Spend Time Outside
When I’m feeling restless or unmotivated, and even when I’ve passed over into “the day is sunk, I am now a couch slob” territory, the lowest barrier for me to turning the day around is to get a glass of water and drink it outside. For me, that inevitably leads to seeing the toys my kids left scattered across the yard and going to pick them up. But then I see the vegetables that had been picked and left on the patio. That leads me over to the garden. I weed, I pick, I admire. And then I’m happier. I feel accomplished and reset.
Small studies and analyses of large sets of data have shown lots of benefits tied to being outside. Some of these include:
Feeling less anxious
Less cycling of stressful thoughts
Harder to stay in a bad mood
The more time outside, the more you feel those things above, has been tied to lower rates of type 2 diabetes, better cardiovascular health, and better sleep.
Overall, people report that they feel more healthy. And isn’t that the goal? Not just to have healthy lab results and cholesterol numbers. But to actually feel healthy?
As a primary care doctor, I have a special interest in mental health. I spend a lot of time providing therapy during my appointments. It always made me so sad the number of people who feel alone, isolated, and depressed. It was even more sad seeing the realization on parents’ faces when their young kids expressed those same feelings nonchalantly, like “Yea, I feel like that sometimes, but all my friends do.”
The studies also showed that kids who spent at least 15 minutes outside for 4 days out of the week reported a higher quality of life, better mood, and less stress. In general, it looks like if you can get 2 hours of being outside per week, that is enough to lead to better health and better mood.
So what’s that look like? On lazy days for our family, that’s sitting outside on the patio or drawing with chalk on the driveway. On other days, we go on long bike rides after dinner. I got to spend this summer at home with my kiddo, which was amazing. Every day we would find a new park to drive to and explore.
Find what works for you and let me know if you notice a difference!
