NATURE EXPOSURE & LONGEVITY (Webinar with Sarah Nielson follow-up + recording)

Sarah started the webinar by stressing on the importance of biophilia. She sheds light on how humans nowadays deviate from their innate relationship to nature by considering it luxury, prioritizing screen time, increasing indoor living, and changing the perception of nature due to social media. Biophilia is defined as an innate human instinct that connects nature and other living beings. Sarah revealed the existence of complementary treatments, such as Forest Medicine, for enhanced emotional and physical wellbeing, longevity, and health-span. She stressed on how essential it is to relax by mentioning a beautiful quote “If you don’t pick a day to relax, your body will pick it for you”.

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Later, Sarah started explaining the effects of nature on health, longevity, and health-span. She presented a picture showing the historical roots behind nature exposure, when people used nature to prevent the spread of some diseases. One of these methods is open air, which involves deep breathing of cool air or sea air. She then introduced a new term “forest bathing”, created by the Japanese Forest Agency in 1982, that encourages overworked and stressed citizens to visit their local forests and bathe in the natural environment around them. Sarah explored how nature improves health-span and longevity by enhancing immune support, cognitive performance, and reducing the risk of chronic conditions.

She presented a study showing improved cognitive performance which was assessed using attention restoration theory, stress reduction theory, and mindfulness creativity flow after nature exposure. Therefore, nature can enhance the patients’ mental health. She then explained each of these theories. Here , Sarah also highlighted how important is  nature for a better functioning immune system. She then added how nature exposure increases natural killer cell count and anti-cancer proteins. It also decreases the cortisol levels and inflammation. Also she mentioned nature exposure enhances sleep duration. Nature decreases the risk of chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiac diseases, and obesity. She showed a graph that links nature to different diseases outcomes. For example, a decrease in glucose, reduction in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and an increase in physical activity in diabetes, cardiac diseases and obesity patients relatively. proved that nature exposure lowers level of glucose, decreases systolic and diastolic blood.

In addition, the cost and time as barriers to engaging in physical activity, emphasizing that nature could be our most efficient use of time were discussed . As society wants to be very efficient in terms of time and energy, nature is the most valuable commodity. She suggested solutions such as the daily dose of nature shortcuts and workarounds for physical, and emotional sweep - cognitive creativity, vitality, sense of connection, etc. She stressed the need to balance screen-time with green-time.

Another point that Sarah tackled is that exposing children to nature early in life is not only good for their emotional and physical development, but also lays a solid foundation for them to jump in and out of nature when they need it. At the end of the webinar, Sarah addressed the questions raised by the audience.

To know more, watch the full webinar

Be sure to check the recording of this webinar by visiting the HealthyLongevity.guide, where you can find much more information you can utilize to improve your clients’ longevity.

What’s next?

Stay tuned for our next webinar with Bill Harris on February 5, 9 AM PT. The upcoming webinar will cover the topic of “Omega-3 fatty acids and longevity”.

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