There’s an adage that goes, “If you want to boil a live frog, don’t turn up the heat too quickly, or the frog will jump out of the pot.” Aside from why you would want to boil a frog, the point is that we may not notice destructive changes when they affect us slowly until after the damage is done. If that is true, the lockdowns and shut-ins of the past two years may have boiled our collective well-being past the point of shoe leather.
Beginning in 2022, The Epoch Times reported widely on the devastating effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns. From increases in obesity and depression to delayed learning and cognitive development in children, the evidence (pdf) is overwhelming that the COVID-19 lockdowns caused significantly more harm than good.
As bad as the effects of the lockdowns were, the greatest harm to our health might well be the long-term increase in the time we spent—and continue to spend—indoors.
Starting in the 1980s, the amount of time Americans spent indoors has been steadily climbing. Even before the lockdowns, data showed that Americans were spending a whopping 90 to 93 percent of their time indoors—which is not good.
Years before governmental COVID-19 mandates forced people indoors, a mountain of evidence revealed a nasty stew of negative physical and psychological effects from too much time indoors: Depression, cardiovascular disease, respiratory ailments, inflammation, and the issues go on and on.
Although our health has clearly suffered from being “locked in,” there is good news: A substantial body of evidence suggests that our bodies are hardwired to be cured by nature. Just 20 minutes daily spent outside, even standing in a natural space, has been shown to improve our health dramatically.
In the early 1980s, a Japanese researcher, Tomohide Akiyama, began publishing findings about how our bodies responded to being in a natural environment. In a series of studies, Akiyama encouraged participants to go out into a forest or a park and slowly, mindfully, spend short periods of time there, a process he called shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing.” Akiyama found that being out in nature lowered blood pressure, improved heart function, and suppressed the release of stress hormones.
Why do our bodies respond so well when we spend time outside?
In 1984, American biologist Edward O. Wilson published a book called “Biophilia” in which he speculated that we are genetically designed to be attracted to nature and natural things. Wilson proposed that through millions of years of evolution, our bodies and minds adapted to living outside and thus do not respond well to being kept indoors, writing, “The biophilia hypothesis boldly asserts the existence of a biologically based, inherent human need to affiliate with life and lifelike process.”
Wilson’s biophilia hypothesis seemed to support Akiyama’s work but nonetheless sparked a 20-year debate within the scientific community.
In 2005, journalist Richard Louv published “Last Child in the Woods.” In the book, Louv coined the term “nature-deficit disorder” to describe what he believed was happening to our children as we kept them indoors for longer periods of time.
Louv chronicled exploding rates of obesity, skyrocketing adolescent depression, and a whole host of negative effects brought on by “an increasing divide between the young and the natural world.”
Louv agreed with Wilson that we are genetically wired to be outside and wrote that our children were suffering from a gross deficiency of what he called “Vitamin N,”—that is, “N” for nature. The response to “Last Child in the Woods” was nothing short of sensational, and the book was praised by a chorus of leading thinkers, writers, clinicians, and politicians.
Centuries before we began gathering clinical data about the benefits of being outside, people knew that the natural world held the power to heal. From the ancient Greeks to the Romans, to the native peoples of the Americas, there is a long history of extolling the benefit of being in and around nature.
While Akiyama, Wilson, and Louv theorized that the reason for this healing response is our evolutionary biology, others, like theologian and ecologist Dr. Christopher Thompson, argue we are drawn to nature because of our divine origins.
While Thompson does not deny the physical benefits of being outside, he emphasizes that the driving force of these benefits is that nature, with its order, structure, and predictable rhythms, has been created as our first “classroom” in which we learn about the Creator and how we fit in the created order.
In his book “The Joyful Mystery,” Thompson takes issue with the theory that we feel better when in nature because of a connection back to a “biologically driven unconsciousness, … remnants of a past now long forgotten through the centuries of evolution and progress.”
Instead, Thompson asserts that the joy, even the wellness that we feel when in nature, comes from a deep connection with our metaphysical origins—an insight “into our status as a creature within the cosmos, created by God who is love.” Put plainly, Thompson argues that we feel better in nature because we feel a sense of awe, which is “a glimpse of the gift of being.”
Whether the benefits from being outside arise from our biology or a connection to a creator, the evidence that spending time outside is good for us is clear and conclusive. This is notably true during the winter months in which daylight hours are shorter and, as the temperature drops, we tend to spend increased time indoors.
According to some studies, during the cold winter months, we spend nearly twice as much time indoors, including when we exercise, than during summer. While this is not surprising, more time indoors increases our exposure to allergens—like dust mites—known to cause respiratory difficulties like asthma (pdf), especially in children.
When we combine our increased time indoors with shorter winter days, we decrease our exposure to sunlight, which in turn reduces our levels of vitamin D, an essential for fighting infections like COVID-19. Taken together, the drop in sunlight during winter, increased exposure to allergens, and a lack of vitamin D take a toll on our mental and physical health.
However, there is good news: Just 10 to 20 minutes spent outside during the winter months has been shown to improve physical and mental health, according to a study. And the benefits of being outside are not connected to any particular activity—walking, building a snowman, or just standing outside can all help improve our health during the winter months.
On colder days, when the temperature is below freezing, be sure to dress appropriately. Layers of clothing work best, and clothing made from natural fibers like wool or down tend to work better than synthetics. Cotton clothing will keep you warmer than polyester, but since it is a natural fiber, it tends to absorb and hold moisture (from the weather or our perspiration) and, when wet, is a poor insulator.
Dressing well and staying warm can make going outdoors in winter a pleasure rather than a chore and help ensure the desire to get outside. As the old Scandinavian saying goes, “There is no bad weather, just bad clothing.”
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.