By Connor Gilligan
Homo sapiens have evolved to survive and thrive in the nature. We were not made for the sedentary lifestyle that we live today. Humans have been roaming the Earth for roughly 200,000 years; it is only in the past few thousand years that humans began living indoors and it has only been in the past several decades that the inhabitants of the modern world spend much of the day inside. Some people may wonder why it matters if we spend time in nature. Well, I’ll tell you why it matters! Per the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average American spends 93% of their life indoors. Spending that much time indoors can lead to plethora of physical and mental medical maladies such as heart disease, diabetes, depression, asthma, arthritis, anxiety, osteoporosis, fibromyalgia, stress and many more. The May Issue will conclude the first installment of articles for the Zine. This gives me the chance to combine the information and ideas from my previous articles with this call for a return to nature. I will demonstrate the connection between nature and overall physical and mental well-being, while recapitulating the beliefs expressed in previous articles. In a way, this article is a strategic solution to one of the gravest problems faced by our society: happiness, or, more appropriately, the lack thereof. As a society, we can improve our collective health by spending as little as 5 minutes a day in nature. I suggest making it a point to spend at least a few moments every day admiring the natural beauty of the world around you. It will not only make you a healthier person but it will make you a happier person. People needed a return to nature to clear their minds of the heavy thoughts and stresses of everyday life. In the New York Times Bestseller book Bush Craft 101, author Dave Canterbury states “thirty years of the turn of the twentieth century, folks in the United States were rediscovering what it was like to spend time in nature and finding a release from the day-to-day life.” People all over the world are still returning to nature to alleviate their stress, but with less regularity than 100 years ago. The citizens of the modern world are under a lot more pressure and have a great deal more stress than ever before. Knowing this, it would make sense to spend more time in nature, yet we are doing the opposite; we accept the notion that we lack the time to do so. I believe that we are convinced that we do not have time for certain things, and it seems to be a common excuse for participating in activities that are beneficial to our health like exercising or spending time in the great outdoors. Why do you think 8 Minute Abs is so well known? Maybe it has to do with the fact that we are not willing to spend more than a few minutes participating in one of the most physically beneficial activities possible. We can disassociate ourselves from Big Pharma by reassociating ourselves with Mother Nature. We can regain our happiness and decrease our susceptibility to a number of ailments, simply by embracing the benefits of being in nature, such as exercise, sunlight and eutierria (a term defined by professor Glenn Albrecht as “a good and positive feeling of oneness with the earth and its life forces.”) Countless studies are being conducted with this idea in mind, and each new study has the potential to educate us on the endless positive possibilities of the great outdoors. In an article written for the Berkley Greater Good Science Center, authors Kristophe Green and Dacher Keltner expound on the idea of a return to nature by claiming “Over 100 studies have shown that being in nature, living near nature, or even viewing nature in paintings and videos can have positive impacts on our brains, bodies, feelings, thought processes, and social interactions.” Studies are constantly proving the connection between nature, over-all wellbeing, and happiness. I write this article to encourage anyone and everyone to spend more time in the great outdoors. After doing extensive research on the benefits of spending time in nature, I believe that I would be doing a great disservice to my readers if I did not inform them of the benefits of returning to nature. Dave Canterbury gives a piece of wonderful advice in Bush Craft 101 when he says “If you fell you’re trapped in an urban environment…return to the wild, turn of your electronic devices, and escape society’s constant pressure.” As a society, we experience more stress and pressure than ever before, so why would we be spending less time outside? I believe it has to do with the path we chose to follow as a collective culture; we want instant gratification and constant entertainment, and our smartphones give us just that. I have to admit that I am guilty of walking through the park paying more attention to my phone than the flora and fauna. But after researching the benefits of embracing the beauty of the great outdoors, I will never again take nature for granted… and I hope you do the same.
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by Erick GarciaHappiness. The nine letter word that embodies everything ideal that the human being can want out of life. It’s the one thing that we all desire and strive to obtain despite our respective opinions as to what it means to us. To some, happiness can be represented as having a high paying career, travelling the globe, entertaining others, or anything grandiose. To others, happiness can be represented as being something a bit simpler such as having a stable life with a family or having a significant other. Whatever happiness means to us, we all have an idea of what it means to be happy and what brings us happiness. Or at the very least, even if we’re not completely sure of what could make us happy, we’re definitely sure that we want to feel happy. Unfortunately, there’s another word, a ten letter word that I can only describe as embodying the most pervasive feeling in the human experience. That ten letter word is known as depression. All of us have felt what depression is like, and to say that one can be immune to it is to say that one is not human. Even Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a man who seemingly has it all and whom many people would agree has quite an amazing life, has suffered from depression. I say this to show that even the most well off person isn’t safe from this horrible state. If you are reading this, I believe it’s safe to assume you have battled with depression in your own way, so let me say first and foremost that in writing this article I do not intend to make you feel worse, nor do I pretend to have the solution to what’s troubling you. Rather, I write this article with an ethics of care to simply tell you…that you are not alone, and that I want to understand you. At this point, after having read the word “depression,” you are probably all of a sudden thrown back into your memories of what it’s like to be depressed. Sometimes it might be a mild depression, other times it may be very strong. Keep in mind, depression is a normal thing. It’s how we deal with it that will determine how severe it can be. The source of your depression is probably way different than mine, but what connects you and me are the feelings of helplessness, suffocation, loneliness, pain, carelessness and numbness. You probably feel like there’s no end to your suffering, that you’re a burden to others, that no one would care if you went to them for advice, and that even if they cared at first they’d eventually stop caring. There comes a point when even all of these things probably stop bothering you, and what’s left is the feeling of being on autopilot. I might be right about you, but I might also be wrong. These have been my personal feelings, and it has been my experience that others have felt what I’ve felt. Everyone suffers differently, and everyone deals with their suffering differently. What we can all agree on is that depression sucks. Big time. You may say that it’s not a big deal and that it doesn’t bother you, but one thing that no one will ever say is that they actually like feeling depressed. So, what am I saying all of this for? Well, I’m saying all of this for two reasons: the first is to tell you that I’ve been there before. The second is to tell you that despite what you may think or feel, there’s a way out. I myself have been dealing with depression as far back as I can remember. Sometimes I didn’t really know why I felt depressed, much less how to deal with it. Other times I knew exactly why. What I did know was that it was a pervasive feeling that was all too present. And every time I thought I had beaten it, I would relapse. I never took any medication for it because I knew that what I was going through wasn’t something so severe that required medication, but at the same time it was my opinion that medication wouldn’t have helped anyway. The lack of friends in elementary school and in most of high school certainly didn’t help. I wouldn’t get over my depression until my mid-twenties, right before becoming a part of this online magazine. It was a long journey, but I managed to do it. And you can rise above it too. At the time I joined this online magazine last semester in the fall, I was taking an anthropology course called Death and Dying in Society. As part of this course, I had to read Viktor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning. Frankl was not only a psychiatrist, but also a holocaust survivor, and Man’s Search For Meaning was his autobiography. Not only was his autobiography one of the most page turning works I’ve ever read, but it opened my eyes and enlightened me to a lot of things that I hadn’t really thought of before, some which really helped me to get over my depression and existential crisis that I was also going through as a result of that depression. One of the most important takeaways from this autobiography was the concept of the “will to meaning.” This concept states that the primary motivation in the human being is the search for meaning, and that if the human being knows the “why” of his or her existence, then he or she can withstand the “how” of his or her existence. Essentially, this says that we all have something or someone to live for in our lives, and if we know what or who that is, then we can overcome any obstacle in life. In other words, our will to live is what gets us through the day. We all have something or someone to live for but it’s very easy to lose sight of that. It’s even easier to convince yourself that you are alone in dealing with your depression. When that darkness that surrounds you becomes so overpowering, even the loudest voices from the people who are closest to you can be tuned out. But quite the contrary: one is never truly alone. This was a fact that was further reinforced when I read Frankl’s autobiography. We easily convince ourselves that we are alone and that no one will want to help us. In the worst cases, we can sometimes convince ourselves that we don’t matter to anyone. That is just simply not true. Not in the slightest. It took me a while to be convinced of that, but I assure you that it’s true. You will always matter to someone, whether it’s your family, your friends, your professors, anyone. You absolutely matter. And those people are always there for you. And if you love those people nearly a fraction of how much they love you, believe me that your depression also hurts them too. So instead of thinking no one cares about you, think about the people who love you and use them to fight this depression that has you down. They are your reason to live and to rise above this horrible feeling. And maybe the most important thing to remember when you feel helpless is that you do have a say in the matter. You do have a choice. You have the choice to either let yourself be consumed or to tackle your depression head on and beat it. Like Frankl states in his autobiography, “man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.” I tell you all of this to try and convince you that yes, it IS possible to leave your depression behind. There ARE people that care about you and love you and want nothing but to see you happy, and that there IS a reason to beat your depression. Your depression may belong to you, but it doesn’t mean that you have to fight it alone. There ARE people who are willing to weather the storm with you. Don’t ever convince yourself otherwise. But most importantly, I write this to tell you that the ability to overcome your depression is in YOUR hands. I write this because I too care about you and how you feel. And if having read this helps you to conquer the darkness in any way, shape or form, then I’ve done my job not just as a writer but as a human being. As Brandon Lee’s character Eric Draven stated in the film The Crow, “it can’t rain all the time.” Things WILL get better. Don’t let yourself be brought down because of life’s circumstances. I don’t pretend to know exactly how you’re feeling, and I don’t want to tell you to get over yourself and that what you’re going through is a walk in the park. All I want is to tell you that as long as you’re still breathing, the worst hasn’t happened yet, and that happiness isn’t a destination or an end goal: it’s something that’s right in front of you. All you need to do is to want it and take it.
Regardless of what happiness means to you or to me, you don’t need to look far to find it, and it doesn’t have to be impossible to obtain it. Depression will always pay you a visit once in a while because life won’t always go the way you want it to. Not every day will greet you with a smile, but as long as your heart’s still beating and you’ve got people who love you to remind you of what’s important, you can and will find your way out of the darkness. And once you’ve accomplished that, your definition of happiness will start to take form, and the word happiness will become so much more than just nine letters put together. |
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