Nature and the Mind

As most anyone who regularly spends time outdoors in the natural world will tell you, there is something about doing so that makes one feel better. This might be an improvement of one’s emotional state, or it might be a feeling of improved physical vigor. However regardless of how may people would say this, it still leaves the sixty-four thousand dollar question unanswered: why?

In his new book Nature and the Mind; The Science of How Nature Improves Cognitive, Physical, and Social Well-Being, Dr. Marc Berman presents the history of his own journey from studying engineering to undertaking advanced studies in psychology and eventually his becoming one of the founders of the new field of environmental neuroscience. And in recounting this journey, he explains step-by-step the ideas, experiments, and discoveries along the way that have led him now to be ready to present to a broad audience the physical and psychological benefits that come from exposure to the natural world – and of particular importance, why it has such effects.

What makes this book particularly stand out from the shelves of those that have come before it, all making claims to have cracked the secret of nature’s effect upon mental health, is Dr. Berman’s explorations into the ideas of directed attention and involuntary attention, how modern technology-saturated life over-taxes and depletes the former by excessive triggering of the latter, and how this effects human psychological and physical health. If I’m honest, I will admit that when I began reading this book I was a bit skeptical (having read a number of books making such claims in the past but coming up short), but the further I read into Dr. Berman’s observations, the more and more I found myself thinking – and often even audibly saying – “yes, I see; that now makes sense.”

This book indeed merits much further consideration and comment, which it will receive here in the near future, but for the present, it is well worth noting its publication and availability at this time for those who find that what has been stated thus far to be sufficient to inspire their own investigations of it and Dr. Berman’s ideas.