Every once in a while, I get into bit of a funk. It’s sort of like when an introvert has been extraverting all day and can’t quite get their energy back.
I have been in one lately.
This is totally okay and kind of a natural cycle for some people. Some people is me. It’s a hard expectation on a person to be super-happy-excited-awesome all day, every day, right?
Anyway, a kind friend—a person I think is a bit magical—took me to a garden. She had an extra ticket, she said. I had the right of first refusal.
Though I am too busy for words, I did not refuse. I felt guilty for going though, for leaving the house and the computer and going somewhere beautiful: a garden in the woods on land right next to Acadia National Park.
It was extraordinary.
We walked. She told me things about what we saw and how she sees.
The flowers and their structures and the planned garden, the ancient tennis court, the foundations of old mansions crumbled were all lovely. The itty-bitty frogs resting and literally leapfrogging each other in a pristine pool were stunning.
But it was the woods that got me.
For me, it was all about getting to see this amazing woman in all her magicalness, but also all about the woods and the whispering calls of birds that would occasionally be a bit louder than the garden visitors.
When I got home, I sat back down at my computer to work and realized as I looked at the screen that for two whole hours, I’d actually forgotten emails existed.
I wasn’t super psyched to remember that they did.
It makes sense.
A new study from North Carolina State University and reported in Environmental Conservation has worked into the science of what my sweet hobbit dad and his gardening brother always proclaimed: Being outside, being away, listening to the birds, breathing in the air that’s been kissed by trees, helps us.
It helps us so much.
And it helps us so quickly.
It can lower our feelings of stress, make our mood better, and us feeling a bit more restored in just ten minutes.
The researchers took 106 students from their college and put them in two different spots. One was in a forest by a stream. The tree canopy shaded the paths and buildings. The other was a gray space, surrounded by pavement and buildings, traffic and people.
At each place, the students brought an audio of a soundscape (one of Florida birds in a marsh and the other of traffic) and listened.
Every time they listened to the birdsong—even when it was in the gray space—the students felt better. The results were greater when they sat in the woods and listened, but there was still positive results in the place of parking, people, and concrete.
So, I did that today, after a bit of a cruddy morning that involved a barking dog and writing about a town government meeting and other not-super-happy things.
The songs of the birds improved people’s moods. The trees and the shade helped their brains to rest.
According to an article by Dr. Michiko Kimura Bruno in Psychology Today, “Recent studies using tools such as functional MRI and EEG are beginning to show that natural and urban environments engage the brain differently, including networks involved in attention, stress, emotion, and self-referential thought.
“According to Attention restoration theory (ART), “attention” is a finite resource, that can be depleted by constant stimulation.
“Modern life constantly demands directed attention: ignore the notification, answer the email, switch between windows, remember the deadline at work—while also scheduling the dentist appointment, arranging the car safety check, and figuring out the family vacation.
“Our attention rarely gets to be off duty. Nature captures attention differently. A cloud moving, leaves rustling, water flowing, birds calling—these attract us without demanding that we concentrate on them.”
A long time ago, a woman. walked by our house on our little one-way street in downtown Bar Harbor (which isn’t, honestly, that much of a downtown) and she couldn’t understand (she’d said quite loudly while walking by) why we hadn’t pulled down the hedges in front of our house.
I heard all this because my window was open and I tend to hear things.
“Because birds live there!” I almost yelled out the window, but refrained. Whole families of birds live in those overgrown, utility-line reaching, shrubs.
There is power in birds, in habitat, in bees buzzing and birds calling. We can cultivate that if we own a home or are in charge of a space. The layers of habitat become a sanctuary for birds and animals, worms, bugs, but also for us when we remember to go step into it, to listen, to see the shade dapple through the tree canopy and just breathe.
And, also, you know, when we forget email exists. That helps too.
All photos by me.
This blog/newsletter/Substack/whatever will always be free to read now, but it’s also part of how I pay my mortgage.
If a paid subscription is way too big an ask, I’m always thankful for help buying dog treats.
Or, honestly, just sharing that this Substack exists is super cool.
I usually send these emails twice a week.
*My WRITE BETTER NOW posts also come one to two times a week if you sign up for them, too, which you should.
And COMFORTING is where I just have no filter at all and am totally schmaltzy is here. That’s once a week or so.
Note: I will not be terribly, perfectly, grammatically correct.
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