It’s easy to get stuck indoors to relax by reading a book or scrolling through your newsfeed when you find some spare time to breathe. But do you ever think that doing these leisure time activities outside could
increase your positive feelings?
Nature is a have-to-have for cognitive function and physical health, as long as you feel safe, relaxed and embrace your experience in the outer environment. There are irrefutable benefits you can get while spending time outside: green spaces improve your emotional strength, enthusiasm, peace of mind and energy levels and help you sleep better at night.
Taking mid-day walks is good, assuming you wear the proper clothes and SPF. When sunlight hits your skin, it triggers the creation of vitamin D, which helps to prevent cancer and osteoporosis. You should pay attention to your skin type – darker-skinned people need more time spent in sunlight than light-toned ones.
If you’re a nature lover but your schedule is always full and you hardly find the time to enjoy nature, keep reading to find out four other ways you can rip Mother Earth’s benefits besides going to parks and forests.
Allow nature to improve your well-being.
Cognitive and mental health improvement, as well as enhanced mood and emotional behaviour are connected to the time you spend in nature. Two hours are a realistic target for most people, and you can spread this time across the week. Research shows that your goal must be to spend at least five hours a month in nature to improve your well-being.
You may find that the more time you spend outside, the clearer and more peaceful your mind is because nature has the following benefits:
– Increases dopamine production and endorphin levels, promoting happiness
– Decreases cortisol – the hormone that produces stress – and lowers blood pressure
– Increases feelings of calmness
– Improves the quality of your sleep
– Boosts immunity
– Restores capacity for attention and concentration
– Reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety
– Reduces feelings of isolation
– Reduces irritability.
Make contact with the surrounding environment.
Indoor garden
Whether you do it alone or with family, this can be a fun DIY weekend project. If you’d dreamed of having a backyard but are, for the moment, stuck with a balcony, don’t demoralise! You can have a whole load of greenery, assuming you organise yourself and use common sense when you purchase your plants and planters. Keep the following pro tips in mind when you start your indoor garden project:
– Plants have different needs and require different conditions to thrive.
– There are a few fruits and vegetables that gardening experts recommend over others when you choose what edibles to grow in your planters.
– Think of their lighting in advance and figure out where you’ll place it
– Determine what the best way to water plants is
– There are low-maintenance plants that thrive no matter what.
Outdoor garden
Most people dream of owning a garden to grow unique, colourful flowers to catch the eye. The proper backyard and care can increase the longevity of your plants.
You must offer them attention if you want your greeneries to withstand the seasons. Your plants need proper outdoor planters of correct sizes that don’t restrict their roots from expanding – when they grow, they usually need a larger container. Drainage is crucial to your plant’s healthy growth, so you must choose ones that have holes in the bottom to allow excess water to drain out not and avoid drowning. Regarding planters’ materials, plastic is among the most versatile and easy-to-transport choices for your containers.
If you want to enjoy nature in your garden, don’t deprive it of light. Instead, think of solutions for how you can allow shade and provide your plants’ vital resources. Pick planters that are easy to install and which you can hang or catch to walls and units in your backyard. It isn’t only healthy for flowers, fruits and veggies, but it can also be pleasant to the eye if you pay a little attention to the colours you pick for plants’ containers.
You will enjoy your beautiful greenery every day and likely fall in love with trimming and watering it.
Move your activities outdoors.
You do plenty of your daily activities indoors when you could actually move some outside. Go read that book and exercise in the nearest park in your city instead of your living room.
You can’t make a barbeque in your indoor kitchen, but you can do some cooking on your balcony or your porch.
You might think your Juliet balcony doesn’t allow you to perform any household chores, but the truth is you can always sit on or in front of it and chop your vegetables while you occasionally mesmerise by the nature around your block and the lovely plants in your pots. Sometimes you should play your favourite music in the background – it can be more relaxing than watching TV, especially when your mind needs rest.
Similarly, you can enjoy cooking and cleaning on your veranda. Take breaks to pick dead leaves, flowers, fruits and veggies from time to time, and don’t forget to observe if their planters need to be changed, because some plants expand more than others.
Go camping
If you are a camping lover, you already know how to manage this experience to be safe at night and not run out of necessary resources. But if you’re a newbie to sleeping outside, you should have a trial camping experience before jumping to living in the wild.
Living outdoors allows you to keep active and explore new surroundings. Instead of charging your smartphone or tablet, you will unplug and recharge your own batteries. You’ll unconsciously exercise more because managing your shelter, preparing and storing food and getting around a campsite requires more activity than it did in the comfort of your home.
Regardless of who you camp with, being in their proximity without the interference of modern devices will allow you to bond on deeper levels and create unforgettable memories.
To ensure you rip the benefits of this journey, try to reach out to an experienced camper.
Walking in the park and diving into forests are excellent activities but require more time than walking around your block. Pick up gardening and start to incorporate nature into your home to ensure you keep in touch with greenery all the time.
