We love life shortcuts. Swipe right to love. Stand for one minute. Breath deep with your watch. Four minutes a day of intense excise. Steroids. Flavor of the week magic pills. Now, comes the latest “Newly Discovered, Jaw-Dropping Lift For What Weighs You Down” … just spend a minimum of two hours a week out in nature. Anyway you want. Twenty or thirty minutes a day, or two hours on a Saturday. Doing anything. Sitting, walking, running, rowing. Just do it! Nature! And yay! All natural.
Sounds great? It gets better. Don’t have time to be in nature? Just look out your window at a squirrel in a tree. No window at work? Put a scenic picture in front of your face. Or a house plant. A terrarium. My Venus Flytrap in a tiny bottle counts. Even nature sounds. All good. Yay nature!
“If it came in a bottle, everybody would have a great body” – Cher
Yes, we love our bottles and shortcuts. One hundred and twenty minutes a week. Don’t have two hours? Then a window will do. Or a painting. Even a houseplant. A plant in a bottle.
I’m 100% in on the positive impacts of nature. But in this case, shortcuts can kill.
Does research says 120 minutes a week is magic? No. The brilliant study says it is better than less than 120 minutes, better than zero minutes. But seriously, it is dubious that two hours a week of nature will save your life. Certainly not the further laughable shortcuts of a picture or house plant or bottle.
My job was killing me. Slowly sucking the life from my mind and body. I was getting that two hours or more of nature. Down to the Mississippi River, out in my wooded yard. It helped, but only a little. Two hours a week might work for you. It didn’t for me. But time in bottle damn well won’t.
Want to actually reduce stress and promote your health? Get on the water, in the water, or by the water. Take that walk. Lounge in a chair, watch, listen, smell, breathe. Quality time AND quantity.