterns in nature so you'd like to be able to see the trees maybe out of the greenhouse you'd like to have some plants inside that greenhouse you want to hear the sounds you want to hear the birds chirping you want to hear the wind in the in the leaves maybe you can have some kind of water feature that's got so you can hear running water i think all of those things would have would have healing qualities.

Interesting like healing in a greenhouse right like sleep there for the next week in a greenhouse and just be in.

Nature right now i will say this there have been some other studies where if you make the environment almost too green like imagine the studio if we increase the green space here by ten to twenty percent people really really like it but if you start going way way above that it starts to feel a little bit busy almost like a jungle yeah so maybe you don't want to go too far but some studies are suggesting if you can get the space to have twenty ten to twenty percent having green space in the interior.

Would be beneficial we just built this out a few months ago so we're still optimizing this we've got a couple of you know fake plants you know a couple of you know things we've got a photo of a sky and some trees we've got like some things here you got a fire like you know it's not real fire but it's like we've got wood yes accents how could we increase this or what would you suggest as a leading environmental neuroscientist on how we could optimize for peak attention for guests here but also people viewing where they see it and they just feel i feel more right so.

I think we probably want to get more natural patterns like on the walls and even like this fire maybe you could even have that you know this has natural patterns here too and people talk about like the flame right the flame right that and the crackling even the sound i love that can have that so again anything where you're mimicking the patterns of nature we think it can be it can be beneficial so.

Would you add more plants would you do like a few more here and.

There too many plants but i think even if you could have like a even if it's fake like a hanging green wall really yeah like down down some of the sides that could help that could help okay cool what about.

A water feature i guess you don't want water because it's too loud in.

Here but maybe but if it was soft enough maybe just like a tranquil.

Little stream of water okay that's right okay not too much but a little bit more how does being in nature compare with other kind of common focus boosters like caffeine meditation exercise how does it compare if you're just sitting in nature for an hour versus drinking coffee working out meditation it's a really really.

Great question i don't have an easy answer in fact one of my students was asking me about this that we should do a comparison we do know a little bit about how it compares to meditation and the effects are pretty similar to meditation the good news is that meditation requires training whereas being in nature doesn't require sit there and lay there and look in nature so it seemed at least like for these are like short term kind of exposures like ten to twenty minutes in nature ten to twenty minutes of of meditation similar effects there was an interesting study that was done with kids with adhd and they found that a twenty minute walk in nature for these kids who had adhd was about as good as a.

Dose of ritalin really yeah a dose of ritalin was the same as just being in nature for twenty minutes that's right for kids with adhd that's right wow when someone starts putting a child on ritalin or an attention style drug to give them more focus what happens to their brain's ability to just self regulate when they're not on it versus learning tools and strategies like being in nature or meditation or other things that.

Aren'T medication right well you know i'm not a pharmacological expert you know ritalin kind of acts like caffeine a little bit it's kind of counterintuitive it actually gives them more energy to focus you know i don't think we're at a point yet where we could say oh you know kids with adhd we can just prescribe them nature interactions and they don't have to go on ritalin i don't think we're there yet but i do think we're at the point where we could say look walking in nature being in nature could be a supplement to ritalin and it's not just adhd we find that walking in nature is really beneficial for people suffering from depression in fact the walk in nature for people suffering for depression that we found was actually stronger than our results with people with non clinical depression really and now you have doctors so what are.

You saying that people with depression had better results being in nature than people without depression going in nature that's right.

So people without depression going in nature we found that when people went for a fifty five zero minute walk in nature they improved their ability to focus by about twenty percent versus a walk.

In an urban environment and they've just felt happier in general they felt less depressed or what's the well here's what.

I think is interesting so a lot of people have the intuition that well people just like nature more and so it just feels good and that's why people are getting these benefits and it's true we had people we did some of these studies in june when it was like eighty degrees fahrenheit these were done in ann arbor your favorite place it was about eighty degrees fahrenheit people loved the walk they showed really healthy attention benefits we also had people walk in january when it was twenty five degrees fahrenheit people did not participants did not like to walk in nature but they showed the same attention benefits as the people that walked in june interesting so you don't have to like the nature to get these cognitive benefits these attention and memory benefits yeah they're not.

Freezing or sweating the whole time so.

Here so there's going to be it's not enjoyable so right it's not enjoyable so but there has to be some minimum threshold like people sometimes ask me mark well what if it's a wildfire or you're being chased by a bear i would say no that's not going to be that's not nature that's not restorative you're going to have to use a lot of directed attention so the kind of nature experience we're talking about is like you feel safe you know relax your your your minimum levels of comfort have been met yes you don't have to love it you know it could be a rainy day it could be cloudy it could be snowing you can still get the the attention it's.

Interesting okay and what happens in the brain when we trade an hour in front of our screen for for an.

Hour in nature well i think you know we're you know so here's here's the interesting part about the think about the direct brain implications have you ever been in an mri scanner before i.

Have yeah yeah full body yeah yeah was it comfortable no no i was not comfortable right you're like for an hour in this tube it's like you can't move it's not enjoyable right so.

Do you think i could give you a good nature experience in an mri.

Machine no no that'd be tough so.

That'S the that's part of the problem so one of the reasons why it's hard to get direct brain evidence now is because i can't give people a good nature experience in the mri scan.

They'Re not in nature you're surrounded by.

Electronic right that's right a superconducting magnet yes but now what's really interesting is that there's now mobile brain imaging technology like these caps that you can have people wear and have them go in nature so that's what we're starting to do now is actually have people walk in nature while wearing what this is called functional near infrared spectroscopy or fnirs they're wearing this fnirs cap walking in nature versus walking in more urban environments to see changes in the brain and what we think is going to happen is that we think we're going to see the brain exerting less effort in.

Nature versus the urban environment that makes sense we don't have the evidence yet.

We don't have the evidence yet but.

That'S what we make sense what effect does nature have on our nervous system.

Well some people have found that it can change heart rate and help people recover from stress so again roger ulrich has shown that if you kind of stress people out like show them kind of disgusting pictures of people getting their hand shot which really stresses people out if you then immediately show them pictures of nature their stress response recovers faster than if you show them pictures of an urban environment right afterwards so interacting with nature might help people to recover.

From stress so an urban environment like just staring at straight lines all day long and concrete buildings and straight lines that don't mimic nature lines i guess right doesn't support our health in any.

Way i'm hearing right and i i.

Don'T mean it doesn't hurt us but it doesn't support our well i don't.

Want to i don't want to demonize cities because there's other research that we do showing that cities are really great in other aspects but it does seem like people do not like looking at straight lines and right angles people really prefer looking at architecture that has more curvature more fractalness so fractalness is like if you see a snowflake it's got a shape if you zoom in on it same shape zoom in same shape so it doesn't matter what spatial scale you look at the snowflake it's got the same shape nature is filled with fractals and people like that and some architects take advantage of that like i don't know architect gaudi in barcelona he.

Built these buildings yeah i was just in spain two weeks ago and i.

Saw a gaudy building interesting yeah and and people really like that architecture and it may be that that architecture might give people some psychological benefits interesting so i think this also has implications for how we design the built environment too.

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To take care of yourself in the middle of it all i've been there and what i've learned is that when.

You don't make space to slow down it's hard to actually enjoy the moments that matter most that's why betterhelp is encouraging you to rewrite your traditions this season by making time for you incorporating therapy into your routine can help you pause reflect stay grounded during what can be joyful but sometimes hectic or even lonely time of the year the holidays look different for everyone maybe it's baking your great aunt's sweet potato pie or maybe it's starting something new like a quiet night with friends therapy can be one of those new traditions too better help matches you with a licensed therapist based on your goals and preferences and if it's not the right fit you can switch anytime this december start a new tradition by taking care of you our listeners get ten percent off at betterhelp dot com lewis that's better h e l p dot com louis i.

Saw a stat that the cdc has reported a sixty percent increase of depression in us adolescents and adults in the past decade and i know who is the author you're talking about the anxious generation and i know he's got a lot of stats in there as well about you know teens and preteens and the depression depression rates and all these things like that but how can we combat these rates with nature and i'm also hearing about this terminology called forest bathing what is that and how can we use that to support decreasing these.

Rates right so i think jonathan haidt would say that a lot of the rise in depression anxiety is due to us being addicted to our smartphones and not connecting with each other anymore we're doing a lot of social comparison that's not healthy and what we would say too is that it's also robbing your attention it is that it feels easy to just kind of scroll through but it's actually draining your attention it's draining your battery so i mean the first thing that i would say is that we need to get kids and adults interacting with nature more and getting these breaks and taking some pauses off of the device and going into nature going into nature is interesting too we did a study where we had people walk in an indoor conservatory versus an indoor mall when people were walking in the indoor nature conservatory it's really beautiful as garfield conservatory in chicago they thought more about other people and they thought less about themselves so that's also very interesting that nature maybe has this effect of getting us to be less egocentric interesting and thinking more about others so explain.

This again what is this people went.

Into a conservatory so we had people walk in the conservatory it's garfield conservatory so it's like an indoor nature conservatory there's big plants and trees indoors or we had them walk in water tower mall in chicago a beautiful indoor mall not very natural and we gave people cell phones that pinged them and asked them questions like what are you thinking about right now and it turns out that when people were walking in the nature conservatory they thought more about other people when they were in nature but they thought more about themselves when they're.

In the mall why is that you think why do you think about yourself in a mall when there's also people around i'm assuming right there's people walking around and you could see other people walking around yeah let's start with nature.

I think part of it is that when you're in beautiful nature i think it can sometimes make people feel a little bit small but small in a good way that you kind of maybe feel like you're part of something bigger you're in this awe inspiring nature you know maybe my problems don't seem as as big anymore and i think it encourages people to feel more connected to the environment and also to other people people are part of the environment and we also think that actually kind of being you know less egocentric and thinking more about others probably takes energy and so if you're if you're boosting your directed attention.

You think about others you.

Think about others interesting in the mall i mean again i don't want to.

Think about buying for you exactly what can i get from me i want to look good you're comparing yourself there with the people what do they have and i want that and people felt.

More impulsive in the mall so again the environment was designed for that reason they want people to buy things so i think part of our research and what we talk about in the book too is that you know in part this is more than just nature this is about the environment in general the physical environment in general and the physical environment in general has a significant impact on our behavior i think sometimes as humans we forget that because we have so much control over the environment but it doesn't mean that we're immune to.

The environment that's interesting there's this what is it called let me see i think i have something here that i want to ask you about oh yeah have you seen the gen z trend of i need to touch grass no so there's this trend i guess on tiktok or social media of gen z people saying i need to go touch grass and i think it's about where there's just they're in an addiction loop they're on their phones non stop they've been locked on their screens or they haven't gone outside and they feel like they need to go and actually feel the grass interesting and feel connected to something that's not just a digital device yes of just obsession or self indulgence or whatever scarcity mindset of what you're lacking yes what happens when we go and touch the ground and touch the grass feel the dirt is there something that shifts instantly in our bodies when.

We touch grass i mean i think it kind of goes back to this connection element that i think you feel more connected to to the physical world there's this really interesting book called the the finnish way and it's you know it's kind of cliche that you know the nordic countries or the scandinavian countries are just better at everything and they're happier but one of the main things that the finns do is they make sure they are out in nature all the time even swimming in nature in really really cold temperatures yes and so one thing that we haven't talked about.

Much i've been to poland and i've spent a week in poland with wim hof just being in frozen rivers i mean not completely frozen but like very cold rivers we climbed a mountain that was snow and ice like without clothes on essentially like just shorts and shoes and it was just like extreme cold but you felt happier even though it was uncomfortable yes it was for a purpose it was controlled it wasn't like we're going to sit here for hours you know like die it was extreme heat and extreme cold we were doing five to ten minutes and like ice baths and all this stuff and there was something about feeling the cold air being in cold water jumping off of a cliff into a frozen river yeah it was something about being in barefoot and like skin to skin with the elements yes that was very healing it was uncomfortable but it was healing freeing invigorating yes life giving all these things.

Yes and i think that's one thing we haven't you know we've because it's hard these studies are harder to do we've mostly focused on the visual of nature the sounds of nature but the tactile of nature is also really really important and so i think you're touching the grass there's something about the feel of nature that's important the bark of nature you know there have been these studies done in rodents where they give rodents like plastic toys versus like toys made of like that are like real wood right and the rodents brains like they have more synapses when they have the real yeah so again like we evolved in nature this environment that we built is very very artificial right we weren't meant to like sit on a phone and touch this you know artificial thing we're meant to like touch the real thing you know to do things with our hands and so you know that could be another element to it.

Too you've got four kids how do you fight against the temptations of the modern world and them being stuck in a school building all day and getting ten minutes of recess or whatever it is and them being on computers now and how they're learning versus with books and just how do you deal with all this knowing that you're a busy professional with a lot of responsibilities and your kids are in school i'm assuming but you know the side effects of all the things that they're experiencing yep how do you combat against modern society peer pressure school systems that are slow to evolve and change to have more things for kids to feel in nature like how do you deal with this.

It'S challenging but i think you know it's moderation like we let our kids watch tv our oldest daughter she has a cell phone we don't let them have any social media they don't have that and you know we chose to live and then we're lucky we're fortunate we chose to live in a neighborhood that's close to two nature trails so the kids can go out there right now as we're having this conversation my kids are at my wife's family's cottage that's like two hours north of toronto where they're fishing you know so we try you know when we have the free time we try to make it nature time yeah but it's hard and i think this is one thing louis that maybe we can all do together is that let's make it easier right i mean you know this is important and one thing that drives me crazy about schools is that they are kind of cutting recess and imagine this so right now they want to have an eight hour school day they don't want to give the kids too many breaks because they want to give them as much instruction as possible but if four hours through the school day if you're in direct attention fatigue state you might not be getting anything out of the last four hours nothing so imagine this imagine it's still the eight hour school day it's six hours of classroom instruction and two hours of being out in.

Nature play outside it'd be amazing it's.

Possible i mean it's possible that the kids might actually learn more do better so you know and i think if i say that to people they kind of just you know laugh at me like is this you know sounds too hippie or something like that but it is possible because just powering through doesn't seem like it it works just like you know matt walker talked about sleep right it used to be thought oh you'll sleep when you're dead you don't need sleep no it turns out if you don't sleep you're going to die yeah earlier earlier right and and i think we're kind of saying the same thing about nature that if we're not interacting with nature and doing things in nature we're just not going to be.

Our best selves i've got twins on the way and it's twenty twenty five and so i'm going to have two kids coming to the world in twenty twenty five if you could say hypothetically in a perfect world this is how you should set up your structure for your kids to thrive the best way possible whereas now when i see kids get out of the hospital that are getting i don't know a million injections and they're put in plastic blankets right away they've got shoes on their feet they're covered in synthetic clothing right away they probably don't even touch the ground nature anymore and they're put in controlled environments perfect temperature and then set in schools in industrial looking buildings for twenty something years of their life if you could give a prescription for how parents could raise kids to try to set better conditions now they may not have the luxuries or the ability to move or create the environment but if you could have the perfect environment as an environmental neuroscientist that could try to optimize the brain and the body connection with kids today what environment would you create for them how frequently would they be in nature what would you eliminate from their lives and what would you add.

I mean i think again it's going to have a lot of real nature in their lives all the time and one thing that we find too in our studies you know adults typically like nature but we've also done studies with kids and we say you know we show them pictures like what picture do you like do you like this nature picture more this urban picture more the kids liked urban better really yes why we don't know exactly you show like.

A photo of like a beautiful lake and mountains and you show a photo of new york city like buildings yeah the kids will gravitate towards the city.

That'S right interesting and it's only when they get older do they start to like nature more so at four and five they prefer urban as they get older they start to like nature more.

Is it because it's so like foreign to them they're your your involuntary attention is like oh it's this shiny thing.

It'S different and that could be part of it you know maybe the nature is too boring for them to some extent and even we have some collaborators in the uk you know you can't ask a six month old what do you like better but you can see what they look at and these six month olds look at urban it's got.

More attention than grabbing it's like if you looked at whatever dora the explorer or something like a cartoon it's got to grab your attention right versus looking outside you could be like what is this shiny bright light right right you know it's it's not going to be.

Calming right right but so what i think is critical here though is that and the four and five year olds in our studies their preferences didn't match their parents either it's only when they got older did their preferences look like their parents so in some sense this love of nature is learned and so i think it's really really important that we demonstrate that to our kids we have to get out in nature we have to show them that nature is important we can't just tell them their inclination actually is to urban so we have to we have to show them that it's nature and then you know there's so many things that we can do again humans have so much control over the physical environment but we've kind of built the physical environment to move goods efficiently and to house people efficiently we didn't build the environment to like give you the best attention or to make you more cooperative or to give you the most contentment so i think that's what we want to start to do we want this like this nature revolution that's going to incorporate nature into all these aspects and you know unfortunately too i feel like cities often especially in north america are so car centric so there's this beautiful park in chicago jackson park designed by frederick law olmsted same landscape architect to design central park but it doesn't have the same feel as central park and i remember taking my kids to this park and we're walking in the park and this car zoomed by and literally a hubcap flew off of the car right in front of us and started spinning around us and it's like okay the nature is here but the car traffic is wrecking it so again what i'm suggesting here is gonna be very expensive but it's almost like you have to separate the car traffic from these nature spaces and to keep them more pure let people walk around in these spaces it's going to be expensive but i really think i mean again we we can do it we have the control of the.

Environment interesting i grew up in ohio you grew up in the state of michigan unfortunately but it's okay and when i'm driving around ohio especially north northern ohio i see a lot of amish communities up there right i don't know if there's a lot of amish in michigan as well maybe the southern part maybe northern ohio southern michigan and for whatever reason i don't know all the studies and i don't know like the actual facts about it but it seemed like they're out in nature a lot working they're working with family the kids are working with the parents they're learning working they're outdoors most of the time from the outside observation it doesn't look like there's a lot of obesity again they're not using cell phones or they are it's very minimal to just make business calls i guess or to deal with logistics and is there any information around communities like amish communities that seem to be working in nature more or other communities like that on the the health benefits that they have versus the rest of modern society or anything like.

That it's a really good question i don't i know a little bit about like allergens like for example i've heard that like the kids in those amish communities don't usually have many allergies really.

Why do you think that is because.

They'Re getting exposed they're in nature they're in nature and and and there are some studies done in finland of these forest schools where the kids are out in nature in school they don't like sit in the classroom they're like eating dirt like playing in dirt and the kids have better immune systems because they're they're ingesting the microbiota of nature which is beneficial so they're probably not getting.

A lot of like shots also as kids like the amish or these other.

Maybe not you know who knows but.

They'Re just more they're more they're more exposing themselves to these things to these things which is allowing their immune system.

To be stronger interesting yeah you know again those communities are so different in so many ways but you know i think that i think one thing that you mentioned too is that the sterile environment that we're in has downsides right the natural environment's kind of dirty but it's good dirt interesting and so i think we need to have more exposure.

To that we don't need to be clean all the time we don't need to be clean all the time especially as kids like allow kids feet and hands get dirty sometimes i don't know.

If you can see this but like dirty your fingernails well it's because my son and i we were picking black walnuts and i was opening the black walnuts the black walnut juice is very staining i cannot get it off get it off i can't get it off but there's something about getting our hands a little bit dirty that i think.

Is important is it better to have plants and a garden in your environment or is it better to be actually planting things in your environment is there.

Differences of both well i think i think you you know people have different interests i think there's there's definitely benefits to just having the nature around there was my mentor steve kaplan with his wife rachel kaplan did do a study with gardeners and they did find that a lot of these gardeners did show a lot of benefits to gardening what was interesting though the gardeners that didn't use pesticides showed the most benefit really and they thought the reason for that was that if you're so stressed out that the plant's going to die or something like that i need to protect this plant that's going to use a lot of directed attention and the people that just were more naturalistic with it i think they were just letting nature take its course they were just kind of going through the feeling of the gardening without that strong strong attachment and that might have been more more beneficial wow so again yeah i think if you can get your hands dirty a little bit it's going to be beneficial yeah.

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Grounding have you heard about grounding you know there's this you know kind of spiritual movement of people talking about grounding which is essentially just having your bare feet on the ground not like on a synthetic ground but on the grass on dirt on rocks on sand and the the benefits of that is there any science that you're aware of around either the the earth's you know energetic forces on how it's connecting to the skin and how it actually gives you more energy have you had any research or study around that i haven't seen.

Anything like that but again i think it's kind of back to touching grass that you know again the natural tactile stimulation might be beneficial getting those getting those feelings and again a lot of people are just so disconnected they don't do people don't do anything with their hands anymore i think actually engaging more with those with that tactile stimulation you know could be beneficial why is it.

When i'm in the ocean in a lake in a pool or in the shower i feel more relaxed and i feel like more ideas come to me when i'm immersed in water is there anything around how water impacts our brains.

And our health i think it's also related to involuntary attention and people have found that blue spaces can have some of these benefits so water has some of these fractal sounds it even has some of the you know waves kind of crashing has fractal stimulation so i think it's kind of again it's it's these nature patterns that that you're getting in water that that might be leading to some of these benefits get capturing your involuntary attention really in a softly.

Fascinating way do you think it has any besides the attention factor do you think it has any health benefits to being in water do you know that have you seen those studies i've seen.

A little bit even they've been saying about like open water swimming it can have some health benefits swimming in the.

Ocean or like swimming just in large.

Bodies of water not in like an indoor pool yeah yeah i don't know exactly what the mechanism not a man made not a man made pool but being in open water can be beneficial.

It'S just more scary for me if like a shark or like some weird fish is going to come up that's the only thing like ah maybe you're more focused about your attention like what is that feeling oh man i used to go to the only time i went to michigan was in the summer i'd go for weekends to torch lake yeah you ever heard of torch lake i've been there this is probably one of the most beautiful places that i've ever been to in terms of a lake and it's all white sand and like this perfect blue lake yes it's unfortunate it's not in ohio and it's in michigan so i have to cross the border but it's beautiful it's beautiful and you feel it just feels so.

Calming yes and it's a very deep very deep the only negative thing i find with torch lake is that they have so many boats sometimes a lot.

Of boats the summer has passed so.

That'S my only complaint that's true you.

Can'T really enjoy it anymore because there's so many people there now right but.

Otherwise you're right it's a fantastic thing again because it's just it's so softly.

Fascinating it is incredible yeah what else is there in the research that you've seen recently about spirituality in nature so.

It'S really interesting that you asked that so there was this private foundation called the tkf foundation now they're called nature sacred and they built like one hundred fifty parks in the dc baltimore annapolis maryland area and this foundation built these characteristic benches in these parks these wooden benches and underneath the bench was a journal or diary and people could write their thoughts in the journal entry so what this foundation did was they digitized all of these journal entries so they had like twelve thousand journal entries that they had digitized and so we were interested in what are people thinking about or writing about in these parks so one of my former students kate shirts she she analyzed all these journal entries and it turns out people are pretty reflective in these parks you know writing things about like nature and time and place but also things related to spirituality what was interesting too is that we had pictures for a lot of these parks so we could like quantify how many curved edges there were in these parks and it turned out that the amount of curved edges in the parks correlated with people writing more about spirituality really yeah huh so it gets crazier so why is that you know what's.

Going on there the more curved edges in the park so what does a curved edge mean so it man made curves or curves of nature it could.

Be both so like a tree will have a lot of curved edges some of these parks also had like a labyrinth like this kind of like maze that go through that also had a walking maze yes so don't really know yet was it something about man made about the park or was all the natural things so what kate did is and that's very correlational we don't know what's going on there so kate designed a study where she would show people a picture of nature or a built environment and we could manipulate how many curved edges there were in the environment by like how many trees there were or like how intricate was the architecture and it turns out if the image had more curved edges people thought more about spirituality it gets even crazier so one way that we manipulated curved edges was actually sometimes putting in water because flat water doesn't have a lot of curved edges so maybe there was just something about seeing water that you don't think about spirituality i don't really believe that but to get around that what kate did was she scrambled the image so she would like take all the curved edges and then scramble it so it looked like a jackson pollock painting you can't really tell what it is but it preserved all the curved edges and it turns out if this image that looks like abstract art if it had more curved edges people thought more about spirituality interesting and that's kind of like independent of nature yeah right it's just seeing curve do you have an.

Example of that in the book or is that more recent we do have.

An example picture in in the book.

You know where it is skim through.

Which it might take me a second here yeah i'm trying to find the one where it shows the image intact and then where we scrambled it i've got it on my computer is this.

The page one hundred and forty bingo yeah yeah you got it i saw this earlier in here i thought that's it so it's like an image of a nature and then an image of just kind of like a building i guess and some benches right and then you scramble the images that's right that's right and so people looking at the nature one with more curved images still even though it's scrambled you can't really tell what it is right it's still more pleasing okay think more about spirituality you think more about spirituality right just looking at a scrambled image of curves rather than straight lines from this other building let's see that that's interesting yeah yeah page one one hundred forty yeah nature in the mind yeah and then you have the two yeah so like.

The one on the right here has more curved edges so people think more about spirituality looking at that one versus.

That one yeah in the page before one hundred and thirty eight you have something that has fewer curved edges these are all fewer curved edges and more curved edges in nature versus less natural fewer curved edges and more curved edges in urban cities yes so if you're in an urban city but the architecture is more curved and more flowing it's going to be more aesthetically pleasing to think spiritually rather than people like it.

More but they'll also think more about spirituality so if you're in this environment yes people think more about spirituality than this environment and people think more about spirituality in this environment versus that interesting.

Isn'T it yeah with more curved edges more curved and a curved edge doesn't mean you have to have a big circular no thing it could be tons of leaves that curves it yeah that's right that's right interesting that's really cool because in this one example here with fewer curved edges it's in the ocean so you see lots of water there might be benefits to seeing water or hearing the waves but you're not thinking as much if it's not as curved.

You'Re not it might not cause you to think as much about spirituality this is like one thing too where it's sort of like i don't know louis if there's going to be like one perfect environment it's like what do you want people to get out of it like do you want them to think about spirituality or do you want to improve their intention more like right or.

Maybe being in water is more healing for the body that's right it's like.

What what are the that's right and i don't i mean not to get you might get more confusing did you know what the broken windows theory is no the broken windows theory is this sociology theory that if you see broken windows or graffiti or litter it suggests that people aren't paying attention and you can like steal or commit crimes okay okay so that's kind of interesting you.

Can commit crimes in that space in.

That space because nobody's watching it's like.

A social cue it's it's it's abandoned it's abandoned right so if there's something in there go in there and no one's gonna catch you no one's gonna.

Catch you no one's watching so and they've done these studies like in europe it's kind of interesting like they'll have a mailbox the mailbox will have a package sticking out with like a five dollars euro and they're looking to see who steals a bill and if the mailbox has no graffiti maybe ten percent of people steal the bill but if the mailbox has graffiti on it thirty percent of people really steal it that's.

So interesting because they just psychologically think no one's going to catch me that's right no one's paying attention right right.

Interesting no one's watching so but we wondered like is it just the graffiti that's doing it or is it like the graffiti is kind of messy and somehow like processing this messiness might lead to more cheating so we did a study where we gave people kind of a stupid math test they're like showing this matrix of numbers with two decimal points and they have to find the two that add up to ten it's annoying so they have to do this in a short amount of time they get two minutes and then we show them their answer and what the correct answer was and we tell them beforehand the more you get correct we're going to pay you more so it gives people the opportunity to cheat interesting but in between in between taking the math test and grading themselves we show them images that are more disorderly or less disorderly it's just like the jackson pollock thing just nonsense it turns out if we show them the images that are more disorderly they're more likely to cheat and to cheat by a bigger amount so that's kind of weird like okay these curved edges are causing people to think about spirituality but they might also.

Cause people to cheat more that's interesting i wonder if it's like i used to cheat all the time in school like constantly one because i was in the bottom of my it's not like it's funny but it's also like not a good thing right it's like but.

I used to cheat all the time.

It was most almost like survival because i would i was in the bottom of my class i had you know tutors every year all through high school college elementary school everything and i just i wasn't able to pay attention it was very hard for me to have focused attention after the first hour of class i didn't understand what the teacher was saying i couldn't read and write and so i just felt like exhausted and all i'm thinking about is when is school over so i can go play yep and you're stuck in a little desk and you have to sit there like this and there's too much mental pressure the least it was for me yeah so it was almost like out of survival i just found ways to cheat on tests on homework and it's not like something i'm proud of like i want to look back at this but it's really a survival strategy yep and i wonder if there is a any research to how much someone cheats or steals if they're in nature more versus if they're just stuck in a industrial box at an industrial desk you know eight hours a day being forced to pay attention to something that's really hard you don't understand and have pressure of performing well versus just being in nature yep i wonder if i would have cheated less you know stole less all these things just being outside doing the work versus being inside doing.

The work yeah that's an interesting question so i don't know exactly for cheating my hypothesis would be that if you're in more nature it would lower cheating that would be my hypothesis the work.

Relax more your call well i think.

I think you know in some sense louis i think cheating was the easy thing to do and the hard thing to do would have been to not cheat yeah and so again i think that depends on attention and if you don't have enough directed attention i think it's easier to go to your impulse of course and not to control your impulse the work that i know about nature and sort of you know what i call like bad behaviors there have been studies with nature and aggression and so these are really really interesting studies in chicago public housing projects like the robert taylor homes that aren't around anymore and these were not nice places to.

Live no.

Some of the apartments had modest views of nature and some of them had like no views of nature and it turns out the families that had the modest views of nature the kids had better attention they had better self control in the adults there was lower aggression better attention and lower reported crime and what's interesting too this is just like the roger ulrich study it's not like the wealthier more educated families got the views of nature these families are just randomly assigned to these different apartments and it had this significant impact on behavior so i think that's really really interesting and we kind of followed up on that with a cell phone trace data set so this is kind of a creepy data set but interesting as a researcher we knew where one hundred thousand people lived in chicago where three hundred thousand people lived in new york and we knew where they went for an entire month wow and so from those data we could quantify how often did you leave your neighborhood and go and visit a park and we found that if in neighborhoods where people left their neighborhood more and went to visit a park there was less reported crimes in those neighborhoods controlling for age education income and ethnicity crazy so again this is kind i think what's going on there is that when people go out and get a nature break they're restoring their directed attention and they have more ability to control to control impulses wow and what's interesting too we also quantified how often people went to go to visit a museum that did not relate to crime so it seemed like it wasn't just going to anywhere that had cultural value or anywhere that was nice it seemed to be specific to nature to going in nature.

Nature and the mind i've got a couple final questions for you here but i want people to get the book nature and the the science of how nature improves cognitive physical and social well being it's probably something we need the most but we've been lacking a lot in our lives just in the modern society there's so many things we can do to improve the quality of our life but i think nature is definitely it's free it's something we can choose to do at any moment it might just take a little time getting the nature if you're in an urban city but in most places you can go somewhere ten minutes and be in a place where there's some trees some grass some water even if it's a controlled environment where you can just walk around in nature for a little bit even if there is cars and everything around you you can still be in that space it's a decision to do that unless you live in the middle of america where there's more open space and you're kind of living in nature already but a lot of people are stuck in cities to try to earn money i guess.

One thing i might mention a little bit there is that you know not all nature is created equally and you know some parks are nicer more well maintained and others aren't and like we did some studies in chicago where we had students from the south and west side west side of chicago go around and look at the parks in their neighborhood and they had like data enabled cell phones and they could take pictures of the parks and we wanted to ask them like do you feel safe in the park do you feel like the park is well maintained and turns out a lot of these kids said you know there's a park there they didn't feel safe there and so so.

If you don't feel safe it's not you're not getting the benefits you're not.

Gonna get the benefits and so i think this is you can't it can't just be you have you put the park there it's gotta be well maintained and people have to feel safe there.

So crime happening there there's no benefit.

There'S no benefit so and that's what i think is really kind of depressing is that in a lot of parts of the us and big cities there are some nice parks but people don't feel safe in them so they're not going to achieve the benefits.

You know that old saying it's not what you say it's how you say it i.

Think that goes for how we live.

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Long busy days that's why icebreaker scum is made for the go getters with flavor crystals that deliver a bold cooling effect icebreakers keeps you refreshed and ready to take on whatever's next and here's a bonus the pack fits perfectly in your car cup holder or bag so it's within reach when you need it most grab icebreakers gum online or at a store near you that's so interesting.

You know now you're saying this like something just came out to my mind i got married earlier this year and the morning of my wedding i remember i just like i felt like i needed to be in nature so i went by myself to just go kind of reflect on my life before getting married it wasn't like i was questioning whether i was getting married it was more just like oh this is happening this is a big moment let me go take some time to like just reflect on this before the madness of like you know people there and all this stuff and i went for a hike in nature by myself probably like an hour and a half you know over here near here there's a beautiful hike that's kind of in the middle of la but it's it feels like you're not in la and you're surrounded by trees and you can't hear the cars and you just see the mountains in the horizon it was such a spiritual reflective moment being alone taking a hike in nature before kind of this big life changing moment that was happening and it really allowed me to reflect on everything just kind of relax and calm myself before what was about to happen and i never regret going for a hike in nature you know when you do it you never regret like i wish i was like on my phone for the last hour you're like you always feel better it's kind of like going to the gym it's kind of like getting quality sleep you never regret getting good sleep you never regret eating a healthy meal you regret eating like donuts all day you know so it's just something that we need to be baking into our our daily routine the best way possible even if it's ten minutes it sounds like it can have incredible benefits huberman talks about waking up and looking at the horizon as the sun's coming up obviously not direct sunlight but as the light is coming up like gazing your attention towards the horizon to get that natural kind of healing benefits to to support your your brain health your body the circadian rhythm and it sounds like nature in general being in nature where you feel safe adds so much more benefit than not.

Doing it exactly and kind of what what you're saying louis too is people actually underestimate how good they'll feel after going in nature so people have done studies where they say how much do you think you're going to like going on this nature walk before they go on the nature walk and then they have another group of participants go on a nature walk and ask them afterwards how much did you like going on the walk and people underestimate how much they're going to like really so and i think that's just about liking but i think we're also underestimating how good it's going to be for our brains and for our attention and for our well being so i think we really are as a society underestimating the benefits.

Of nature wow mark is there anything else that you want to add about this that we haven't covered today i.

Think we hit a lot of the big ones i think one thing too that it's not all about liking that you don't have to love the nature walk to get these cognitive benefits i think that's important i think that you can get some of these benefits with the artificial nature the pictures the sound it's not as strong as the real thing but it can be really beneficial the physical health benefits of nature spiritual health spiritual and then also you know that people are less aggressive and you know other studies have found that when people interact with nature they see people as being more human which i think is also kind of related to less aggression so it's really beneficial at all these different levels a lot of benefits.

I'Ve got a question that i ask everyone towards the end it's called the three truths so imagine hypothetical scenario you get to live as long as you want to live and you get to accomplish all of your goals that you have in life you have unlimited directed attention which allows you to focus on your goals and create the life you want but for whatever reason on the last day of your life you have to take all of your life's work with you so this book is gone anything else you've created it's gone hypothetically but you get to leave behind three lessons to the world three truths that you've learned about life that you like to leave behind what would those three.

Truths be for you so it's got to be different than stuff that i've.

Done the same stuff it can be the same stuff could be anything at all it could be professional personal information you know just some a lesson you learned or what you think the world needs to hear wow this is that's.

A good i never thought about that before i guess you know.

The first.

One i mean why i got interested in psychology is because my grandparents on my dad's side were holocaust survivors and i just couldn't believe that people could do that to other people it just boggled my mind i kind of like obsessed over it i i couldn't i couldn't wrap my head around it i just kind of thought well you know germans must just be bad people wow and i remember sitting in an intro psychology class at michigan and the professor showed us this milgram experiment i don't know if you're familiar with that experiment but in the experiment there's two people one person is the teacher and one person is like the student and the student has to memorize all these words and the teacher kind of tests the student on the words and if the student gets a word wrong the teacher has to give the student electric shock and so and this is they didn't really to the teacher they thought they were giving real electric shocks but it was set up that they weren't really giving electric shocks although there's still ethical problems with this sure so anyway so they separate so the the student goes into some room and the teacher is is reading the words and testing testing the student and when he gets them wrong he has to give an electric.

Shock and then like he gives push the button he thinks that that he's.

Giving a real electric shock to the student and he can hear the student go ouch and and you keep increasing the more he gets wrong the greater the shock the greater the shock okay and people don't want after it gets to a certain point where the guy's going ow ow ow ow this really hurts i don't want to do this anymore you know people say like look i want to stop doing it but then there's this experiment who says no you must continue you have to continue giving the shocks and you know like two thirds of people deliver the shocks all the way to like you know almost like killing the person wow and i remember seeing that study and thinking oh my god like that just like rocked my world it was like i could do bad things you know i think i'm a nice person but maybe in different circumstances i could do better yeah yeah and so i think that was a really strong lesson to me where it's not i mean we're all born with different capabilities but a lot of our behavior is very much determined by the environment and so interesting i just so one takeaway i would think is that you know the environment really really impacts our our behavior like it can make somebody good it can make somebody bad and i think you know now we know so much about what makes it hard for people like not having enough resources worrying about food you know crime all these things make it make it hard and i guess you know what we're trying to impose is like hey there's maybe we can design environments that can like make people good or better and and we need to take it seriously that we're not immune to the environment so that there's a lot in there but i think that that one takeaway that the environment that around us has so much impact on our behavior like fundamental things that you know you might think oh somebody just a bad person or somebody's a good person well it might not be so that's too simple you know you have to think about the person and all the environmental context that they've lived through.

Okay so that's the first one that's.

The first one so what are these.

Are pearl three truths yeah three lessons that you would share that you've learned.

From your life experience three lessons i've learned from my life experience experience you have to you have to do what you're passionate about you cannot and i feel very fortunate that i'm i get to do what i love to do but the people that i see the most unhappy are not really doing things that they're most passionate about and maybe part of that too is feeling like it has purpose like i don't feel like i'm doing busy work i feel like the stuff that i'm doing it's meaningful it's meaningful it's meaningful.

Third thing.

Third thing well you know this one maybe is kind of controversial i guess i i guess i'm not controversial i don't know i i had a little bit of a complicated not not in a bad way but like i i grew up as a as a kid so my mom like she converted to judaism so i have half my family's not jewish half my family is jewish and like i remember going to hebrew school and i'm saying like you have to marry somebody jewish you know you.

Have to i said this to you.

Yeah or just in general yeah that like you know and and i didn't.

Yeah.

But it was very complicated in my head it's like well like did dad do something wrong like you know of course and i think what the truth is there is like i kind of maybe this is going to sound too simple i don't like groups i never like groups i never liked clubs group thinking group think or just like identifying in a group because i worry that when people identify as a group they say like i'm i am this.

Thing i'm this thing so you don't identify as a michigan guy then right.

That'S for fun that's fun stuff that's.

Fun stuff.

You gotta break that identity you know you gotta break that i.

Knew when i was saying this i was like lewis is gonna get me.

On this the one group you want to be a part of you can't.

Be anymore it's gonna get me on this one is that like you know i just feel like groups yeah invariably like when you're in a group you think you're better than the other group of course and excluding rather than excluding and and it always bothered me huh.

And but you're also in group you're a professor of a you know of a university you're that's a group of professors you're a neuroscientist okay i'm in a neuroscientist community it's like you're in.

Your mission share that it's not exclusive like you can you can bring fuel in so i guess i just feel like i you know i never really liked exclusive clubs i just kind of feel like you know we're all humans we're kind of all in the same boat yeah and i just kind of wish we're all trying to belong we're all trying to belong and i wish we could kind of see that more often that we're kind of you know we all kind of have the same destiny and you know we just got to work together we can't be so tribal hanging on to the tree interesting.

Okay so when you when you cut it comes to football season when you cut yeah yeah when you cut up your alumni card send me a photo when you cut it up and say i'm no longer part of this group.

Anymore.

I'Ve got one final question for you mark this has been really inspiring nature and the mind the science of how nature improves cognitive physical and social well being except for when you're part of the alumni group of michigan final question for you is what's your definition of greatness.

Boy that's a hard question too i think greatness is when when you kind of you know do you know abraham maslow maslow's hierarchy yeah i think the top of the hierarchy was self actualization when you like become your best self and i kind of feel like that's the definition of greatness yeah is becoming your best your best self that's good i know it might be kind of squishy like what does that mean but i guess when you define your own strengths and become the best version of yourself i think that's that's.

Greatness that's cool mark thanks for being.

Here man i appreciate it thank you.

Very much go buckeyes go blue.

I.

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