Natural medicines are just outside your door

This post was written by author, editor and explorer Bridget A. Lions. Intertwined: Dispatch from a species intersectionIt was released this month.

It’s a typical day on my computer. In the few minutes that were narrowed down during the Zoom meeting, it steadily attacked my inbox. I answered some calls, resolved the software glitches and rewritten the documentation. I’m probably “creative,” but I’ve started spending more than half my wake up staring at a shining 15-inch screen. When I do a body scan, I feel breathing is shallow, my lower back hurts, and my teeth are gritted. Mind scans detect some toxicities Self-talk And more than a trace of negativity.

I know the meaning of these symptoms: I have a case of bad cutting not only from myself and from myself, but from countless creatures that I share. Luckily, I know how to treat this harmful mental health condition. It’s time to go on a mission of gratitude for someone other than human beings.

I went down the stairs, left the condo complex and was invited to a huge Norfolk Island pine tree that rose above the building. “Hello, my friend,” I say to this majestic 120-year-old companion with security guards on top of my unit. I see this tree every day, and I look at it with fresh eyes and admire the way its branches appear at the tip and how its needle curls like a finger stretched towards the sky.

On the sidewalk, I head to the beach. Along the way, I put my hands on the rosemary bushes, raised my fingers to my nose and sucked deeper, and enjoyed the spicy taste. scent. The sound of sea lions barks thrusts traffic and makes me smile. Today they don’t have time to walk to their heads lol, but I like to remind them that dozens of playful micro-works are swimming, hunting and bathing in the sun.

Once you reach the water, you will see multiple species of seaweed stacked up along the tide line, creating a mound that many people find unsightly. But when I pull on a giant kelp chain – Macrosite– Out of tangle, all I see is beauty. The complex wavy pattern of that brownish green blade (leaf-like part) is my Note Completely.

Within a few minutes my reality had changed. My jaw and spine were relaxed, my breathing slowed, and my looped thoughts about my to-do list evaporated. Most importantly, I arrested a downward spiral that I could fall into very easily. It tells me that I’m not keeping up, that I’m not good enough, that I don’t have time to “just.” I morning At this moment, “just.” It took me to get there and be grateful for the other creatures.

As a species, we invested a great deal of effort to separate ourselves from what we call “natural.” We built climate-controlled buildings, sealed us out of them, invented the cars that whipped them out, and developed a technology that allowed us to get the calories we needed without touching plants or animals.

But we cannot separate ourselves from nature We are part of it. We evolved along with it. Our destiny is intertwined with the destiny of all other creatures on Earth.

Naturally, being aware and involved in this connection is good for our mental health. Medical researcher Marcia in reviews of 150 articles on links between human health and exposure to nature Jimenez et al. “Evidence was found for a link between nature exposure and improved cognitive function, brain activity, blood pressure, mental health, physical activity and sleep.”(BL1) Popular activities like “Forest bathing” and “ecotherapy” support the association.

And there is empirical evidence that you have definitely been collected throughout your own life. Peace you felt as you saw the cardinals in your bird feeder, the ground at the moment you felt as you walked barefoot on a carpet of moss, the elation you experienced as you spurted out of the deck of the boat.

In writing It’s intertwinedmy essay book on my recent encounters with non-human human creatures made me even more confident that all creatures could be the source of wonder. From mantas and mosquitoes to mushrooms and mussels, I could have written about any of them. And while a bit of natural history research certainly won’t hurt, you can take the time to get a lot to notice and appreciate potted plants in the windows and snails in the entrance.

Imagine what would happen if we all did this more often. Supporting marine mining initiatives is difficult when it comes to coral connections. Considering old growth as friends, it’s difficult to get behind the officials who want to clean up them. As you look forward to seeing the pronghorn antelope run across the High Plains, it is difficult to allow their habitat torn into a fracking project. If we shift to a state of greater connection with all our lives, we can collectively change the trajectory of our linked biodiversity and climate crisis.

And in the process, we can help ourselves to lead a happy and rich life. Who doesn’t want that? As science writer Ed Yong says in his wonderful book, A huge world“When we pay attention to other animals, our own world expands and deepens.”

All we have to do is look around and notice them.