It’s stress reduction that doesn’t cost anything, said Donald Wleklinski, clinical instructor of nursing at the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
Wleklinski, who is a registered nurse with a master’s degree in counseling, is talking about the simple act of going outdoors. It’s not a new idea, but many people credit Richard Louv with starting the current discussion in 2005 with his book “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder.” Wleklinski is often asked to speak on the topic, as he did Saturday at Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area near Rogers.
Whether it’s stopping by a tiny neighborhood park or taking off to a more remote destination, Wleklinski insisted one prerequisite is necessary for peace in the outdoors: Leave the iPhone,the iPad and even the iPod in the car - or better yet, at home.
Wleklinski believes many people live in a constant state of heightened anxiety, waiting for and worrying about the next text, the next phone call, the next email, the next Tweet.
“A big part of what I push in my lectures is people being able to give themselves permission to not have that constant stimulus and input,” he said. “When all you have is God’s creation around you, it changes your perception. If there’s no impetus to push a button, your brain can focus on what it sees and hears and smells, and your body is released from the need to worry about whether there’s a text coming.
“If people take that opportunity, it can definitely reduce anxiety and stress.”
Much of Wleklinski’s research goes back to journalist and author Louv, who wrote the international bestseller “Last Child in the Woods.” Louv, a Kansas City native who now lives in San Diego, was working on a book titled “Childhood’s Future” in the late 1980s when a common theme caught his attention.
“I wanted to find out about the changing realities of family life, and the topics that kept coming up became the chapters of the book,” he recalled in a phone interview. One of them, he said, was how little time children spent outdoors.
“I kept watching that issue, and over the next decade or so, the people who study human behavior and child development began to pay attention,” he said. “Two groups of evidence emerged, one about the disconnect between children and nature and the other about the benefits of being in nature.”
At lectures and book signings, adults began to tell Louv that they too had “nature deficit disorder” - including a woman who grabbed him by the lapels and pulled him up from behind the table, he remembered with a chuckle.
“I said, ‘Let go of me,’” he added. “But she was, of course, right.”
The result was “The Nature Principle,” which made Oprah Winfrey’s 2011 summer reading list. Our society, Louv said, “has developed such an outsized faith in technology that we have yet to fully realize or even adequately study how human capacities are enhanced through the power of nature.” Through research, anecdotal evidence and personal stories, Louv’s book explains his belief that “tapping into the restorative powers of the natural world can boost mental acuity and creativity; promote health and wellness; build smarter and more sustainable businesses, communities, and economies; and ultimately strengthen human bonds.” As he says in the introduction, “The Nature Principle” is “about the power of living in nature - not with it, but in it.”
“I’m very careful in both books and whenever I talk about it to say ‘nature-deficit disorder’ is not a known medical diagnosis for children or adults,” Louv added. “But the corny phrase caught on and has entered the language. And it’s a way to talk about something we didn’t have much language to talk about before.”
What would our lives be like if our days and nights were as immersed in nature as they are in technology, he wondered in the book.
“The future will belong to the nature-smart,” Louv asserted, “those ... who balance the virtual with the real. The more high-tech we become, the more nature we need.”
Louv agreed with Wleklinski that nature can be found anywhere.
“I’m very broad in the way I describe nature,” he said. “Nearby nature in urban places is as important as wilderness - and nearby nature hasn’t gotten enough notice. One of the ideas of ‘The Nature Principle’ is conservation is no longer enough; we need to create nature, crazy as that sounds.”
But Louv warned that many people require a reason to go out into nature - and should find one.
“We’re goal driven. We have to have a product,” he said.
Although he is a longtime fisherman, Louv now spends more time taking digital photographs. They are, he joked, easier to email than fish. But his hobby is a continuing impetus to go outdoors.
“Everybody comes to nature from their own backgrounds,” Louv concluded. “I have a good friend, Juan Martinez, head of Natural Leaders, who came to nature through growing a chile plant in south-central L.A. Now training young people as leaders of the children-in-nature movement is his life.
“(Author) Michael Pollen told me the woods scared him when he was a kid, but he loved his garden. That’s the doorway he walked into nature from. For me, it was the woods behind my house.
“Each of us came through a different door, but we came to the same place.”
Life, Pages 8 on 01/30/2013