We went for a walk in the forest and soothed our tired minds with the rocking of this wide, green world.
He led us to quiet waters. And He let this flock with frazzled synapses, weary bones, fatigued souls…. just sit in the green pastures. Just picnic and stare and listen to long frog songs. The water was still. We reflected too.
In the verdant quiet is where He restores souls.
“… Attention spans improve by 20 percent after people spend an hour interacting with nature,” reports a recent study at the University of Michigan.
“Nature, which is filled with intriguing stimuli, modestly grabs attention in a bottom-up fashion, allowing top-down directed-attention abilities a chance to replenish,” posits researcher Stephen Kaplan at the University of Michigan. “Unlike natural environments, urban environments are filled with stimulation that captures attention dramatically and additionally requires directed attention (e.g., to avoid being hit by a car), making them less restorative.”
While “green” activities are known to improve attention spans of children, adults, too, seem to restore body and soul with playtime in natural settings.
Researchers in England (Pretty et al., 2005) and Sweden (Bodin and Hartig, 2003) have found that joggers who exercise in a natural green setting with trees, foliage, and landscape views, feel more restored, and less anxious, angry, and depressed than people who burn the same amount of calories in gyms or other built settings. Research is continuing into what is called “green exercise.”
They call this field of research Attention Restoration Theory (ART)… and the ART of restoring our attention is to simply walk through the fields. For in the rustling grass, we hear Him pass… He speaks to us everywhere. It’s just that we hear His quiet song best on the wind, under the sky, in the whispering leaves. Attending to that Voice refreshes the soul, body, mind… to attend to life.
If the heaven’s declare…. shall we get out there?
How we set up our nature table
Part of a series this week on Paying Attention
