How to get into nature and out of your head

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1:33You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. This week, we've got a compilation of some of our favorite moments from previous episodes of the show. One of the cool things about the fact that we've gotten to talk to so many people over the years of doing this show is that the producers and I have started to find some themes that come up again and again and again in these interviews. And one of the themes that comes up a lot is how powerful and important it is to find a way to connect with nature. Now, as I've talked about a lot on this show, I am a city boy. I grew up in a small apartment in a big building in a huge city.

2:07We did not have a front yard. We did not have a backyard. If I wanted to touch grass, I was going to a park and I was going to be touching grass that a lot of other people had already touched before me. But you know what? That didn't make it any less special to be laying out on that lawn or to be looking out at the river or to be walking in the shade of a tree. And while my family did live in that big city, we still managed to get out into nature, whether that was visiting friends or hiking or camping, being surrounded by a pine forest or jumping into a lake or the one time that we saw a moose in a bog.

2:42Those are memories that stand out so vividly in my mind. There are times when I felt small in the best way. I was in awe. And also at the same time, I was smelling smells that were not just hot garbage and pee. So, you know, there were a lot of victories there. What I'm trying to say is that even for me, even for a person who thinks it's unnatural and frankly weird, anytime I'm in a place where I can't see other people around me, even I got to experience the power of connecting with nature. And on today's show, we are going to have thoughts and insights from people much smarter than me about the natural world and about our relationship to it and why that is so important and what we can do to cultivate it.

3:21But first, a quick break. We will be right back after this. Don't go anywhere.

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5:04of travel possibilities with the Capital One Venture X card. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. Lounge access is subject to change. See CapitalOne.com for details. The market's uncertain. Revenue's tied and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts. Just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Post a job for free and get started today.

5:46And we are back. We're talking about nature today, and our first clip comes from our episode, How to Find Food in Your Backyard. That episode was a conversation with the forager, cook, and environmental scientist, Alexis Nicole Nelson. Something that I really love about you and the way that you engage with the world is, you have this scientific accuracy, but you also have a really great sense of humor. And then you're also, I think, able to think about these things in a bigger philosophical way. So I am curious to get your take on, and this is a big question, but why you think we are often so disconnected from nature and from the idea of understanding at the most basic level the plants that are around us?

6:28And honestly, if we're going to take it way, way back, the disconnection kind of started with the advent of the agricultural revolution. And that makes perfect sense. Nature is hard to predict. It's hard to rely on when it's your only source of like taking care of yourself, your family, your community. So the first step of disconnection definitely came from us being like, okay, all of these different groups around the world decided these are the plants we're going to focus in on because these are the most productive. These are the animals we're going to focus in on because they were easier to domesticate.

7:07And that immediately others all of the other plants and animals and relegates them for some people to something that they decide is less important to them, affects them less on a regular basis. Then you have the industrial revolution, which then had people flocking to cities. You know, all of these places with bricks and with concrete, with a lot fewer plants and animals than people would have been seeing if they were out living on the farm. You're not seeing all of these little machinations and the day-to-day changes in nature anymore. So I think that was another point of disconnection. And food was kind of one of the last ways that we were staying connected to a lot of different plant species because we were having to eat seasonally because before things like refrigerated trucks and all of these really high-tech like hoop houses and warmed spaces for growing plants outside of their season, you would only have tomatoes during tomato season.

8:15You'd only have apples during apple season. And in a way, that was keeping people tethered to some of the rhythms of nature. But now you can have a Granny Smith apple in February, regardless of where here in North America you live. You can have raspberries any time of the year outside of the like two weeks really that they're in season every summer and so this little bit that we were still holding on to with having to know how nature was moving through its yearly cycles gone and so we're not the ones growing the food so we're not even we're not even in the greenhouses the hoop houses or anything even getting to see that aspect of the way that plants grow.

9:02People don't know what plants grow on trees versus shrubs versus vines because they don't have to. It makes me think foraging is, on the one hand, a way to get food and to have a little delicious adventure, but it's also a way to rebuild that connection. It definitely feels like when you are out foraging, you are tapping into something very normal, very natural, at least for me. I don't know. There might be some not outdoorsy people who are like, I don't know. This is not a soothing experience for me. Do you find it to be soothing? Do you find it to be like a part of taking care of your health, not just physically, but also mentally?

9:46Oh, absolutely. It's a really meditative practice for me. I realize when I go out into the woods, especially if I've been glued to my phone for the hours leading up to it, you go through a bit of an adjustment period to where at first you feel really overstimulated and you're like, oh, too many trees, too many plants, too many fungi. And then you start, your breathing starts slowing down. You start hitting a groove with your pace while you're hiking. And your brain starts kind of being able to like tune into all of these things. You go into a bit of a soft focus. And for me, I find that incredibly meditative.

10:30It really helps me bring down the general anxiety caused by just, you know, existing as a connected person in this world we have built.

10:45That was Alexis Nicole Nelson. What she was saying about her ability to find calm and peace in the natural world, that really resonates with me. I think that's an important piece for many of us. And when I think about someone who embodies that depth of connection to the planet, the conversation that immediately comes to mind for me is from our episode that we recorded with Jill Heinert. It was called How to Dive into Your Fears. Jill is a cave diver. As you're about to hear, Jill's work takes her deep into the Earth. But her relationship with her work is much more profound than just the adrenaline rush that many people might expect when they hear the words cave diver.

11:24I tell people I'm a cave diver and sometimes they picture me like diving off of cliffs into ocean waters and things like that. But no, I'm literally swimming through the veins of Mother Earth. I'm swimming through these water-filled spaces beneath your feet. You know, deep ocean environments and certainly water-filled caves are a place of great mystery. And for me, it's been more than science. It's been almost a spiritual pursuit as well. Because when I do recognize that we are all connected by those watery resources around the planet, then I realized I had an important place, an important voice from the inside of the earth.

12:04Because if you think of the water that comes out of caves, it comes out of a spring, it feeds a creek, goes to a river, that river reaches an estuary. That's like the nursery for all the fish and other inhabitants that are going to fuel the ocean with great abundance. And so even if you live in the center of North America, nowhere near a water body, the actions that you have on the surface of the earth will eventually affect these water systems all the way out to the oceans. And being able to swim through these spaces, you know, helped me to realize that if I could communicate about what I've seen and what I've experienced, that maybe it would animate the environment and help people understand how they could protect it.

12:51That was Jill Heinert. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we've got a clip about a natural experience that you, regardless of where you live or who you are, can try out yourself. That's right after this.

13:30Capital One bank guy. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash bank. Capital One N.A. Member FDIC. The market's uncertain. Revenue's tied and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts. Just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Post a job for free and get started today. I'm no tech genius, but I knew if I wanted my business to crush it, I needed a website now.

14:15Thankfully, Bluehost made it easy. I customized, optimized, and monetized everything exactly how I wanted with AI. In minutes, my sight was up. I couldn't believe it. The search engine tools even helped me get more sight visitors. Whatever your passion project is, you can set it up with Bluehost. With their 30-day money-back guarantee, what have you got to lose? Head to bluehost.com to start now.

14:41And we are back. Today, we're playing some of our favorite clips from episodes of our show about the natural world. One way that people can start caring about the environment and taking care of the world around them is by building a personal connection to it. And in the episode we recorded with Christian Cooper, Why You Should Try Birding, Christian talked about how one of the reasons he is so passionate about birding is that it is a way of connecting with nature that anyone can have access to. Your excitement and your enthusiasm for birding is so infectious. You just genuinely love it. But it's also something that you very consciously have cultivated is trying to spread the word about birding, trying to get more people into birding.

15:20And your book is even called, right, Better Living Through Birding. So why do you think that birding is so important for better living? I think a lot of us are very disconnected from nature these days, particularly if we live in cities. We like to think, oh, you know, in this man-made environment, we are somehow detached, removed. You're not, but you can feel like that sometimes. And I think getting out into a more natural type of environment can be incredibly calming, incredibly soothing. Birding just gets you out there, engages you with the natural world, and gets you outside of your own head and area.

16:01And that's great. The exercise is wonderful, and I do it myself. But when you're birding, it's a little bit different because you've got to tune into a particular kind of motion you're looking for in the trees or particular sounds that are going to tell you where the birds are. And then you've got to learn to, you know, tease out the chipmunks. No, that's not a bird. That squeaky thing. Ignore it. But listen for the birds. And as your brain is forced to do this and be on high alert, if you want to actually see the birds, then you're outside of your own little head and your own little world and all those annoying problems that are festering like, oh, my God, I've got to pick up groceries today and it's so expensive.

16:45I don't know if I'll be able to afford everything and my paycheck hasn't come through. And oh, my God, I'm gay and I'm in the closet and my parents don't know. And what if they find out? And I just had this fight with my girlfriend. And good Lord, what is that about? Gone. Because you can't. If you're going to find the birds, you've got to be paying attention to the world around you. So for a little while, at least, whatever those woes are, they just fall away. And instead, you're interacting with the wild world and learning a little bit how we are a part of that wild world. And that's, I think, incredibly healing.

17:24That was Christian Cooper. To wrap up today's show, we're going to give the final word to science writer Mary Ellen Hannibal from the episode How Engaging with the Natural World Benefits You and Science. Mary Ellen gave me a very unique answer to a question that I ask all of our guests in her episode. So what is one idea or book or movie or piece of music or anything? What's one thing that has made you a better human? So that's kind of a big question. Thank you for asking it. Fire has made me a better human. Fire and understanding how to live with it here in California, that we can live with it has helped me move beyond a total fear, frozen dread, get me out of here feeling to, oh, this is a natural, fundamental part of biology, fire, and we can live with it.

18:18And we need to honor it. Fire is helping me become a person who is more resilient to the challenges we are all facing.

18:31That is it for this episode of How to Be a Better Human. You heard clips from Alexis Nicole Nelson, Jill Heinert, Christian Cooper, and Mary Ellen Hannibal. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and you can find more from me, including my weekly newsletter and other projects, at chrisduffycomedy.com. How to Be a Better Human is brought to you on the TED side by Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire. Also, Daniela Bellarezzo, Ban Ban Chang, Chloe Shasha Brooks, Lainey Lott, Antonia Leigh, and Joseph Debrine. This episode was fact-checked by Julia Dickerson and Matthias Salas. On the PRX side, there is nothing more natural sounding than my voice after they have applied somewhere between 17 and 45 plugins.

19:07Thank you to Morgan Flannery, Noragil, Maggie Gorville, Patrick Grant, and Jocelyn Gonzalez. And of course, thanks to you for listening to our show and making this all possible. If you are listening on Apple, please leave us a natural five-star rating and a wonderful review. And if you are listening on the Spotify app, answer the discussion question that we've put up there on mobile. It's always so fun to hear your thoughts. We will be back next week with even more How to Be a Better Human. Until then, take care and thanks for listening.

19:58Capital One Travel. And with VentureX, you get access to over 1 ,000 airport lounges worldwide. Open up a world of travel possibilities with a Capital One VentureX card. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. Lounge access is subject to change. See CapitalOne.com for details.