Alisha Leytem: Hello everyone. Welcome back. I'm your host Alisha. I'm really thrilled and excited for today's topic here on the Unlock Your Wellbeing podcast. I wanted to talk about something that I am very, very passionate about, which is the power, the healing powers of nature, the healing powers of nature.
I am becoming even more passionate about this topic as we become even more connected through ai. All of the crazy ai stuff that has been happening lately. I mean, every day I'm seeing new technologies that are happening through ai. I've heard it's only gonna just get crazier and crazier over the next couple of decades, which in some ways is really amazing how much we're progressing and advancing as humanity. In other ways I think it just shows how important and how needed it is for us to stay grounded and to stay connected to nature and to not forget where we came from.
To not forget what we are a part of, which is nature. We are one with it. We came from it. We live in harmony with it. When we aren't in harmony with nature, this is when we begin to lose our sense of wellbeing, our health dramatically decreases, our happiness dramatically decreases, and we lose a lot of that grounded centeredness that we need to feel truly happy, healthy, and whole.
So the reason that I'm talking about this with you all today is because spring is right around the corner. At the time of recording this episode, we are days away from the spring equinox, and as we get closer to spring, people start to feel happier. People start to feel more inspired and hopeful, which is really, what spring represents and what it's all about.
For those of us who celebrate Easter, for example, the whole holiday of Easter, the whole celebration of Easter is to celebrate the energy of being born again, of renewal, of that energy of hope is right there, right there for you. So that's what the season represents for us.
We know that nature affects our mood greatly. In fact, nature does this so much that it's actually the fourth key in my book, the Sixth G.O.L.D Keys to Wellbeing. I guide to unlocking a Happy and healthy life, which is my framework to, to wellbeing. This is the basics, this is the foundation. And number four is nature.
My personal story with nature, you can actually read it in in the book in the fourth chapter. But nature has been a incredible modality of healing for me in many different times of my life. So much so that when I started to really think about and wonder, I always feel so much better when I'm in nature, how is this helping me? Truly, I begin to research it and study it and understand why.
I'm gonna share with you a little bit about why nature helps you to feel better. Specifically with this episode, a few things that you can do when you're in nature to help you increase your energy levels, because that's something that we all want.
We want to increase our energy and nature can can do that for you. I'm gonna be giving you some ways that being outside will have a direct impact on you feeling better. Now, here's the basics. The actual foundation. I'm gonna be reading to you a little bit of some background and information from one of my favorite authors about grounding. She provides a lot of really, really beautiful studies on what has been founded on grounding and the healing powers of nature.
The first thing to know is that the amount of inflammation that we have in our bodies at any given moment has a direct impact on your mood. We know that inflammation in the body actually worsens mood and can play a role in clinical depression. There was a medical study published in 2016 that found that increased inflammation in the body worsens symptoms of clinical depression.
There was another study published in 2019 that confirmed that as well. Now, one study found in 2014 found that if you decrease your inflammation in your body, this can help you treat depression more effectively, meaning you will feel much, much better.
So we know that inflammation directly impacts our mood. We want to do all of the things to lower our inflammation. Now, there's other factors at play with our mood. Of course, it's not only the amount of inflammation that we have in our bodies, but we do know that inflammation lowers the dopamine levels in our brain, and the dopamine levels in our brain are responsible for decreased mood, decreased motivation and obviously energy levels.
So basically inflammation can give you a motivational impairment. So if you feel like, oh, I just dunno why I'm motivated, there could be some, some inflammation going on. It can prevent you from thinking optimistically as well as keeping you from accurately assessing what you are capable of.
Even if you are fully capable of doing something, your brain will tell you that you're not, and your motivation just tanks as a result of chronic inflammation. I think you might know where I'm going with this. We know that grounding specifically decreases inflammation in our bodies that have a direct impact on our dopamine levels.
So what exactly is grounding? Grounding is pretty much what it sounds like. It is having direct contact with the earth, meaning one part of your body is touching the surface of the earth. So this is your hand touching a tree. This is your feet, your bare feet walking in the grass. This is you having a picnic and sitting down and your shoes and socks are off and you're walking barefoot in the grass. This is you having direct contact with the planet.
The reason that this helps us is because the earth's surface is like a charging station. You can think of the human body like a a cell phone. The earth's like a charging station. When we are low on energy and too high in inflammation, if you simply go out and touch the earth, you are going to feel more calm, centered, uplifted and higher dopamine levels, not including the vitamin D that you'll get access to by being outside and being in the sun.
This all allows you when you are outside, when you are grounding, when you are in connection with the earth, and you have a relationship with it where you're actually spending time outside in there, this helps you to be more active, helps you to be able to be more comfortable and move in your physical body, which then allows us to sleep better and have a deeper restorative sleep, which then gives you more energy for the following day.
If you've taken any of my programs, if you've worked with me at all, you'll know that all of what I teach interacts and, works with each other. So in my six keys framework, the first key is the key of sleep. So improving your sleep helps you to make better decisions with your diet. The next day you crave things better for you.
Being out in nature helps you to sleep better, which then helps you to eat better, which then helps you to have a more positive mindset and helps you to be more mindful, like everything works together simultaneously.
This is why my framework is really very much, you know, based on the foundation to wellbeing. So grounding your body through nature decreases whole body inflammation. It decreases the stress hormones like cortisol in your bloodstream and decreases what's called your c-reactive protein levels and inflammatory cytokine levels. It's completely natural with no medications involved.
So here's the thing, I was actually just at the a conference last week. My husband and I, we went to, it was wine country. Really cool. It was both our first time out there for a work conference. Michael's actually the keynote speaker for it. We had a booth there. We met a bunch of people in the the public sector, and a couple of you were saying how, oh, I took a call outside when the sun was out, and I felt so amazing.
I realized like, why don't I do that more? And I just had to chuckle because yeah, there's reasons for it, and there are ways that we can compound what we're doing and take what we're already doing outside and, stack these habits so that you can actually get better benefits of increasing your energy through the power of nature and not make it something additional that you need to do, but just make it something that you kind of move what you do indoors, outdoors as much as possible.
We're coming into a season now in spring that it becomes easier to do this. Now, one thing that I hear a lot too is, oh yes, I can finally go outside now that it's spring. And I do challenge you to reconsider that. Nice weather is the only time that you can go outside, because that's not true either.
In fact, there is a lot of research that shows the more time you spend outdoors and all weathers actually helps you to increase your resiliency levels, meaning it increases your ability to handle more stress with ease because you're exposing yourself to more stress and, you actually improve the longevity of your life.
Too often we are just staying super comfortable and cozy inside our homes with like the perfect temperature at all times year round, you know, 72 degrees inside no matter what, and that's where you spend the majority of your life.
Then the second you go outside when it's too hot or too cold, you can't cope. Well, that's going to impact you in more ways than just that moment when you're inside or outside. This is also about longevity in your life.
What are some things that you can do when you do go outside like, okay, Alisha, amazing. I want to go outside more. I want to ground more. What would you have me do? Well, I actually have my book opened as a resource guide, because that's why I created this book for a guide to just turn back to, to have this resource for you year round.
I have a couple of ideas in here for you that are not necessarily additional things you need to do, but things you currently do that you can take outside as the, the beautiful days are inviting you to do so.
The first thing I am going to share with you that you can do is take your workouts outside, even any kind of like stretching or physical therapy. If you do any kind of physical therapy stretches that you have to do daily, what if you did them outside?
Do them outside and do 'em barefoot in the grass, or do 'em outside next to a tree, and then hold onto the tree. For your balance when you're doing certain exercises. You can do any other exercise beyond, you know, just physical therapy that you're doing daily.
You can just take it outside. Spring is a really great time. Any new seasons in general, a great time to just mix up your, your exercise routine. Because you constantly wanna be having your body guess and, and having it do new things, you don't wanna be doing the same thing forever and ever.
So mixing it up with the season is a really great time to do this. Using spring as a way, as a, springboard to go outside and do so. So taking a yoga practice outside running outside, even going for more walks outside.
When I walk outside, I like to constantly be taking my gloves off if it's colder and touching trees along the way. If I'm in my local neighborhood, I will go for walks barefoot. People think I'm crazy. I even do it with my daughter because we need to ground. You just have to ground. So taking your exercise outside, you're already working out hopefully as often as you can, doing so outside.
If you spend some time every day journaling or writing a to-do list, do it outside. Do it outside any kind of boring tasks that you're doing. If you are sitting on your phone and ordering groceries for the week, consider standing barefoot outside on your phone and doing it instead of standing barefoot in your kitchen. That's something you're already doing. You're just making the conscious effort of grounding while you're doing it and getting some Vitamin D exposure as well, which are all things that are going to improve your mood.
Another thing that will give you more energy with nature is getting enough sunlight in your eyes as early in the morning as possible. So when you wake up, resist the urge to look at your phone for the first 30 minutes. I personally have fallen off this habit for a while now with having a two year old. I've just recently like recommitted to you not looking at my phone first thing in the morning.
What we've been doing is, we'll get up, get outta bed right away, and I will go to the front door and open the door and just like, let the sun in my eyes. This will wake you up and it resets your circadian rhythm. So it helps you to sleep better at night and it, it helps your body to wake up faster naturally in the morning, which will naturally give you more energy.
You'll be more tired if you stay in a dark room and look at a screen than if you were to get up and go look at the sun right away.
Here’s another one. Bird watching. Bird listening. Okay, so hear me out. This is in my book. I'm just gonna read this part to you. Page 152, if you have it. If not, you can head to Amazon and get it. Bird watching, believe it or not, a recent study found that happiness is correlated with local bird diversity. In fact, a 10% increase in exposure to bird song increases happiness to a similar magnitude as a 10% increase as your income.
Do you know what this means? This means if you want to be 10% happier or like you wish you would get a 10% raise because you think it'd make you happier, all you need to do is just go listen to all of the birds that are singing in spring right now, and you will be happier person.
I challenge you to do that when you're outside, cuz you're gonna be spending more intention and making an effort of going outside or even when you do, walk out to your car or you're outside for just a little bit at a time. Be mindful and listen to the birds and just take it in and be joyful. And like, the birds are here, spring is here, I receive this. Lean into like that sense of awe because that is one other thing that nature does, is helps you kind of access your sense of awe, which helps to give you more energy.
One other thing when it comes to doing what you're doing already and just taking it outside, think about just doing your work outside. Hear me out, hear me out. A lot of us have laptops. A lot of us can work from our phones. A lot of us have some tasks that we do that don't require technology.
If you have to return texts or read through some research or some paperwork, take it outside. Even if there's a picnic table around, do you work on the picnic table and take your shoes off and just ground while, while you're doing so. Then when you hear the birds on the side, you can, you can check that out too.
Doing this grounding when you're at work has been found to decrease your fatigue and also increase your energy. Obviously it helps you to prevent stress and oxidative damage. It helps you, your brain to work better. That's amazing. So it's a natural way to decrease your stress and to improve your level of clarity. You'll be even more clear when you are working outside.
One thing that I love to really start doing with my family around this time of year is doing a family walk together after dinner. So the days are longer. We have already had daylight savings, hopefully this is the last time we have to do that. That would be amazing. Anyone else pro No more daylight savings?
The days are longer and taking some time to go for a walk together outside. Touching things as you go. Touching the grass, touching the dirt, touching the trees, even touching any kind of leaf, connected to a tree is grounding and can help you feel instantly grounded.
The last little tip that I'm gonna give you which is super cool, this actually just came out and I have it here in my, in my my phone, in my notes here. It was a new study that was just released last week actually.
This study is a first study of its kind that looked into the appreciation of home gardening. So we know, like there's been a lot of like research articles that have shown that gardening in and of itself is really great for your wellbeing. You’re grounding, you're doing something meaningful, you're connecting to the earth. That's great. Actually that's one tip that I have in my book on connecting and grounding in the spring is gardening.
This study in particular wanted to look at the impact of appreciating gardens, of just looking at them and enjoying them with friends. They found that it actually does improve and increase your wellbeing. So they found that sharing a love for home gardening was found to have both direct and indirect impacts on physical fitness, social connectedness and friendship.
They said it was actually surprising. So surrounding yourself with the beauty of flowers and with other people, friends is sometimes all it takes to improve your wellbeing. If you're not a gardener, but your neighbor is, or you know gardens that you can go to and admire.
Like I have a neighbor down the street who they have such beautiful flowers every single year and stopping in front of their place on my daily walks and just admiring them and being grateful for them, that makes me feel good.
Now there's a, a research article to, to back that up. So, enjoying the beauty of gardens and if you're not doing them, but also you and with yourself. So there you have it.
I hope that we gave you some really good ideas of things you can do to boost your mood through grounding, using the power of nature and just doing more of the things you're already doing, just doing it outside, eating more of your meals outside, taking phone calls outside, drinking your morning coffee outside, going for walks outside, writing in your journal.
You know, making your list of to-dos, ordering your groceries, groceries over your phone, checking emails, anything that you are already doing inside. See if you can challenge yourself to take it outside. One of my absolute favorite ways to, to take it outside and this time of year is my workouts. Particularly walking. I love to walk and it's one of my favorite ways to move and I love to do it with nature and just kind of bring all of those, those keys together.
So thank you guys so much for tuning in today. I hope that it was a value for you. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a five star review and a written review. Feel free to pass us along to someone who you think that it could help and inspire you.
So happy spring you guys. We will see you next Friday, like we do every week for a brand new episode. If you wanna stay connected with me and my work with Alisha Leytem Wellness head to alishaleytem.com. That's a l i s h a l e y t e m.
We actually just redid our website. My team member, Sam, she did an amazing job. So go check it out. We have a bunch of new service offerings helping organizations improve their workforce well-being.
I also have a course on my framework on my book, the Six G.O.L.D Keys to Wellbeing that you can take on your own. So you can check that out there. We have all of our other podcast episodes over there and different ways that you can contact me and book a call to see how we can help you as a leader in your organization. So I wish you all a very beautiful rest of your day, wherever you are in the world, and we'll see you next time, Namaste.
