Nature Walks and Stress Relief: The Simple Practice That Changes the Body and the Mind

There is a thing that the doctors repeat to us since many years, but that we continue to ignore. It is not a pill, it is not a machine, and it does not cost even one euro. It is the walk in the nature. And yet, when the stress becomes heavy on the shoulders like a sack of stones, the first thing that we do is to sit on the sofa and to look at the telephone. We make exactly the contrary of that which the body asks.

In this text I want to explain to you, with simple words, why to walk among the trees and the grass is one of the most powerful remedies against the stress, and how to begin also if you have not walked seriously since the times of the school.

Why the Body Has Need of the Green Space

Let us understand first of all what is the stress, because if we do not understand the mechanism, we cannot to cure it.

Imagine that you are walking in the forest and you see a wolf. The brain sends immediately a signal: “Danger!” And the body produces certain substances — cortisol and adrenaline — that make the heart to beat faster, the muscles to become hard, the breathing to become short. This is a thing beautiful and intelligent, because it permits you to run away from the wolf.

The problem is that today the wolf does not exist anymore. But the body does not know this. For the body, the angry boss, the traffic, the bills to pay, are all wolves. And so the cortisol remains high all the day, every day. The muscles stay contracted, the sleep becomes light, the head becomes full of thoughts that go in circle like the water in the sink.

The nature, instead, speaks to a very old part of the brain. The green colour, the sound of the leaves, the smell of the earth after the rain — all these things say to the brain: “There is no wolf here. You can to relax.” And the cortisol begins to go down. It is not poetry, it is biology.

What Happens Inside When You Walk Among the Trees

The scientists have made many studies on this, and the results are always the same. After twenty minutes of walk in a park or in the woods, the body changes in a way that is measurable:

• The pressure of the blood goes down, because the vessels relax and the heart works with less effort.
• The cortisol diminishes, and with it the sensation of alarm that we feel in the chest.
• The thoughts become slower and less repetitive. The brain stops to make the list of the problems and begins simply to observe.
• The breathing becomes deeper without that we must to think about it. The diaphragm, that with the stress stays blocked and tight, finally moves.
• The muscles of the neck and of the shoulders, that we keep raised all the day as if we were always expecting a blow, begin to go down.

And there is also another thing important. When we walk, the body uses the sugar that is in the blood for to produce energy. This is a thing good, because when the stress is high, the sugar in the blood tends to stay elevated. The muscles that work consume it, and the levels return more easily to a condition of equilibrium.

The Connection Between Stress, the Sugar in the Blood, and the Nature

Here I want to open a parenthesis, because it is a thing that many persons do not know. The stress and the glucose in the blood are tied together like two threads in the same rope. When the cortisol is high for many days, the body has more difficulty to manage the sugar. The cells respond less well to the insulin, and the glucose remains in the blood instead of entering where it must to go.

For this reason, some persons that pay attention to their wellbeing choose to support the body also with natural integrators. For example, there are products like Glycorium, that are formulated for to help the organism to maintain the levels of glucose in a healthy range. It is not a medicine, it is a support, a small ally that works together to the good habits. And if you want to understand better how it is made and what it contains, you can to look at glycorium.biz where the information is explained in a clear way.

But I want to be very honest: no integrator can to substitute the walk, the sleep, the good alimentation. It is a piece of the puzzle, not the whole puzzle. The nature walk remains the foundation, because it acts on the stress at the root, and when the stress goes down, also the management of the sugar improves by itself.

How to Begin: A Practical Guide for the First Week

Now, the beautiful part. You do not need to walk for two hours. You do not need to go to the mountain. You need only to begin, and to be constant. Here is a simple plan:

Day 1 and 2: Ten minutes. Go out of the house and walk in the nearest park. Do not put the earphones. Listen the sounds. Look the colours. If the head goes to the problems, bring it back gently to the feet that touch the ground.

Day 3 and 4: Fifteen minutes. Try to walk on a path with earth or grass, not only on the asphalt. The feet feel the difference, and the brain also.

Day 5 and 6: Twenty minutes. Bring the attention to the breathing. Breathe in for four counts, breathe out for six counts. The exhalation longer than the inhalation activates the part of the nervous system that says to the body: “Rest now, there is no wolf.”

Day 7: Thirty minutes, if you have desire. But also twenty goes well. The important thing is not the quantity, it is the regularity.

A small advice: go always at the same hour, better if in the morning or in the late afternoon. The body loves the routine, and after some days it will ask you the walk by itself, like it asks the coffee.

Small Habits That Make the Walk More Effective

The walk is already good by itself, but there are some little things that make it to work even better:

• Leave the telephone in the pocket. Or better, leave it at the house. The walk is a time for the eyes to look far, not at a screen of six inches.
• Touch the things. The bark of a tree, a leaf, the cold water of a fountain. The hands send to the brain signals of calm very strong.
• If it is possible, walk without shoes on the grass for some minutes. It seems a thing of children, and in fact it is. The children do it naturally because the body knows what it has need.
• Do not walk for to “burn calories” or for to “do sport.” Walk for to be present. The objective is not the destination, it is the step that you are making in this moment.
• If you can, go with a person that you love and with whom you can also to be silent. The silence shared in the nature is a medicine very potent.

What to Remember Before Putting on the Shoes

I want to leave you with a thought simple. We have constructed a life in which we pass nine hours sitting in front to a luminous rectangle, and then we wonder why we are tired, nervous, and we sleep badly. The body is made for to move, for to see the sky, for to feel the wind on the face. This is not a luxury. It is a necessity, like the water and the sleep.

You do not need the perfect park, the perfect weather, the perfect shoes. You need only the door that opens and the first step. After that, the nature makes the rest. It lowers the cortisol, it slows the heart, it clears the head, it helps the body to manage better the sugar, it gives you back a silence that the city has stolen from you.

And if along this path you decide to support the body also with something of specific, like a good integrator for the glucose, inform yourself, read, understand what you put inside. But remember always that the first medicine is free, it is green, and it is waiting for you just outside the door.

Put on the shoes. Go out. The forest, also if it is only a small park of the city, is already there that waits for you. And it has all the time in the world.