{"id":329,"date":"2009-04-20T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-20T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/2009\/04\/do-you-have-a-nature-deficit.html"},"modified":"2009-04-20T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-20T14:00:00","slug":"do-you-have-a-nature-deficit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/04\/do-you-have-a-nature-deficit.html","title":{"rendered":"Do You Have a Nature Deficit?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\"paul_bloom_nyt.jpg\"<\/span>Giving props to the NYT Magazine’s green issue<\/a> from yesterday. It’s full of good stuff about the human psychology\/brain wiring barriers to becoming greener. A really good read, and not just because I love the Momix-sculpted <\/a>(Spencer Tunick-inspired) cover.<\/p>\n

The main story that got me was “Natural Happiness: The self-centered case for environmentalism<\/a>.” Yale prof Paul Bloom mentions loads of studies that illustrate the stress-reducing power of nature. Even just having a window that looks out onto trees helps hospital patients heal faster, keeps prisoners healthy, autistic kids more balanced, Alzheimer’s sufferers more cognizant. He mentions “nature-deficit disorder<\/a>“–author Richard Louv’s theory about how kids’ decreased contact with the natural world is making them a little bit nutso, not to mention fat and indifferent to the environment. <\/p>\n

Congress is about to reintroduce the “No Child Left Inside” act<\/a>, a move to introduce environmental education in schools that would include outside adventures since kids spend 50 percent less time indoors now that they did 20 years ago. Yikes.<\/p>\n

But what about us grown-ups? Are you getting your daily Vitamin N? I spend eight hours a day staring at a computer screen and other buildings, nary a sprig in sight. And wonder how much more chill I would be if I could gaze at a river or swaying branches or frolicking bison. (Ok, maybe no bison, though I did see a bunch at the zoo this weekend and they were gorgeous in their own bizarrely proportioned way).  But I do make sure to walk through parks, get out of the city, connect with trees, etc. How do you get your nature fix?<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Giving props to the NYT Magazine’s green issue from yesterday. It’s full of good stuff about the human psychology\/brain wiring barriers to becoming greener. A really good read, and not just because I love the Momix-sculpted (Spencer Tunick-inspired) cover. The main story that got me was “Natural Happiness: The self-centered case for environmentalism.” Yale prof…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-valerie-reiss","category-holistic-living"],"yoast_head":"\nDo You Have a Nature Deficit? - Fresh Living<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/04\/do-you-have-a-nature-deficit.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do You Have a Nature Deficit? - Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Giving props to the NYT Magazine’s green issue from yesterday. 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She was a founding editor at Breathe magazine, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Women's Health, Natural Health, Yoga Journal, Lime.com, Vegetarian Times, and ABCNEWS.com. A native New Yorker, Valerie holds an M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a B.A. from Beloit College in Creative Writing with a minor in Women's Studies. She also lived in Maui for a while where she drank green papaya juice and taught some creative writing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/author\/vreiss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}