Nature as Medicine - YLAM240011

SPEAKER B Hello and welcome. I'm Kaysie Vokurka. When was the last time you spent some uninterrupted time out in the bush or by the beach? In the fields or among the flowers? How did it make you feel? Refreshed? Alive? Invigorated. Stay with us as we dig deeper in understanding the link between nature and health. SPEAKER A This is your lifestyle as medicine, a production of 3ABN Australia television. SPEAKER B On this programme, we explore ways that you can shape your lifestyle as medicine. Today we are looking at the fascinating topic of nature as medicine. And I'm excited because joining me is the director of the Lifestyle Medicine and Health Research Centre at Avondale University, Doctor Darren Morton. Darren, it's thrilling to have you with us today. Thank you for coming on the programme, Will. SPEAKER C It is a pleasure to be here with you, Kaysie. SPEAKER B Yeah, good, I'm glad. Now, Darren, you're an educator, you're an author, and you're also an internationally recognised lifestyle medicine expert. So I'm curious to ask you, why do you like lifestyle medicine and what do you like most about it? SPEAKER C Oh, wow. I don't know the programmes long enough for me to go into all the details, but look, I'm just really passionate about the fact that there are things that we can do. You know what lifestyle medicine, essentially what it's all about is addressing the causes of the conditions that many of us suffer from and die from nowadays. And what we know is that these chronic conditions, as we refer to them, are lifestyle related. And we have a healthcare system that I think, in some regards, has got it a little bit wrong, because it's not really healthcare, it's more disease care. We manage the symptoms of the conditions that we suffer from. Lifestyle medicine says, let's go back to treat the cause. And so that appeals to me, that makes logical sense and to my scientific brain. I find that really encouraging. SPEAKER B Nice. SPEAKER C And for me, it's a hopeful message. It's actually at the heart of it. What it teaches us is that there are things that we can do to influence our health. And so I think that that's a really important, key, hopeful message that people need to hear. SPEAKER B And that's really then empowering, isn't it, for the everyday person, if they know what they can do to improve their wellbeing? At the causal level? SPEAKER C Yes, exactly. SPEAKER B Excellent. Okay. And so the other thing I was curious to ask you about is from watching your presentations and programmes, you seem to have quite a love for the outdoors. And I'm curious why. Why do you love getting out in nature so much? SPEAKER C Oh, you know what? That's a great question. I think it's just. Maybe it's nature, maybe it's nurture. I don't know, maybe it's a little bit of both. But I do, actually. My happiest place is being active outdoors. SPEAKER B Yeah, there you go. SPEAKER C And, yes, I'm really drawn to. There's something great about the great outdoors. SPEAKER B There is, isn't there? We say that all the time, don't we? There is. SPEAKER C You know, just this morning, I probably shouldn't be telling this, just in case my boss at the university is watching this, but I went out. I was out surfing this morning. SPEAKER B Oh, wow. SPEAKER C And there's something special about that. There's something sacred about being in environments like that. The sun was coming up, I was out there amongst the waves. It was just. SPEAKER B What a great way to start the day. It is. SPEAKER C And you come home and it is. It's medicinal. SPEAKER B Yeah. SPEAKER C It's powerful. SPEAKER B That's awesome. And so you seem like the perfect person to be talking about this subject of nature as medicine when you love getting out so much. So take us into that subject about nature exposure and how do we know that that really can make a difference for our health? SPEAKER C You know, I think that there's obviously, anecdotally, we know this. I mean, I don't think. Well, I've just shared my story. Yeah, it was interesting. We're up the coast of New South Wales a little while back, and I took my youngest son, Caleb, out and we're out in the water there, and we had these stand up paddle boards and we're paddling around. SPEAKER B Oh, nice. SPEAKER C And then all of a sudden, a turtle pops up out of nowhere. And I remember this expression on his face and he actually just paused from it. He goes, Dad, I just love being here. Like, there's something about being in those sorts of spaces. And anecdotally, we know does us well. And look, there's certainly a lot of evidence that actually suggests that it helps our physical health, but certainly there's very, very powerful evidence to suggest that it helps our mental health. In fact, there's a famous quote that says, the further we are from nature, the less happy we are. I think there's a really powerful truth to that. So, yeah, look, there's overwhelming evidence nowadays that connecting with natural environments is really, really good for our bodies and for our brains. So much so that the American College of lifestyle medicine they've identified, and lifestyle medicine, I should say, around the world is just exploding. So it's a really exciting movement. But within the lifestyle medicine community, there's sort of six established pillars of lifestyle medicine. And I won't go through all of them because time doesn't allow us to do that. But there's actually a push now to introduce an additional, a 7th pillar, which would be nature. SPEAKER B Is that right? SPEAKER C Is nature as medicine? SPEAKER B Wow, that's fantastic. And so when they've done like there's different research, obviously that's been done, a lot of research has been done on this subject. What kind of things are they actually researching in terms of the exposure and the environments that people are going into that qualifies as nature therapy. What does it look like in the research? SPEAKER C It's really quite interesting and from a holistic point of view. There's been several studies which actually look at what happens if we put people in very blue and green spaces. This is one of my favourite things I always talk about. Blue and green should often be seen, but we know, for example, japanese researchers have been a lot of work done there where they get people and they actually refer to it as forest bathing. And this is where you take people and you immerse them in these environments that are very rich, very rainforesty if you like, very naturally dense. And what we know is when people do that, when people are exposed to those sorts of situations, that all of their health metrics, and it's not just their mental health as we often, we can relate to that because we go out, I know when I go for a run or go for a mountain bike ride or paddle or surf or whatever, I do come home feeling better. So I can sort of report that. But what we know is there are changes actually happening within us and some of the evidence behind this is really quite fascinating. For example, we know that your immune system is actually enhanced when you are exposed to natural environment. So for example, after about 2 hours of exposure to a really sort of blue and green space, natural environment, natural killer t cells in your body which fight off infections and diseases, we see an increase in them. And what's really intriguing, some of the research has indicated that they will remain elevated for about seven days after. Wow, obviously you're getting that sort of decline if you don't get that constant top up to your natural environment. But I find that incredible. There's something about nature, something about immersing ourselves in these sorts of spaces that would do us well and serve us, well, for even a week after that. So that's physiologically we know other physiological changes that are happening inside us. We know that when people have, for example, pot plants, plants in their workspace or in their office or in their home, that reduces blood pressure, is that right? Yes. And there's good evidence to suggest that. It almost seems to be. I actually have a PhD student at the moment who's working on a project looking at what he refers to as our ecological self, our connection to these natural environments. And there is some evidence, and it's interesting, a lot of the work in this space is still new and emerging and evolving, but it seems if you have about ten or he recommends that people have about ten pot plants, ten plants in their home, it seems that that seems to confer optimal benefits. Ten or more. And I said to him, why is that? Is it there's just more greenery? Does it produce more oxygen? And it seems that what might be related to is that the fact that when you have about ten or more, you actually need to care for them, so you actually have to invest, you have to actually connect. And so, yeah, so it's that connection piece, you know, to nature, we know is really powerful. SPEAKER B Yeah. So clearly these fake pot plants, fake flowers, they're not going to quite cut it, are they? SPEAKER C Well, you don't have to water them as often. SPEAKER B They're not going to die on you as quickly. SPEAKER C They won't, which is a plus. My mum, she has an incredible green thumb, so she's amazing in her gardens. That wasn't passed on to me. SPEAKER B Oh no. There you go. But that's so interesting that it's like we are not isolated even from the natural world. If we are, it's not going to have as big a benefit as if we're actually connected in some way. It's so fascinating how that works. And I guess we're still trying to understand that, aren't we? SPEAKER C Yeah, we are. And we're trying to understand the mechanisms. Little on that. But what we certainly know is that many people today are disconnected from natural environments. And for example, we know that on average, the average adult probably spends about 94% of their time indoors now. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER C Separated. Unless you've got these plants separated from natural environments. And even we know, for example, there is re engineering of environments. Like for example, architects are very aware now that people for the best health of humans and the best functioning of humans, we know that people need access to these spaces. So, for example, window views of nature, we know that that's actually linked in hospital settings, when people have a window view to nature, they tend to take less pain killing medication. SPEAKER B Interesting. SPEAKER C We know that people have more access to natural environments. Even a window view from your home results in less domestic violence. So there's something about this innate connection. It's almost like we're designed to inhabit natural environments. SPEAKER B Yeah, yeah. It sounds like that is where we're going to most likely thrive. The more connection points we have with that. I know sometimes in today's society it can be challenging to build those connections in, but that's really incredible. So do you have any research or understanding of how being exposed to nature actually can make us feel better in terms of what's going on that causes that? Is there anything? SPEAKER C Yeah, that's great. That's a great question. And so there are probably a number of different mechanisms by which this is occurring. And so I'll just refer to a couple of them. First of all, sight. So our eyes, what we need to understand is that our brain, our brain is a fascinating thing. You see, our brain sort of sits in this black box, which is our skull. SPEAKER B Yeah, true. SPEAKER C And it relies on what it's told to receive information in terms of how to interpret what's going on in the world around it, around it and the like. So it's very reliant upon our senses. So our senses feed information to our brain to tell our brain, you know, how to feel and how to optimally function and all the rest of it. And a very large input to your brain, obviously, is your optic nerve. And what we've discovered is that sitting on top of your optic nerve as it leads to your brain is a cluster of cells referred to as the suprachiasmatic nucleus. So it has quite a big name. SPEAKER B Yes, yes. SPEAKER C But what these cluster of cells are doing, we know that they're very much involved in modulating mood and emotional states. And what's interesting is these cells are very, very much influenced by how much light they're exposed to. And so one thing that we definitely know, and there's a lot of work going on in this space at the moment, is that exposure to bright light and you actually. It's really quite interesting if you look at how much light you're exposed to when you go outside as compared to indoor environments, there's a vast contrast there. So just to illustrate, it's outside on a bright, sunny day, you can be exposed to around about 100,000 lux. A hundred thousand? That's a big number. Lux is just a measure of the intensity or the brightness of the light in a brightly lit indoor environment, you're probably exposed to about 500 lux. SPEAKER B Wow, that's so. SPEAKER C That's a very sharp contrast. What it seems from our best guesses, is that this suprachiasmatic nucleus sitting in just on top of your optic nerve probably needs about 10,000 lux for at least 30 minutes each day for you to be emotionally. SPEAKER B Well, wow. SPEAKER C So you can see now, you know, bright, sunny day, 100,000 lux. That's a lot of Lux out there. You probably need about 10,000 lux for 30 minutes each day. But if you spend all of your time indoors, you know, with 500 lux, it's really hard to get up to those levels. And so there's actually now a lot of work being done and there's been early evidence, which has hinted at this for a long time anyway. For example, in countries of high latitude, we have a condition that, well, not really affectionately, but known as sad, which is seasonal affective disorder. And what we know is that that's when, during the winter periods, where there's very low lighting for months, people that suprachiasmatic nucleus sitting on top of their optic nerve, not getting adequate light exposure. And we know that depression's very high, suicidal ideation is very high. And so there's actually now a lot of work being done using what they call bright light therapy. And this is for people who can't get outside for at least 30 minutes when the sun's shining to actually use artificial sources of light that also beam about 10,000 lux and getting exposure to that. And we actually know there's several studies now showing that bright light therapy can be as effective or even more effective than antidepressant medication for relieving things like depression. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER C That's so. Certainly in terms of mechanisms, it seems that light has a big. Is a big factor, but some are colours. We actually know that colours elicit different emotional states in people. We even know that it's just the image of a particular, for example, landscape views. There are studies being done where they put people in functional MRI machines. They're measuring their brain waves and then they flash up images in front of those people so they can see. And they see how our brains respond to this. And what we know is that when you flash up urban sort of cityscapes, typically it reacts in our brains in not positive ways, because for that, for our brains, that's an alarming sort of space, whereas you put up natural environments, then it's calming, you know, it actually activates ringes in what we call our limbic system of our brain that are more, you know, associated with positive emotional states. So, yeah, it's really interesting. So certainly sites are influencing and nature provides us with the right kind of stimuli in terms of sites that our brain really, really finds appealing. But it's other things too. It smells, it sounds. You know, we actually, it doesn't, it's not hard to understand that, that certain sounds can have very strong negative connotations. Like you hear someone, stress rises as you hear it, you hear someone scream, and there's instantaneous response to that. SPEAKER B That's true. SPEAKER C I was actually with a parent of five young children just a couple of days ago, and all of a sudden we heard crying and it was like instantly that sound for her. And it was interesting. She went, that's not one of mine. So it was obvious that there were more children around as well. She was still concerned. But, you know, we know that sounds elicit emotional responses, but there are other sounds which actually elicit very positive emotional states as well. And we know, for example, things like moving water is very calming. Yes, we know that, you know, bird sounds, natural sounds. There's something about natural environments that stimulates our eyes, that stimulates our ears, and even our smells and textures that we, we can always taste nature in some way. Like wet rain, you know, like just after that rain. There's something about that that changes our emotional states. Yeah. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER C So it's probably really quite multifaceted faceted. SPEAKER B Yeah. SPEAKER C But certainly there are a lot of stimuli that nature supplies that does our brain and our bodies a whole lot of good, as I'll tell you. I'll speak to one other one, which is quite intriguing, a little bit esoteric, but still early in its research. But even air quality, we know, can have a profound effect upon people's health statuses. So much so there is evidence to suggest that if you have, and I'm intrigued, as I say, even this is that we talk about, you know, one of the sort of, Alan White talked about this whole idea of what is health and the pillars of health. It's interesting that a famous statement that she has, she talks about pure air and sunlight. SPEAKER B Yes. SPEAKER C Really speaking to that, that sort of environmental piece. But the pure air, what we know is that people that live in high altitudes where the air gets thinner actually have. Well, it's related to body weight, really? SPEAKER B More or less. Less. Okay. SPEAKER C And the reason for that, there's probably a couple of reasons, but one is that as you increase in altitude, CO2 levels start to change in your body. So you actually get this thing called respiratory alkalosis, which changes your feeding behaviours. You tend not to be as hungry, but we actually think it might shift certain physiological processes in your body that change your weight status. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER C And what's really interesting and about that is that we know that, say, over the past 30 years or so, we've actually seen rising levels of CO2 in 50% CO2 levels in the atmosphere and we've seen concomitant increases in obesity around the world as well. So there's actually even some theories and once again, they're a little bit out there, so I won't dive too deep into the science, but they're emerging that air quality that we're emerged to affects physiological processes, which in turn affects their health outcomes, such as things like obesity. SPEAKER B Yeah, and I guess because you'll probably get a lot more of the CO2 in areas like city environments because of all the pollution that's in there compared with a natural environment where you got the fresh air, you just feel it, you know, you go there and you just like just want to breathe this in because it's so good. SPEAKER C That's correct. And indoor spaces as well. So indoor spaces where you don't have adequate ventilation, there's some estimates that CO2 levels can be up to 50 times higher. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER C So, yeah, I think there's some really interesting work. This is a budding space, but certainly there's a lot pointing to the importance of us getting out to nature and exposing it. SPEAKER B Absolutely. And it's just. Yeah, it's just fascinating to think of and see all the different angles that this could be impacting. Like, this is a really comprehensive influence, isn't it, in our lives for our health, having this nature exposure. So tell me a little bit about what we know about how much exposure can have meaningful health outcome improvement. SPEAKER C Yeah, and that's a great question, because often when we're talking about value of exercise, nutrition or whatever, everyone wants to know, what's the dose response? SPEAKER B Yeah, yeah. SPEAKER C How much do I need to do? And often, you know, maybe the subtitle of that is what's the minimum I need to do? Certainly when it comes to exercise, what's the minimum I could get away with and still experience these benefits? What we find, and this occurs with most of the pillars of lifestyle medicine, is that typically the more the better. SPEAKER B Yeah, interesting. SPEAKER C However, what's that minimum amount? And when I say more the better, it's interesting that there's often a sort of a u shape relationship here too. We know that not enough of something typically isn't produces not good health outcomes. If you can get optimal amounts, then it's ideal. Overexposure can be problematic too. So for example, sunlight, that's really beneficial. SPEAKER B That's the case, isn't it? SPEAKER C Very beneficial and obviously for the production of things like vitamin D and the like. But over sun exposure can actually cause other issues as well. So I think trying to get that balance right is important to consider. In my humble opinion. I think that the more nature you can be immersed in then the better it is for you. What a lot of the studies seem to be concurring with is that when it comes to sunlight, and I mentioned already about getting your 10,000 lux of sunlight, probably 30 minutes a day is sort of ideal. The research that's been done looking at single exposure, like if I just did, if I spent x number of minutes in nature, would I get benefits after? It seems like probably about 2 hours seems to give some good long lasting benefits, like for several days after. But there is a dose response there if you can spend four to 5 hours in a single hit. So for example, going for a nature walk for four to 5 hours, you'll definitely have benefits retained within your body for about a week after that. So, yeah, so it's still, the science is still emerging. Certainly if you could have a two hour block at some point throughout the day where you're really exposed in a natural environment, ideally even four to 5 hours would be better still. But I think that daily dose too of half an hour is something to aim for. SPEAKER B Yeah. And so with the 10,000 lux thing, just a question, practically speaking, what about a cloudy day? Are we going to get that 10,000 for that kind of a day? Or do we have to wait for the sunshine all the time? Yeah. SPEAKER C And this is in some parts of the world, it's hard. SPEAKER B Yeah. Yeah. SPEAKER C So what the evidence seems to suggest there is that full sunlight, the sun's beaming down probably about 100,000 lux if you are on a sunny day, but standing in the shade, you're probably still exposed to about 25,000 lux. SPEAKER B Wow. It's still decent. SPEAKER C Yeah. And even on a quite overcast day, you probably got sort of in the order of 2000 lux out there, which is still a whole lot better than outside, indoors. SPEAKER B Yeah, for sure. SPEAKER C And so what it means you probably need to spend more time out there. SPEAKER B Right. So is it a cumulative effect? SPEAKER C It can, yes. It seems once again the science is still emerging. Figuring that out, you know, we can enact this and it's not that hard to do. For example, the difference between eating your lunch indoors can just mean going and sitting outside. SPEAKER B Yeah. SPEAKER C And you know that that's 30 minutes where you're outside. And what we don't realise is that we're immersed in all of those things and the more natural environment that we can create for us. SPEAKER B Yeah. SPEAKER C We know in schools, for example, they're doing like outdoor classrooms where they'll actually have like a hedged area with greenery and then the kids do their have a class in there. And what's really nice about that, I actually visited my, my local school has set up an outdoor classroom like this and you go and you sit in there and even though it's in quite an urban environment because there's this whole wall of sort of high trees and plants around you, they have a water feature in there as well. You come into this and you're in this little sort of micro environment and you could honestly feel. It feels like you're in the middle of the forest somewhere, even though on the outside, beyond the confines of it. But it's quite urban. So we can do that. You know, imagine if in your workplace for example, or in your home you had some little place that you could create that was your little sanctuary that sort of had more of the blue and green in it. SPEAKER B Yeah. And there's so much scope that you can do that in small ways and larger depending on your situation. Are there any other practical ways that either you've applied or you've seen others applied for bringing this more into this, into our lifestyles every day like in this current modern world? SPEAKER C Yeah, I think there's real power in re engineering our environment. And for example, I do this relating to be more active. I actually have my printer set up two stories below. So I physically, every time I print something out I have to walk two stairs down and then often I get down there and I printed it wrong so I have to go back up and read it. But we can do the same thing with our environment. I mean I think it's just about being intentional. And could it be that I could just get more pot plants in my space? Could I actually work closer to a window with the window open? Could I have my lunch outside? So I think a lot of it just boils down to that intentionality. SPEAKER B Yes. SPEAKER C And how can I make use of the spaces that are around and. Yeah, so I think that intentionality piece, there's these small things that we can do to feel like we're living in more of a blue and green space. SPEAKER B Yeah, that's so interesting. And it seems like often we can just get caught up into how we've always done something and then you don't. You sort of are somewhat blinded as to what you can change. But then if you take a step back and have a new approach or a new perspective of like, oh, how can we actually fit this in? Then you might get some inspiration of we can do this here and that there and just fill in all of the gaps for sure. Yeah. Wow, that's so interesting. Thank you so much for coming and sharing with us today. I am so excited to see what more is going to develop in this space because as you say, it's an emerging field and so there's still a lot that we're going to learn as the evidence comes in and as we get to understand a bit more about what science is showing. SPEAKER C But we don't need to wait for the science. SPEAKER B That's true. SPEAKER C We all know and it doesn't work. SPEAKER B Yeah, that's true. Good on you. Thank you for sharing and I really appreciate that. And yeah, look forward to taking those opportunities myself as well, even more so. Thank you. So we've been talking today with lifestyle medicine expert Doctor Darren Morton about how being immersed in nature is like medicine. And I hope you've enjoyed this topic just as much as I have. May we all be inspired to go outside and be blessed with the benefits nature exposure offers to our health and maybe even find different ways of bring it indoors too. If you have questions or comments about this programme, or if there is a topic you'd like us to discuss, contact us on healthy abnaustralia.org dot au. We're so glad you could join us here today on this programme and look forward to next time. Remember to shape your lifestyle as medicine. SPEAKER A You've been listening to Your Lifestyle as Medicine, a production of 3ABN Australia television.