The ten percent happier podcast dan harris, the hello everybody. If you want to get happier get out in nature, that is one of the blazingly obvious pieces of advice. We hear all the time I'm guilty of this. In fact, you may have heard me talk about my pantheon of no brainer is the simple things everybody can do to boost their health and their happiness, including sleep, meditation exercise, healthy eating, etc. I usually have nature right there on the list. We know we can of your mood induce help you sleep and much more, but how, helpful is the advice really if it becomes the kind of thing that you know you should do, but you don't actually have the time to do it, so it just end up making you feel less happy every time you hear it

today. We're gonna get some very practical and to be a little cute down to earth advice, With the scandinavian twist, we haven't covered all the can the navy and approaches to happiness that much on the show. I consider that to be a little. of an oversight on my part, you may have heard of some the scandinavian happiness concepts such as cuba, which is all about the joy weaken derived from being in, with z and convivial indoor atmospheres. Today, we're gonna talk about the flip side of the coin, which is called free lifts leave which is harder to pronounce than it is to understand that promise you basically it's all about the joy of, would call the open air life being outside. My yesterday has made a whole career of giving people practical strategies for boosting well being via nature Her name is Linda oxen, burke and she's. A swedish american writer. Her first book was called there's no such thing as bad.

Whether a scandinavian moms secret for raising healthy, resilient and confident children. Now she's got a book for everybody. Parents or not. It's called the open air life, discover the nordic art of free lifts, leave and embrace nature every day. In this conversation, we talk about why humans are showed drawn to nature and with the many scientific benefits, are the historic roots, free, lift sleeve in nordic countries why we should go outside, even when the weather sucks, why we should go camping, at which I find her on the benefits of cold, plunges the benefits of silence, the danger of seeing ourselves as separate from nature and why she believes, appreciation of nature and meditation are complementary. Maybe you stayed in an air b and be before and thought yourself. This actually seem pretty. global. Maybe my place could be an air, be envy the could be simpler, starting with a spare room or your old place when you're a way you could be sitting on an air b and be gold mine, and not even knowing I stay in air

in these areas so. While I really enjoy it, it's actually a terrific alternative to hotels, especially I got beach vacations when my family will have to be able to have a house more space for ourselves. So big fan, and it really is something that many of us could take advantage of as an economic opportunity. For example, if there's a big music festival or tournament come into your city, that's a perfect opportunity to get out of here avoid the traffic. You can air being be your home and make a little extra money, whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or something a little bit more fun. Your home might be worth more than you think, find out much more air being be dot com. Slash host the show is sponsored by better help. Sometimes in life were faced a tough choices in the path for it is not always clear. What did yogi barrow say when you come to a fork in the road? Take it not very useful, although I guess carter,

funny but yeah. We don't always know what the right way to go is, and I find myself and many forks in the road or places where it does more than fork, and it can be really helpful to have expert advice to make better decisions. Whether we are dealing with this around your career, your relationships or anything else. There be helped. You stay connected to what you actually want while You do your life, so you can move forward with some confidence and maybe even some excitement trusting yourself to make, decisions that align with your values is like else and life the more you practice it the easier it gets. I spent quite a bit of time going over big decisions with my therapist ten, found them to be massively massively helpful if you're thinking about starting therapy give better help a try, It's entirely online designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. Let there

It'd, be your map with better help visit, better health dot com, slash happier today to get ten percent off your first month. That's better help, h e l, p e dot com, slash happier. This episode is brought to you by progressive. Most of you aren't just listening right now: you're driving cleaning and even exercising, but what, if you could be saving money by switching to progressive drivers who save by switching save nearly seven hundred dollars on average and auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts? Multitask right now quote today: a progressive dot com, progressive casualty, insurance company and affiliates national average twelve month savings It's hundred ninety eight dollars by new customer survey, to say with progressive between June twenty, twenty one and may twenty twenty two potential savings will vary discounts not available in all states of situations, linda orcas, on mcgurk. Welcome to the show! Thank you. So much excited to be here are still suspecting that

it kind of mangled. Your name say it correctly. Just so everybody hears it correctly, a case as orcas on it swedish walkathon August yeah, okay, alright, I think I'm like no sixty percent of the way there, but it's a beautiful name. Sorry, messing up. More importantly, I am really happy to have you on the show, and I'm excited to talk about another word that I will mangle. I think it's free lutes leave that my clothes that one almost almost girl three lists live, so you can hear the f in their case as free love. Slave three lofts leave me ass, a nice rolling up. They are their tail I thank you and we have done something right. Everything warning this interview. Can you describe or define? Please three looked sleeve. Yes said this will work.

es, I would say not not very well known in the? U s, at least not yet I'm hoping my book by change that but like another scandinavian word who get when she might have heard of yes, there's just for the uninitiated build h, y g g and has been the subject of at least one massively best selling book. Yes, there's probably like twenty on the topic at least and so it gets kind of coziness roughly translated, and I would say that, for you to sleep in very simple terms, is like the outdoorsy cousin of Higgins. It's sort of all the things that we do outside before we come home and cozy up in front of the fireplace with our

we'll socks on and hot cocoa cell is basically spending time outside and the cultural and natural landscape, partly for personal wellness, but also to just experienced nature without any pressure to achieve or competes, its typically na motorized, its non competitive as usually very simple flow activities. They can do You were few means and does necessitate a lot of money and simplest forms. It could be a simple going for a walk round the neighbourhood and in fact, I think that the most common form of needlessly, but it can also be like writing a bike or for jeanne camping, kayaking. Stay the cold swimming cooking.

over and open fire learning survival skills all kinds of activities, but is really not so much about the activities as it is about connecting with nature and simple ways and most of the time as your near by nature, so that nature thus accessible to you. on a regular basis. So it's the sort of culturally learned random and is also something that passed down from one generation to the next. The third is the lifestyle source, and it's something that no, if you grow up in the nordic countries, is just something that you raised it it's the culture that you're raised in and the primary goal, like I said part of it is wellness, but it's also to feel joy, because people feel a genuine joy out there and it actually goes back to the eighteen fifties and from the beginning it was reaction against industrialization and urbanization in italy. Think eighteen fifties

a hundred years ago, like even back, then people are starting to realize that they needed to get away from the noise and the crowds and the pollution that the factories were causing in the cities and feel of sleep became that way to sorta reconnect where the countryside that so many people had left behind to seek work in the city. So people stop I have to go for excursions to the countryside and just sort of enjoy the fresh air. It started in the upper classes actually because they were the ones who were the most separated from nature and from the manual labor in the fields. So they had to sort of create this to reconnect. They had to reinvent it for them how's. The fearlessly became that way to reconnect, and then the government actually called on to this as well the beginning of the twentieth century and and especially samantha nineteen,

thirty's, when people are starting to get more time off, then working class started discovering feel esteem as well. government supported it because they realize the benefits early on long before there were any studies on the health benefits of nature, so these are creating parks and green spaces where people can go outside reconnect when they sure has been evolving since the eighteen fifties and there's also conservation aspect of it. So the idea being that if people are connected with nature, then we will also act to protect it. from the beginning it was about creating national parks and other greens bases for preservation. and then it move more to conservation. And today you know we talk about climate.

Change, and we know that it's not enough to just preserve certain wilderness areas and parks, but we also you know. The politics also have to come with it to protect against global climate change, so those two have kind of gone and in lockstep from the early days, and as I understand it, three lifts lead means fresh air living. Yes, sir, open air living is what I translated to in my book, literally. Yes, it literally means free our living opener living as law. More loosely translated because The main point is to spend as much time as possible outside and hooker. pronouncing that right. Well, thus, Dana hello out of my expertise in some fashion, the I would pronounce pigott HU jia I don't. I love that no guy work, but let's go with hooker hookers what you do after you, ve done the free lift sleeve and

I love that hookah is why it has caught on in america, because we don't want to do the work. We love the challenge part afterwards right right, that's a good point, because I feel that steam does involve challenging yourself in certain ways too, physically since its nor motorized it's about getting places with your feet or by paddling, so that's an important part of it as well. To feel that contrast to feel that you ve worked for something its viewed as a way to instil resilience wasted.

Part of the reason why the military, actually that defence department supported it when I was just going to catch on, they were quick to embrace it because they saw the value and fit population, of course, for the fence reasons and has been taught in schools too, has been a part of the curriculum for students as well for a well over a hundred years here, because it is seen as a good way to strengthen yourself physically and mentally. So as it covers all those bases really. Why is this so urgent interest to you. I think a really here For me when I moved to the u s and I had children there, and I realized tat they but I have a very different childhood from the one eyed had growing up here. I noticed that people just

outside almost at all in the winter time where I lived- and I just thought The shame because I didn't want my children to miss out on her good in six months of the year, just because the weather was it. Agreeable cause. That's another important part of fearlessly. It is that we do this on a more or less daily basis, regardless of the weather. So that's where the saying there's no such thing as bad weather. Only bad clothing comes in and which is frequently used over here, especially with children, who don't wanna, god fine, so you know I realised that they weren't gonna, get that and that a lot of people this sort of hibernating inside, as I have normal, almost to be outside. So I stuck out like I would take my kids out. In the freezing weather, and I was told, even by health professionals, that it was dangerous and some people thought I was brave for being

There are others, probably just thought I was crazy, but I thought I was just doing what I had done or what my parents had done with me, when I was little- and I thought I was just doing what everybody was that's kind of when it dawned on me that this fearlessly culture wasn't really a thing probably outside of the nordic countries, or at least not in indiana. Where I lived at the time and that's when I kind of am on this mission to sort of inspire and educate. I started a blog. I wrote my first book there's no such thing as bad weather and started, advocating in speaking about its importance for children to be outside all year round, but it's not just for kids is important for us adults to once again I come back to that environmental part of it, and that is that it we are just inside and we're not experiencing. You know the seasonal changes outside and were

becoming alienated from nature than new, whose gonna be there to protect nature when climate change is happening. and all sorts of other environmental challenges and pollution. So from childhood and up we need to know how the ecosystem works and how we're so intimately connected all of us and that's another important difference. I think he'll like in the nordic countries. We view humans more as part of nature, worse in the. U s, tend to have more of an other perspective that we view. Nature is something separate from ourselves and I think there is a danger in that point of view were just see nature as something to extract resources from then. You don't realize that without nature There are no use either name

I can go on without us- but we obviously were nothing without nature, so its crucial that we reconnect with nature. With a wild and not just when the wild places. This is something I talk about alight. you, I think near my nature is sort of under valued, and I feel like What would you think of nature? We often think of those really wild places. You know out west the national parks, where you might take a road trip once a year. whereas we really need to be looking at the places where we live. The cities and the industrialized world ass were almost eighty percent of us live now, and we really need our cities to be workable. An green, that's where you gotta start because ass the nature that's accessible to us,

how and even if you live in a city like new york, there are those pockets of the green where you can go for recuperation restaurant, and those are so important, and so I think that he planners have a rule, responded nobody here and bobo governments to where you can create those spaces where people can really go to boost their mental health, because it's one of the cheapest forms of preventive health care. There is really just meditation previously. Has a lot of the same health benefits state they actually overlap alight. He can get that sort of relaxation from stress and prevention of anxiety in pressure and thrust reduction and also like physical responses are measurable. When you're outside your cortisol love, let's go down, there should be. No report is always stress marker and blood pressure,

is down, you know, and all these are measurable effects of being out there in green spaces are sure that was where it was going to go next, which is to what the benefits are. You a little bit there, can you say a little bit more about why we should take a serious. We and eyes this advice, yeah, there's a range of physical benefits. I mentioned a few already another one is bite and indeed, for example, we ve got used to being very scared of the sun now, of course, we should have respect for the sun because of the cancer rest by. We must not forget that we also really need the sun for vitamin d production, which vitamin d is the key to our immune system than just a host of other processes and the boy de. There is like a third the effect on the cortisol levels and stress reduction. Slave is by nature. I mean physical

activity is of built into it and you don't have to be physically active every time. You're outside you know, if it's really hot out there like lying in Hammer can be open air life too, but a lot of times it does involve physical activity. yeah that's known, to have huge act on our health even now, some forms of cancer and heart disease. I mean look at any of the big lifestyle diseases today, and physical activity has a positive effect on that. So essentially any of those effects from physical activity is, you can get through open air life in a desert. to be that you're out running marathons either, like I said earlier fearlessly, this non competitive, so just a brisk walk a few times a week. That alone can reduce your wrist

serious disease, and then the mental benefits like us have stressed, reduction and there's also unknown link between nature exposure. The less the risk of anxiety and depressed, and so, for example, here and sweden nature. There he and freely sleeve are commonly used by the public health system actually to treat people who have been burnt out some from work. some from its emotional events like in their personal lives, but a lot of it work related, and there are these programmes need to. Last for a couple months and the participants they get to come and be outside, create things like making nature crafts go for walks in the forest

they play on things. They have like low gardens and then, when they ve evaluated these programmes, they found that they have actually been more effective at getting. People back to work than the traditional methods would wish has been just like sick leave and therapy, and this is people who have been sick leave for a long time. Some of them for several years, quite amazing, to see the transformation that they're gone through. It started out as just a few pilot programmes a few decades ago, and now these programmes are, everywhere, so they can have been incorporated into the public health system, which is pretty cool. Indeed, I think another benefit is sleep. Yes, yes, daylight is, of course, very important to our circadian rhythms. All living beings that run on these twenty four hour cycles

called turkey and ribbons and when were endorse, which most of us are alot these days in just being exposed as artificial light doesn't disrupts. Are natural circadian rather, and so these are natural timing devices and they affect them things in our bodies like our hormone levels, eating habits, our body temperature, even and also our feelings of alertness sore sleepiness. So when we're outside- and we are exposed to this national daylight, that regulates are circadian rhythms and studies have shown that if you go out camping geneva, just for a couple and aids that can reset your circadian rhythms and that effect actually last for several weeks, and it's pretty interesting here at these latitudes on approximately the same latitude as alaska here in Sweden

So right now we have about eighteen hours of daylight compared with six hours in the winter time and its- mason, I can feel how that really affects my energy levels and those contrast operate extreme and it's not unusual for me to wake up at four thirty in the morning now and just get up and start my day actually I wouldn't say I have three times the energy than I do- the winter time. But I do a lot more energy and the summer, in the winter time. Of course, the other way around in the winter no, that alot of people here struggle with seasonal, effective disorder which has been tied to are circadian rhythms too, because when there is so little daylight that can really affects how we feel mentally to a lot of people. Struggle with pilling down Distilling blue. It's been issue here in the winter time. Actually so that it's that even more important to actually do get out.

in the winter time? I always try to get out during my lunch. or in the middle of the day some time morning, light is the best according to research, but here, I do so scared that I try to get out whenever the light is the strongest just to get that moon dose, and I think it makes a huge difference in energy levels, even if you're just out for like half an hour, I can tell my productivity goes up and the afternoon immensely when I do that So that's why it's just as important, if not more important, to get outside in the winter time. I know people are uncomfortable with the cold, but I really do try to inspire people to do it anyway, because You'd, never regret a walk, just like an ever regret. A cold plunge, you always feel better afterwards, even if you have to

make yourself do it, it is uncomfortable at first, but once you ve done it, you don't regret it and you feel so much better afterwards. Sometimes you just have to use that as your motivation, you think about the way you're going to feel, and then that becomes your inner motivation, that inner motivation is so important that if the motor that makes it happen. Are there right ways and wrong ways to do this? Open air living, do's and don'ts know I always encourage people to start where they are and use what they have and do what they can. Paraphrasing suresh tennis player. Some people might feel like. Well, I can't do this. I know I live in the city, there's traffic and there are some obstacles, but I think the key here. Is to try and holland and on those spaces that you do have,

and then I would also encourage people to really try to unplug, while their outdoors screens and become a distraction when you're out there, but they can also enhance the experience if you're taking photos, for example, of flowers, whatever it might be. So not going to say I don't take your cell phone cell phones actually, a great thing when you're out there, especially if you're out hiking somewhere, you know you that's your first survival to all right. There is your phone, but don't make it too complicated. I would say: do what's accessible to you, our basis get the low hanging fruit for starters. to make a habit of it and then can go after those wilder place.

I think we all need those wilder places to sort of feel that sense of awe. We need to get to the places where where we can really get away from it all all the man made stuff but like a third, just started home. start where you are and take it from there? The most important part is to build a habit, build a rhythm, it can be life, transforming I've heard it so many times from people who have read my books there. It's been really a life changer once they started making nature a part of their everyday lives. I've done some of this because my family moved to the suburbs during the pandemic, although, as I'm listening to you talk because I'm in such western productivity mode, I often think

getting outside outsiders like another thing to do on my checklist and often am multitasking meaning. Ok, if I got side, I'm gonna do a few of my calls out or I'm gonna work outside. Sometimes I m not multitasking centres on meditate outside when I go running out. Listen to music. So I'm wondering if all of those that I just listed fall under doing open air living incorrectly No, I don't think so. I you know, I think there needs to be a balance. If those things help you get outside, then that's a good thing I would challenge you to not use your phone at least sometimes in l, a part of time just because it is a different experience because phone tends to create a bit of a barrier, something has just different types of recreation. Really, I think you do

closer to nature, if you're not on a call or if you're, not listening to an audio book, but I will never tell anybody to never do that, anyone you look what you're describing here you're taking a call outside, actually, I think, that's a great way to get outside if one of your obstacles to getting outside as a lack of time- and I know that the common obstacle for a lot of people- then I think that's a great way of making sure they actually get outside. If nothing else, you know you get the physical activity so maybe you're not gonna, appreciate the bird song. Why you're on conference call, while you're walking you're. At least I get the physical activity in the fresh air and the daylight. Those benefits to remain, and here and sweden is actually quite a common practice to go on, walk and talk meeting

During the work day mean we even have termed the walk and talk meeting and a lot of companies actually do it, because they recognise that as beneficial to the workers, productivity and focus just because as other benefits than sitting in a conference room, missus, sturt, different, studying where you can have a conversation, the people in a more democratic it is just a decrease in different dynamic when you're out walking side by side, rather than sitting facing each other on a conference room, so Walk and talk meetings are a way you can see it as a way of incorporating open air life into your work day. So that's one form of feed slave. So there are many different forms and playing with the third listen two to an audio book, but I would I challenge you to death,

being in your own thoughts, and I suppose that were meditation comes in a little bit too. There's a lot overlap between meditation and where both are done for mental health benefits they are relaxed being and they offer a way to feel a part of something greater than yourself so to actually marry the two and meditate while you're outside. I think it's fantastic and over some brownie points here said that I read your book before coming on. I cast here and I felt inspired by it, especially the part where you talk about the silent retreat that you went on and I had already planned a three day- hike a solo hike, so I decided well I'm going to do two of those days in silence and see how that goes. size set out on this high and was very interesting. I add a modified

in a little bit. Her met some people on the trail, and I felt like I I have to say hello, or they would think I was a complete, a whole I wasn't: a hundred percent silence overall, I put my phone in airplane mode and I told all my friends and family that I wasn't going to be reachable for a couple of days and very rewarding anna was a way for me to take famously too. Another level not usually a meditative. So to me it was a new challenge found very interesting. I don't see it problem with combining that you actually think that they are very complimentary yeah. I think that probably the most, free lifts. Leave thing that I do is take a walk, unplug and just try to be mindful what walking meaning a tune in to the raw data of my senses, the feeling my body moving error. My skin sounds in,

environment and then every time I get distracted start again and again and again and that that is just walking meditation, informal, walking meditation, and so I think that very much fits into. you're describing it some of the other true multitasking, that it sounds like it's not bad, but it's, maybe not all the way there right right, yeah. I think they're complimentary, but definitely try to get some of that pure fearlessly in Well to me, it's been immensely valuable over the years I mean you talk Your own set of burn out in your book, and I've been sitting on the verge too and toxic works. Duration, where I was starting to have like little black clouds that really Some have scared me. I was in about situation, work wise and is causing a lot of stress

I was at the same time, going through divorce and aid. Cited that I had to refocus, and I decided to do more of what I was already doing some more time outside more time in the woods and help me like when I'm outside the only way I can describe it. That seems fitting it's that when I'm in the woods, I immediately feel There is no place there be and there's nothing, thus more important at that very moment than just be there and be in the present moment in those they have one of these. times, but I'm actually able to completely shake off everything that has to do with work. Just let go of that stress. It just has that sort of any

a effect on me and obviously a lot of other people too. I mean it is a proven method for reducing anxiety and depression, so definitely helpful on so many levels. One of the things that the three leslie literature does is that it puts nature on us. Spectrum, so essentially the wilder space is the more restored. There will be. You know if you have the entire spectrum from the very wild places to a city where you have birds, for example, they live everywhere. You have a tree. it's on the city in nature can be anything in between the weather is also a form of nature Rain falling on her forehead, the wind blowing through our hair. So once you start thinking of nature

something that's all around us. Then I think it helps shift your mind set a little bit and you start to really noticed nature in your everyday life. That brings me back to what I was talking about earlier with the parks and how that space can really. play in two open air life, in the u s and in modern cities. So there was a swedish researcher who studied the correlation between park, space and people's health. So what they found was that people who live closer, two green spaces. They were and better health both physically and mentally, saw them arthur away from a green space that people were the more stress they were. they also have higher body mass index and they were just less satisfied with their home the neighborhoods, but they they wanted to dig deeper.

So you wanted to know what else is there from a magical distance to a green space and they found that about a thousand feet, thus the distance of where it becomes a daily habit. If you live more than a thousand feet from a green greenspace, then sounds like a weekend thing. If has less than a thousand feet than is more your more likely to use it on a regular basis, so that was part of the study and then another part of it, was that they looked at different characteristics of the parks. So they tried to figure out what about the park space? Wasn't that people enjoy. so it could be, for example, open space or, like it more secure, in areas or how by I first the parts were then how three they were like noise level and so forth, and they found that the participants in the study that they read

serenity and space and I think a lot of natural elements the highest, so those were the most sort of relaxing features. So the conclusion of all this is that if we can create more spaces like that in our cities that can be used as the place for people to improve their house and in the long run it so much more cost effective. Then having people get sick and then treat this, dams and treat the disease than to to actually prevent the disease in the first place. Coming up later talks about what cold, Plunging is and why so popular right now, whether there is actually proof that it's good for you, Nature shows like a bird radio and moose tv became huge head

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future of the country. Follow american scandal. Wherever you get your podcast, you can listen and free on the amazon, music or wondering app. there's something you mentioned a couple times that I would love to hear more about which is cold, plunging that sound terrible. We ve talked about it a few times on the shore. Describe what it is and what the benefits are and how we could do it. If were that brave yeah, I thought it sounded for two. Until I got hooked call plunging has basically swimming all year round, even in the winter time. You got a hole in the ice if it's that call I call on the eyes and you go down and take a plunge son there's a phone, I'm ball, but not necessarily, if you're really hard core. use, the phone. I you just go straight for the plunge and then up and of course, as a form of

water therapy and there's really nothing new here, that's been around a lot longer than feel asleep. already. The old greek seers cold water therapy in there was believed to treat a host of diseases. Some of that has been proven by it gives you a bit of a shock to the Some little triggers the nor adrenalin production, which makes us more resilience to stress. It triggers all stress reaction in the body which sounds counter intuitive, but you can compare, to vaccination, for example, where your body guess a shot of a deactivated virus. To start its own production of anti it is an old plunged were similarly and that it boosts the immune system triggers the immune system puts it in high alert

you know there hasn't been a lot of studies on it by the studies that I've been done had been very promising. They seen you know about produced risk of airway infection, for example, which is also a big karen to it, I think all mothers at some point and told her kids don't go outside without a head on in the wintertime or don't go out with wet hair, or you know, cause we think of us getting cold can cause us to develop infections, but in fact the opposite seems to be true here with a cold plunge that we can actually strengthen our immune system by submerging ourselves in cold water, but I would say, reason. Why most people here do? It is a boost, your general feeling of wellness- and I know, people who done it to treat depression and burn out as while stress it increases circulation. Its had some effect on,

t again pain ever a neighbor ass, our arthritis, and to use it to help soothe those symptoms. Some yeah once again lots of physical and mental benefit so I started doing in a few years ago to and yeah I enjoy. It is strange as it might sound is once again is like you just have to push yourself through the initial shock and once you're over there. Then it's a pretty cool thing in a really at a moment during the pandemic. One people too, I for all sorts of ways of entertaining themselves without seeing other people, and preferably outdoors, it really caused a bit of it cole plunge craze even here were among people are already doing it, but now it's right quite common,

and another one of those nature based interventions that have proven more effective, then pharmaceuticals, even according to some studies least when it comes to like milder forms of depression play worth trying because it doesn't have any site a fact soul. You know why not only thing is. If you have any history of hearts issues, then torture position just thrown that in there. What do you do if you live in an open in the city- and you don't have ice, you can cut up hole in the back yard, cause you don't have a back door yeah that one of the law trickier in the city. But if you look at finland for example- and even here I mean in stockholm- it can definitely be done and the city to that's, not to say that it is done and the? U s today in cities,

but here there there are places in the city where you can actually go swam and psycho social thing where the city, then provide slow changing rooms and they might even come the whole for you and theirs the latter, and you can do your plan so can't be done in the city to is just a matter of culture. I thank this man, If the count is open air living, but you could put a bunch of ice in the tub or just stand in the shower under cold water yeah, exactly can gather similar effect, and I think that's what I'm man, how when half, I think he's got a pretty large following in the? U s, and I know that his followers would do that. They would start the day by taking a cold shower for a few minutes. They obviously is inside someone really count open air living in bad. You know if it works, for you, hey go with it. We haven't

We have on the show, but will put a link to his website if people want to learn more about him and whim if your listening you're invited. But I want to keep talking through this list of suggestions. You have four people too. operational eyes open are living in their own lives. You also talk about something called bird radio and moose tv. What does that mean? So I talk about that in my book as an example of showing how people here and joy connecting with nature even when they can physically go outside. So these are some nature shows that have become immensely popular. One of them is called a night of bird song in its essentially, the liberation of the migratory birds, said, come back every spring, radio show an enhanced. the thousands of people to an end to this show every year that runs through the night

and is quite amazing. I think right in my book that has more or less nurse you know in proportion to the population than both the seafarers and the empty words and is just an example of how you can connect with nature, even when you're inside the whole point of the show is, is to listen to different types of birds that have returned from migration, and then there is the moose tv that does another show that tracks this heard, a moose than just became a huge during the pandemic- and I don't think that was coincidence- gives a lot of people working from home feeling a bit isolated and just looking for something to connect. Well, the outer world and and a lot of people had this most show on the background as they were working in. It is just most of it

time. Nothing happens at all. There's just this background of he all you see is like pine forest, just like absolutely nothing going on, but than ever so. If you're like lucky enough that you might say bird or even, of course, a highlight them would be a moose walking by the camera, and that show too was immensely popular. I mean it would probably gal. I can view buys it would probably and compete with them some of the most popular programs on air, just an example of how you can connect with nature when you're not outside coming up linda talks about why she thinks it's a shame that we don't go outside when the weather sucks, but she makes an impassioned case for going camping, which is not a case that I receive all that well anti, lays out some of the theories about why humans are so drawn to answer.

Thirdly, in need of nature, I really like the expression about there's, no bad weather, only bad clothing, which I only started to learn in the past couple of years, when we moved out of the city in and my wife actually got my son- and I know pants and other gear that allowed us to go outside no matter what was going on. You argue that we should make the affirmative decision to take walks in the rain. Can you say more about that yes- and I talk a little bit about this earlier, but I think it's a shame to shy away from whether that we find unpleasant.

Because we're missing out on a unique experience and a way to experience nature not just from his best side, but also when it's a little more challenging out there, because nature obviously behaves differently during different types of weather. So when it rains outside, you know, you can discover things that you would see otherwise and when it rains rains the cleaner and patrick war for example. Oh that's one. The raindrops hit like dry earth. Bacteria are released from the ground and that it's a very specific sense. If you No, you know like if you have experienced it, you know what I mean and they're just so many different sensory dimensions of experience, different tax, the weather and think it would be a shame to miss out on all that.

I think in the nordic countries I spoke with a major virtue out of necessity, cause it rains here so much that we ve just told ourselves like we just gotta, take it till you make but we can't just said inside was talking about camping because there is probably a nontrivial percentage of the audience that is thinking. There's no fuckin way, I'm going camping, my parents were recovering hippies. They had the come of age and the sick these and then had children in the seventies and day would force us to go. Go on these long, camping and hiking trips in maine and colorado, and I hated it. I was actually having lunch with my mom yesterday and she was telling the story that she always tells, which is that annual used to say this thing every time when hiking, which is their only two things, I don't like about hiking, going up, I'm going down which apparently the thing that I said when I was little so

I have done some camping as a grown up. That's actually always been in a professional context. I've done a lot of wildlife reporting around the world. My parents think it's hilarious, that I've I've- been oliver africa and asia and south america sleeping outdoors even though I would never do that voluntarily, my personal life, so Given all of this preamble here, why should we take seriously this notion of camping, which can be so uncomfortable? I think, partly because it is an opportunity to really away from it all to get away from the noise, the crowds, the traffic and to really experience a wilder place. I think there's no better way to set a reconnect where the way we used to live it is a way to to live simply

which is becoming a lost are almost because due to go camping, you need to know some simple survival. Skills like you need two major food under certain symbol of certain, dances and you need to know her Fire, like everything just boils down, to the very basic nuts and bolts of just being unjust, surviving and nature so to me personally and I love camping, but if I were to try and convince somebody I wouldn't say that It can really grow yourself. Esteem and self confidence You know that you can do these things that you can survive out there to me. then very empowering gone camping alone when my children, the light, and to build those skills that I mean that happen overnight. Like you, my parents took me camping to when I was little

but then years went by without me doing any of it. And then, when I had children, myself realize that I want them to know the stuff as well, so that could have pushed me Learn just do it and it's it brought a lot of new experiences and skills that I wouldn't otherwise, I have known- and I think in this day and age with the world being I mean this they sound like overly dramatic, but I think it's important to have survival skills like we're close enough to russia here in Sweden. That I mean we can clearly feel that threat and even if- affected by the war. We are remain by our government repeatedly. That we need to be prepared for whatever it is. Maybe it's a cyber attack or on a natural disaster which are

you know becoming more and more commonplace, then you need to be prepared for that. You need to know how to take care of your basic needs, government may not be able to come to your assistance immediately. So I think at component- is very important. It's not something that I think about when I'm out camping, but it's something that's sort of at the back of my head that I need to have the skills and I need to pass them on to my children. I want them to be able to handle a knife and to know how to build a fire to know how to survive and the wild to find shelter. To navigate that might sound exe but in a really those are basic skills that our forebears all used to have, but we have lost that has become a lost art and I think there is a lot of value to keeping alive, even if we now live in

These than we feel like, we don't need them, but then I also thank- camping, just gives us a unique opportunity to connect not just with nature but also with ourselves and our families, because you remove all the distractions and you just have the basics. Laughed you gotta work as a team. You can just do your own thing out there? You have to cooperate to survive and is a great thing to do over the generations, the wonderful way to bond as a family and to get away from technology back in the eighteen. Fifty is one thing to slave was first develops. People didn't have small, phones a lot today. I think that's men. Sometimes I feel like that. What we need to get away from the mouse is just becomes action ingrained part of our lives, and I think there is definitely a need to just turn off

all the notifications and dare to be in the silence as we near the end here, you talk about some theories for why we need green. Can you just say a little bit more about. Why being outside is not just like a nice to have it's? Actually we evolved to need it yeah. There are a few theories and hypotheses on this and I dont think they're mutually exclusive. I think they actually overlap and complement each other. The most commonly referred to I policies is the by ophelia hypothesis, which ports that we have this innate, need further environments that have met our basic needs in the past, so basically green spaces and are blue spaces which have provided us with food and water and to me that makes a lot of sense. I really think that explains allots. We cannot survive without nature.

And then there is another thing. You recall that pension restoration theory her air tee and, according to this theory, you know, nature is free from distraction. So it evokes the effort less attention, and that makes a very restorative at replenishing. Are energy instead of the ceiling in because, unlike our daily lives that are full of these complex task, you like driving through busy traffic. Solving a complex problems that were that takes a love, directed attention and nature provides that the opposite of that and then there's also cycle evolutionary theory, which is more than a bow? He has really to buy ophelia. I was made famous by roger all right who made this famous hospital study where he show that

having a window with a view it when you were in a hospital, could actually help patients recover faster from surgery and read is there a need for medication, and I think that really says something about how powerful our connection by nature is that just looking at scenes in nature can be physically and mentally healing, and then you know to some extent. There is also a cultural aspect of this too so that we gravitate towards environments that we ve grown up then, and that where we ve had positive memories, which also makes a lot of sense if you grow, well, maybe not review group. If you didn't like him being like. You were saying that. Could

turn you against nature, but a lot of people have positive memories from their childhood, like my grandparents took me out in the forest alive and I'm basically spent my whole childhood playing the forest and swimming in, and the lakes here and, and that means of really learned I appreciate that my own, and so when I'm in that bio, my immediately feel like home. So I can feel at home and in just about any pine forest in the world, because that's where I grew up in I have a lot of positive memories with people that were close to me growing up and, of course the opposite can be true to like people grow up and countries where nature is not necessarily associated with something positive. I mean there are places on this earth where natural areas can be. the city were guerrilla sore. You know you that you might risk getting bra door raged in the forest than course you're gonna have certain fear, and we see that

you're with some immigrants that counter Sweden they'd, necessarily have that. Idealized and romanticized view of nature. That we do here, because we ve grown up and this peaceful country, so that can really affect your view of nature I think that's a learned behaviour, so the deed really is that we have this innate bond with nature, and I think gets a human actions that can turn people away from nature. There is also another you re that ports that one of the reasons why we become com and relaxed and nature? Is that a triggers the production of oxy too,

sitting in the body. Is the love hormone so just like when we're with loved ones is the thing type of former can be triggered, bore in nature, and that can help us develop almost like a friendship where nature that's a nice posed to leave it a friendship with nature. Before I let you go, can you just remind everybody of the names of your books and anything else, your website or social media? Anything else here but now that the mai want people to know about tat. My first thought is: there's no such thing as bad weather, and my other book is the open air life and people can find me. On the wind, rain or shine mama dot com and thus mamma to ends on social media. The handle is rain or shine. Mama instagram men, facebook, mostly linda, thank you so much for coming on. This is great I learned a lot. Thank you. I really appreciate your having me on

thanks again to Linda artisan, gurgurk and thanks to you for listening seriously. We couldn't and wouldn't do any of this without you. So thank you, and thanks finally, to everybody who worked so hard on this show. Ten percent have yours produced by Gabriel's, ackerman, justine, davy, lawrence smith and terror, Anderson DJ, cashmeres, our senior sir, more research, nitrogen, is our senior editor and can be ready Is our executive producer scoring and mixing by Peter bonaventure of ultraviolet audio, and we get our theme music from nick thorburn of the great band islands. They've got a new record coming out. I see we'll see you all on friday for a bonus. Episode Prime members, you can listen to ten percent happier early and ad free on amazon music down

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