Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - How To Get The Physiological And Psychological Benefits Of Nature If You Don’t Live Near Nature | Dacher Keltner

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

Practical tips for accessing the healthcare of nature no matter where you live.It’s very possible that you've heard the long list of physiological and psychological benefits that one can derive from getting out into nature. Those benefits include improved mood, boosted immune system, lowered blood pressure and more. That being said, 80 percent of Americans live in urban areas. So today, we're going to talk to an expert about how to derive the many benefits of nature, no matter where you are.Dr. Keltner is one of the world’s foremost emotion scientists. He is a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and the director of the Greater Good Science Center. He has over 200 scientific publications and six books, including Born to Be Good, The Compassionate Instinct, The Power Paradox, and Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. He has written for many popular outlets, from The New York Times to Slate, and has consulted extensively for Google, Apple, and Pinterest, on issues related to emotion and well-being. He also hosts the podcast The Science of Happiness.In this episode we talk about:The importance of opening our senses to nature The power of birdsongThe science of street trees and their impact on depressionHow taking pictures of our local environment can enhance focus and productivityAnd lastly, how we can harness the power of our imagination Related Episodes:The Science Of How Nature Changes Your Brain—From Sleep To Cognition To Your Nervous System | Dacher Keltner#546. This Scientist Says One Emotion Might Be the Key to Happiness. Can You Guess What It Is? | Dacher KeltnerWe Know Nature Is Good for Us. Here’s How To Make Time for It, Scandinavian Style | Linda Åkeson McGurkSign up for Dan’s newsletter hereFollow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTokTen Percent Happier online bookstoreSubscribe to our YouTube ChannelOur favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular EpisodesFull Shownotes: https://happierapp.com/podcast/tph/dacher-keltner-bonus-2Additional Resources:Download the Happier app today: https://my.happierapp.com/link/downloadSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, everybody. How are we doing? Today we're going to address a frustration or pain point that many of you might feel. It is very possible that you've heard the long list of physiological and psychological benefits that one can derive from getting out into nature.

Those benefits include improved mood, boosted immune system, lowered blood pressure and more. So it's possible you've heard about all of this and thought to yourself, well, I don't live in nature. In fact, 80% of Americans live in urban areas. So today we're gonna talk to an expert about how to derive the many, many benefits of nature no matter where you are.

It's easier than you might think. Said expert is Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley who has over 200 scientific publications and six books, including Born to Be Good, The Power Paradox, and Awe, the New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. He also hosts a podcast of his own called The Science of

Happiness. In this conversation, we talk about the power of simply listening to recordings of birdsong or watching nature shows on TV, the impact of street trees on depression, an exercise that involves simply looking up at the sky, the studies around taking pictures of your local environment, and the research on simply using your imagination. Just to say this is the second of a three-part series we're doing focused on the benefits of spending time outside. You do not have to have heard the first part to follow along with this one, but if you do wanna check out that first one,

I put a link in the show notes, Dacher and I go through the long list of health benefits that can be conferred by spending time outside. And next week in the third and final episode, we're gonna take a deep dive on the science of walking. Before we get into it though, I wanna take a moment to thank our friends over at Columbia Sportswear for sponsoring today's episode as somebody who has become a recent convert to spending time outside

I know how challenging it can be when the cold weather hits and we find ourselves Stuck inside more often than not but the team at Columbia Sportswear is changing that they're making gear that keeps you cozy and comfortable whether you're Taking on a tough hike or just strolling to grab your morning coffee. Their innovative fabrics and thoughtful designs like their OmniHeat Infinity jackets allow you to stay active and enjoy the great outdoors. This high-performance jacket uses advanced thermal reflective technology to provide excellent

warmth and insulation so you can stay out there and keep moving no matter how cold it gets. Because the good folks over at Columbia sent me some jackets. I've been wearing this stuff, including my OmniHeat Infinity jacket, which has really been helpful at my son's outdoor flag football practices, which gets super cold. Makes me think about that Norwegian expression.

I'm probably gonna mangle it, but it's something like, there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. Having clothing like the stuff they make over at Columbia that allows me to get outside even when the weather sucks is super helpful and really good for my whole system. Okay, here we go now with Dacher Keltner. Dacher Keltner, welcome back to the show. It's good to be with you, Dan. This is part two of a three-part series we're doing.

Last week we talked about the benefits of being out in nature, and there are many, many benefits. I am mindful though of the fact that many people don't have easy access to what might commonly be considered wild spaces. So if you live in a city and you're interested in accessing all of the many, many benefits, physiological and psychological, of nature, what can you do? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a central challenge and it's so interesting to think explicitly about cities because cities

are where, from what I hear, 70% of our carbon emissions take place, right? It's where a lot of humanity lives, increasingly so. And I take heart in this new movement, you know, led by cities like London and Singapore, building parks and rewilding and taking little spaces and trying to return them to the original ecosystem. Even in the most intensive cities,

there are things you can do. There's a really interesting scientific literature on birdsong that's growing of, you know, get out to a place where you can hear birds and just take a moment in, again, this state where you're pausing and quieting and listening in this case, and that has benefits for calmness and ease. There is really interesting work on listening to water sounds, you know? So just taking a moment, and I do this,

having heard about this science, you know, listening to rain. I'm lucky enough to live near a stream, right? That a couple streams that run through Berkeley, a lot of cities have rivers. There is a science on it driving the benefits of flowers, you know, that there are certain chemicals that come off of flowers that actually calm the stress response in your body. So I think even the smallest elements of nature in cities can lead us to enjoy some of its benefits. So, you know, again, it's just this old form of wisdom of be intentional,

find spaces, and then open your senses to nature even in really complicated cities. I have a million follow-ups. Let me start with street trees. Yeah. Apparently there was a study by Melissa Marcel. Can you tell me about that? Yeah, you know, there's this whole explosion of science on, given the climate crises that we're facing, given the knowledge we now have about the benefits of nature

upon just your physical health, where scientists are looking at dimensions of nature like trees. We know philosophically, people know it intuitively. We have this kind of relationality to trees that the indigenous peoples wrote about. Darwin's central metaphor of evolution in life was the tree. They're important to us psychologically. Now there are scientists like Melissa Marceo

who are looking at, you know, are you actually calmer and healthier if you live in neighborhoods where there are diverse trees? And indeed you are. There are wonderful projects where, you know, you can clean up areas of a city, plant little trees, a recent project in Philadelphia, taking areas, urban spaces that have been lost,

plant gardens and some trees in it, and it reduces crime. There is big data approaches where you can look at the maps of cities and track rates of depression and anxiety, and it tracks your proximity to green spaces and trees, right? So, it's so exciting, you know, it's this argument for afforestation that it's good for our bodies and

brains, and Melissa Marcello is right at the cutting edge of that research. Given that there are many, many people who, through no fault of their own, don't live in a neighborhood with diverse trees, and there may not be a lot of birdsong, and there may not be babbling brooks nearby, the good news is, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong on this,

but the good news is simply playing a recording of birdsong or a babbling brook on your phone can have salutary effects. It's stunning. And it's a testimony to how wired we are to relate to nature, to feel strengthened and repaired by nature, as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote. And so there are studies, you know, listening to birdsong calms my body down.

Listening to the sounds of water, very rigorous science, has very nice benefits to, I think it elevates the vagus nerve, which is that bundle of nerves we've talked about that helps you open up and calm your body and concentrate better. Fragrances are part of nature. Those have benefits. Whenever I walk to school, I always touch the rosemary bushes, get a little scent of

rosemary. And fragrances are something that you can enjoy that are part of nature. And images, let's not forget images and how powerful nature images are. Almost all of the benefits of nature probably can be derived to some extent from images and sounds that you can enjoy anywhere. So by images, you know, in our last episode you made a couple references to BBC Earth. If I'm watching a nature doc on Netflix or anywhere, that actually is good for my brain?

Yeah. I mean, research out of Japan, really compelling research, brain research. Just watching BBC Earth, I think it was, or one of the compelling nature documentaries, deactivates the amygdala, the stress region of your brain,

threat region of your brain, and the default mode network, the self-focused region of different chunks of your cortex. That is striking to me, right? Just taking in images and dynamic videos of nature really highly curated has these benefits as strong as probably meditating and practicing a bit of yoga. So it's very encouraging in terms of thinking about the benefits of nature.

You mentioned flowers earlier, how flowers can have a nice effect on us. Again, if we don't live in an area where there are flowers blooming all over the place, would buying an inexpensive bouquet at the bodega give us the same squirt of dopamine or whatever it is? I love how you push these things down. I can't say that. You're pushing me into a corner. But what I can say is this,

which is we don't know if the scents are still vibrant and there's probably a specialist out there is like, you got that wrong. Cause once the plant is, the flowers are cut, they don't, they have the same scents. But we know smelling flowers in full bloom benefits your nervous system. It calms stress response, which is good news.

And then there's also a very interesting new scientific literature showing the beauty of flowers and the colors and the patterns and the fractal unfolding of petals and so forth also benefits us in terms of our sense of beauty and calm and attentional freeing up and absorption. So I would put my money on those florist flowers as being good for the mind.

I bet a lot of our listeners would agree. I'm going to go buy some flowers by the way, you're making me want to get some flowers. I actually met recently the guy who started 1-800-Flowers, he's quite a character, so maybe boosting his business today. Not an advertiser on this show, just to be clear. At the end of the last episode,

you talked about the fact that there are national parks in cities. Even if you live in a city and don't feel like you can get out and watch the bison on the Great Plains if that's even where they exist or if they even still exist anymore. But even if you can't travel, you don't have the money or time to travel, there are parks in many, if not all of our cities. Yeah, and I can't speak on to what extent

that claim is true, but we know Central Park in New York City is sacred to many of the people there. You know, there is the rewilding of the LA River, there's Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, which is historic, and there are regional parks all over the country, and rivers flowing through cities and trees, and a real concerted effort to rewild and to build little patches, in the middle of a road where you build in a little patch of wildflowers, right? And I was most impressed, Dan, by early sort of broad scale data where you can really map out green spaces in cities.

And the benefits of parks in cities is astounding. It is reduced depression, reduced anxiety, better activity for the elderly. There are economic benefits of parks in cities where people start building cafes around them and movie theaters and martial arts studios or whatever the case may be. So it is just a no-brainer in some sense.

And I think it's interesting because the Western mind often feels like, you know, and that's why you've asked the right question, like, oh, if I want to get benefits of nature, I got to go drive to Yellowstone, right? No. You know, it's very typically around us through national parks and cities, and also the different kinds of parks, and get in there and do the kinds of practices we've been talking about.

You know, sort of think about trees and clouds and sands and rivers and water and so forth, look at the water, and I think the benefits will be similar. So as we work down our list of ways in which people can derive the benefits of nature, even if they live in a urban or semi-urban environment. One of the things that's worth dwelling on is yard work, and I believe there's been some science around this.

Yeah, it's fascinating, and this science has inspired me to rake some more leaves and do some weeding, you know. So I'll start with the contemplation. There's this fellow named Shoke Matsumoto in Japan who's a Buddhist monk and one of the traditions in Japan. And his practice is all about sweeping and raking. And he teaches people, like we try to, like slow down and be aware and deepen your breathing and rake up those leaves and make it clean

and have a sense of cleaning your environment. And when you kind of move through the contemplation of it, it's powerful. And there is research from Japan showing a little bit of yard work helps people with depression and just feeling better about the world. And, you know, again, it's always the case with these nature-focused activities or contemplative activities. There are likely to be many causes, you know, from the sounds to the physical motion to slowing down to breathing.

But it's a real art to keep yard work as a part of your relationship to nature. Yeah. And if you live in an apartment, you can still be part of a community garden. You can have one of those gardens that hang out out your window. There are lots of ways in an intense urban environment to still do what we're calling yard work. Yeah, and you know, there are famous early studies, I think it was Ellen Langer, like just taking care of plants inside is good news for health.

So I think it's the idea of caring for the natural beauty around you, whatever form it takes, right, can be powerful. So let me ask you another question about how we might, and this, this could be another example of me pushing too hard so you can, you can push back. I'm wondering whether one can derive some of

the benefits of nature simply by having pets. Yeah, you know, so we do know a lot of our pets co-evolved with us for 10 or 15,000 years as, you know, hyenas started hanging around our campfires and becoming dogs and wolves and so forth. So we have this co-evolution with dogs in particular and pets. And then I do believe in the power of pets coming out of science, this work you and I have spoken of in Japan of man, just relating to your pet, looking it in the eye, this is a study with dogs.

You get a surge of oxytocin release, this neuropeptide that helps you connect, so does the dog. And then I think that there are a lot of emotional social benefits of pets, just the tactile contact, the synchronization of behavior, which we know benefit people. And so studies find pets help people in terms of mental and physical health. I love the broader question you're pointing to, which is, you know, certain kinds of pets get us back out into nature, right? And I love how, you know, there are, I think there are 87 million dogs in the United States,

and that means there are tens of millions of people walking their dogs. And one of the hidden benefits of walking your dog is, you know, not only do you get to meet other dog owners, but you're walking out in nature, and you of walking your dog is, you know, not only do you have to meet other dog owners, but you're walking out in nature and you're walking to the park and you're taking a look at the fall leaves. So there are certain ways in which the things we do bring a lot of the benefits of nature to us, like gardening.

And I think pets is one of those. It's a full-bodied immersion into nature. Working down my list of suggestions that came to me through Eleanor, the great producer of this trio of podcasts who I believe did some work with you in advance to give us some things to talk about. But one of the other suggestions I believe you have for folks who live in a city and want to get some of the benefits of nature is to get into the habit of taking pictures of our environment.

Can you say a little bit more about that? Yeah, it's powerful. We know images are powerful sources of awe and also the beauty of nature. People have been doing that, landscape painting, photography, time immemorial, Da Vinci and his landscapes, et cetera. So images really help us enjoy the benefits of nature.

We also have a scientific literature down on savoring, which is it is really important as we think about ways to cultivate wellbeing, be it listening to music or in this case, enjoying nature to savor, to intentionally have a moment where you reflect and you take in the thing that is bringing you joy and meaning. A beer with a friend or a piece of music, or in this case, nature, and photography does that.

It's part of the savoring mindset that is really important to well-being. We have profiled people. I have exercises in the classes I teach at UC Berkeley. And in fact, one is due tomorrow, where I asked the undergrads to go to a place on our very busy frenetic campus and take a picture of some part of nature that brings them all.

And then they're right. Three things are really grateful for. And I think that illustrates the power of taking images of nature and photography. It's a reflective moment. It's an opportunity to savor. It's an opportunity to bring into your mind for a more enduring time.

This is what's going well right now and also encouraged by nature. It shouldn't be forgotten. People do a lot of it and I think that for good reason. Semi-skeptical question. If you're pulling your phone out to document a thing, isn't that inherently pulling you out of the moment? Yeah, you know, there are a lot of risks with this, right?

Oh, I don't need to garden. I don't need to have deeper nature immersion. I can just take photos and then phones get us out of the experience. And yeah, I agree. I think this has to be done carefully and judiciously. In almost every realm in which we can think about cultivating awe or beauty or joy or bliss.

Direct experience comes first. That's one of the lessons of meditation is open up your mind directly and don't let things get in the way and the phone gets in the way. But I think we also in this effort have to be realistic and photography can have great moments. You can review photos in the, you know, 10 years from now and remember the backpacking trip with your kids or the day camping by the river and that matters. So do it with care. You know what I'm thinking about right now and I don't know if this is a useful analogy,

but have you ever heard of this meditative technique called mental noting? I haven't. Okay. So I'll just say a little bit about it. In certain forms of Vipassana meditation or insight meditation, there is this instruction to use thinking in a skillful way. And a lot of people find this confusing because you're not supposed to be thinking in a skillful way. And a lot of people find this confusing because,

aren't you not supposed to be thinking in meditation? And there's a whole lot to say on that, but the TLDR is, you can't stop thinking. So thinking is going to happen in meditation. It's not a problem unless you make it one. And there are actually very skillful ways to use thinking to get the mind to tune into the direct sensory experience. So I know in our next episode, we're going to talk about walking meditation.

If you just say you're doing a slow walk through nature and you're trying to open all the senses, you know, taking all the sights and sounds and smells, and then the mind wanders and you bring it back. Well, one way to keep the mind focused a little bit longer is just to drop into the mind a soft mental note of seeing, hearing, smelling, and that's a skillful use of thought to connect you to your direct sensory experience. I can imagine using the phoneme this way, a co-opting of what is generally a distraction, FOMO, and misery machine to actually connect you

to a flower or a vista or something like that, if done correctly. Yeah, and I think your wisdom is so profoundly important, especially for our younger listeners out there, Dan, and it aligns with the science, which is phones are incredible, the photography people take's incredible, but we have to use

these technologies actively, right, with intention and with a reflection around it. And I couldn't agree more and I'll just allude to something that I do and we're starting to test scientifically and it actually comes out of a movement at Harvard in art experiences or aesthetic experiences, this professor encourages slow looking and it's this mental noting of your perceptual field where you look at a scene in nature and you have people notice the colors, how many colors are happening. You guide your mind or other people to notice the shapes, the shadows, the patterns, right?

It's just slowing down looking through mental notation. Lots of benefits in the art world. I think it'll prove to be beneficial in the nature world and phones can help us with that. It's how we compose the image and it should be more of a reflective or contemplative act. So I love your suggestion. I'll go do it today. Thank you. I'm not very good with the phone because of my eyesight, but. Mental noting can be done whether you have eyesight or not.

Well, since we're talking about meditation, let me close this episode on a meditative tip, which comes from a suggestion that you gave to ACE producer, Eleanor Vasili, who's honchoing these episodes. And it goes right at this question of, well, how can I get the benefits of nature if I don't live in the great Northwoods or in Alaska or whatever? And you said there's actually a way to use your imagination to conjure nature that can

carry a lot of benefits with it. So can you talk about this exercise? Yeah, thank you. You know, it's so interesting, Dan, a lot of research that has documented the benefits of what I would call contemplative practices, like thinking of somebody who supports you and reflecting on the kindness of that person, or thinking about something you're grateful for, or thinking about a you're grateful for or thinking about a moment

of calm, rely on the memory and the power of the memory as a source of emotion. And that's pretty robustly documented in science, which is we remember a lot. As you get older, you remember much more of your conscious life. So given that, we've been testing the idea of having people recall a place in nature that has meaning to them. And most people have that kind of place, right? It could be where they went with their family as a kid. It could be the annual reunion at a campsite. It could be the garden they worked in.

It could be a patch of flowers that their grandmother always grew. There are many different versions. Most people have a relationship to some space in nature. And so what you do in this practice is you just say, get into a pattern of deep breathing, calm your body, deepen the exhalation, and now call to mind that place of significance

in nature to you. Really start to get, you know, in your mind a sense of what it looks like, a favorite spot. You know, for me, it might be the pine needles and the trees and the lay of this campsite and the rocks, the granite that was at this place. Okay, now I'm calling to mind the images there.

Now think about the sounds you might hear. You know, oh, I can almost hear the scrub jays there and the woodpeckers, right? And that starts to come to mind. Now think if you can call to mind certain scents, right, that you might smell. Oh, I smell the cedar or pine. And then if you're really gifted at this one, I always fall short on is like, what does it taste like? And I love that five senses meditation in general. Here, it's just attaching it to memories of a place in nature. And that is starting to have documented benefits of just reminding ourselves of the important places

in nature that are part of our life. It's incredible. It really does speak to how central nature is to human flourishing. That we don't actually need to be in nature to derive the benefits of it. It can be, as we discussed earlier, BBC Earth or Netflix documentary,

and it can simply just be conjuring the image in your mind and immersing yourself in it through your imagination. It's incredible. It's incredible. When I talk to groups like healthcare providers about that practice and help them go through it, you know Some of them tear up they remember a place that they went camping with their grandparents, you know And it reminds us just like you said Dan of this sacred relationship We have to nature that is jeopardized today for many reasons and we need to fortify Dacher thanks for all the practical advice for how we can get the benefits of nature

no matter where we are. Really appreciate that. When we return on this three-part adventure we're on, so next week in our episode, we're gonna talk specifically about walking because there are benefits to walking in nature, but there are also many, many benefits to just walking. So we're gonna dive into that next time,

but in the meantime, thank you. It's been great being with you, Dan. but there are also many, many benefits to just walking. So we're gonna dive into that next time, but in the meantime, thank you. It's been great being with you, Dan, and I love our conversations because they always, they always make me hunger to get out and practice this stuff, so. To get away. I know, from the zoo.

And our machines, such as the Paradox, so far work. Indeed. Thanks again to Dacher Keltner. Don't forget to tune in next week as we continue our series on the benefits of nature. Before I leave you, I want to take a moment to thank our sponsor, once again, Columbia Sportswear, for supporting today's episode and, in fact, this whole series. Their commitment to getting people outside to connect with nature, something I very much resonate with, especially after talking to Dacker.

Finding the right gear can make all the difference in helping you make the most of your time outdoors. Columbia Sportswear's OmniHeat Infinity Jackets have amazing technology designed to keep you active without compromising comfort. I can speak personally on this one. They've done a very good job on that jacket. It's the kind of gear that can turn a good outdoor adventure into a great one. Head over to Columbia.com to see how they can keep you

prepared for any temperature. One final thing to say before I really let you go, I just want to thank everybody who worked so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great people over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager.

Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.