Contact with Nature Lowers Stress Hormones
 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas...90404074915.htm

Just 20 minutes of contact with nature will lower stress hormone levels, reveals new study
Date:
April 4, 2019
Source:
Frontiers in Psychology
Summary:

The data revealed that just a twenty-minute nature experience was enough to significantly reduce cortisol levels. But if you spent a little more time immersed in a nature experience, 20 to 30 minutes sitting or walking, cortisol levels dropped at their greatest rate. After that, additional de-stressing benefits continue to add up but at a slower rate.

I've heard this kind of stuff before. I think you actually have to like nature and isolation for this to be true. I find the bugs annoying, the potential for snakes lurking in leaves terrifying, and every horror movie is some version of "don't go into the woods." I never understand people who think rural places are safer--for pete's sake there's no one to hear you scream if someone breaks into your house. So, I'm way too irritated and tense for nature to be relaxing.

There are quite a few other ways to get rid of stress.

In addition or exercise, this article lists a few other ways. None expose you to snakes or bugs.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/stay...cising-to-relax

City :lol: You need nature even more! It doesn't have to be a rural area, you can sit on your patio and enjoy the sun on your face, birds chirping, breeze blowing through the trees. It's the one place I lose my isolated sense of self and feel one with nature. I can even get a little bit of this feeling walking around the Home Depot garden center!

I’m your classic suburbanite, neither urban nor rural. But my home is on a small pond and I get visits from ducks, herons, egrets, occasionally ospreys, anhingas, even wood storks or cormorants. I have a bluebird box in the yard and bluebirds nest there every year. They are nesting now! I have bird feeders up, and have documented over 100 species of birds to visit my yard. I like to start my mornings with my coffee, sitting in my sunroom watching the pond and the birds. I definitely find it soothing and peaceful.