When I’m shitty I climb a tree
This week in Sunday Life: I try the “wilderness effect”
On Thursday I woke up antsy. Sometimes we just do, don’t we. It’s the wind, the moon….the half bottle of wine we drank the night before. Whatever.
by RJ Shaughnessy
I’d had a cold for days and I felt as stale as a pair of pyjamas that have been slept in too long. And just to add to the blah-ness I had to go buy eggs. So I fired myself up, tied on my hiking shoes, grabbed $5 and headed bush. I decided to travel the 5km into town (for the eggs) cross-country – through two farms and a national park, which Google Maps indicated has no walking trails or roads.
Which sounds quaintly Famous Five in theory. But things wound up with me stuck in a quagmire. Literally. The trail-less park turned out to be a swamp and about 2km in I was up to my knees in it, lost and stuck. I sunk back on a mangrove tree in a little sunny patch, picked off a few leeches and thought, Sarah, what are you doing?
I can only say I was trying to de-blah.
Plunging oneself into nature has been well documented as a technique for making life better. And for getting out of a blah-y rut. Psychologists call it the “wilderness effect” and a number of studies show that “green exercise” improves wellbeing and moves us to deep, satisfying realisations that re-set thinking. Watching sunsets, camping under stars, coming face-to-face with a deer in a forest (remember that turning point scene in cult film Stand by Me?) – such experiences have been shown to have a universal effect.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, when I was studying in Canberra in my early twenties I stuck a sign on the back of my door: “Go climb a tree”. It was there to remind me when I got stuck in a study rut to hike up a nearby hill and sit in a eucalypt until I got clear. My brother Pete deals with his blahs by heading into remote forests wherever he might be living (currently the Solomons), erecting a hoochie (how great is that word!) and just sitting out there a few days; my friend Dan takes off riding across continents (breaking Guinness World Records along the way) to reboot his life for the better.
But how does the wilderness effect work? In the past it was about conquering. Man against the elements, finding new lands, controlling and modernising. But recent studies argue that the myriad distractions of nature – rocks to clamber over, spider webs to dodge – shut down tedious ruminative thoughts, forcing attention to the present moment. It posits us powerfully in the now.
A University of Michigan study found that because our senses evolved in nature, by getting back to it we connect more honestly with our sensory reactions. Which connects us with our true selves, and enhances a feeling of “oneness”. Neuroscientists at the Berkeley Social Interaction Laboratory have also found awe-inspiring natural experiences release oxytocin – the hormones that makes us feel warm and fuzzy with others. Ergo, that urge to interrupt a mega natural encounter – arriving at a waterfall or witnessing a spectacular sunrise – to take a photo or tweet the experience back to friends and family.
Yep, that makes sense. But there’s something more to the effectiveness of going bush when things get wobbly. Unlike in Burke and Wills’ day, submerging in nature is about escaping – not garnering – control. Our lives are bogged down by our need to constantly steer and control and schedule. When we go bush two things happen. First, it forces us to fend. In the swamp on Thursday I had to draw on long-forgotten skills and survival acumen to get out (I found a fence and followed it, and swung from tree to tree). It made me feel alive and engaged and wonderfully “off schedule”.
Second, it reminds us of our powerlessness. Nature has a self-organising rhythm of its own that can’t and won’t be controlled. Waves roll, cliffs drop off and rivers flood as perfect conflations of self-organising forces that are bigger than us and more perfect than our feeble attempts to steer things.
Flowers don’t try to bloom. They just do.
In this realisation – in the awareness of our smallness and impotence – we’re made aware that our lives are also a perfect conflation of self-organising forces that can’t be controlled. What sweet relief!
And how perfect that a swamp got me stuck. Allowing me to become unstuck. Ah yes, that’s how nature rolls.
What makes you feel small and humble and alive? Flying in planes can, too, for me.
Great article! It really resonates with me, nothing calms me more the being in the ocean and opening my eyes and watching and listening as a wave rolls over me, the peace I feel is intense. I also like hiking up a mountain, getting to the top and looking out at the small city below, it really does make me feel small, humble and alive!
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Great post! Just the advice I needed….I’m from Perth originally…so i love looking at an endless horizon of ocean…throw in a sunset….not too shabby!!
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I just want to know two things. 1. Did you end up getting the eggs?
2. …and whilst upon your Bear Grylls-esque adventure, did you get hungry? Frustrated? And then at some point burst out laughing?
I love this – and the few times I have found myself in a similar situation – of being lost in the wilderness it’s always been something to look back on and see the therapy in it.
For me – it’s sand and sun. Give me sand and sun and I find my clarity. Damn shame I live in Melbourne!
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June 5th, 2011 at 6:02 pm
my cousin came around later with eggs from the farmer’s market!
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Lovely post Sarah. So true what you say about planes too. Stuck in a swamp going for eggs – gold. Was it that stinky mud?
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I love the idea that the reminder of our smallness can be our savior when we are feeling blah.
We cant control everything, so why try? It’s easy to get wrapped up in our individual self-absorbedness and forget there are so many greater things.
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I love how you think Sarah! It’s as if you’re speaking my mind. Thank you thank you!Hope you get a moment to check out my song ‘Nature Love’ – here are the lyrics to the Middle 8 – “Flowers bloom, the grass gets high, the silver moon lights up the sky, rivers flow, the waters fall, there’s love in nature for us all”. You can have a listen at my electronic press kit:
http://www.sonicbids.com/epk/epk.aspx?epk_id=57888
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Sarah, there seems to be a pattern here! It was only a few weeks ago you wrote about feeling restless and fractured a bone running barefoot on slippery rocks. Today you write about feeling antsy and get stuck in a swamp. Hate to say it, but these things will keep happening until you get the lesson.
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June 5th, 2011 at 6:03 pm
yep. that’s it!! comically literal lessons!
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June 5th, 2011 at 6:22 pm
Fracturing a foot is funny?
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June 6th, 2011 at 11:20 am
When you stand back from it!
We really enjoyed this article, thanks Sarah!
When you get a sec, this article by our mate Grant about the Spirituality of Bushwalking may be of interest http://ourhikingblog.com.au/2008/02/spirituality-of-bushwalking-one-mans.html – we are heading off with him again in a few weeks, should be fun having a chat at night!
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on a remorseful hangover, I drag myself and a blanket outside and lie in the sun. the air and the smell of the earth under me helps make me feel human.
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Love your post! When i was younger i used to go climb the big Willow tree in our front yard to escape… well life i guess. It has been so long since i climbed a tree, but with the stress of exams making me sick i think this is just the remedy i need. Thankyou
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for me, it’s the beach. i’ve just moved back to the gold coast after 4 years in melbourne, and i can’t begin to tell you how much i missed the beach. just the sand under your feet and the waves crashing – you remember just how insignificant everything is and it puts everything back into perspective.
coming to byron for a few days next week – can not wait!!!
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wow Sarah!
i so needed to read this post today!! here in Paris at the moment i’ve kind of felt stuck in a concrete jungle for the past year and as someone who’s always lived next to the beach and around national parks either in Sydney or QLD i desperately miss… nature.
you’ve encouraged me to move my butt and trek it out to the forest today. i think my soul is desperately in need of some green!
thanks again for the scientific info too. i always find it interesting how many little secrets and fascinating quirks our biology contains. too cool!
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June 6th, 2011 at 11:21 am
Did you go?
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June 6th, 2011 at 3:32 pm
yeah, i did
i hired one of the ‘velib’ bikes for 1.70 euro for the hour (which i am now in love with and are so user friendly once you know the system – with bike stations all over Paris!) and took myself out to the forest just outside the city circle. rode the trails aimlessly for about an hour then parked the bike to have a walk.
found a glorious lake, some baby ducks, a field of horses – and air that didn’t smell so much like exhaust, the metro and dog poo! the combination of all that, the sunshine and the exercise felt so good. not really knowing where i was going and not being at all familiar with my surroundings (was not only kind of exciting – like an adventure!) kind of consumed a lot of concentration and your right Sarah, it really helps to shake off a lot the unnecessary fuzz that kind of builds up when we’re over-thinking.
the thunderstorm that erupted as i came home was a brilliant ending to it all too!
i definitely feel that I’m starting the week a little fresher than if i chose instead to reply to my friends’ text and go hang out at the bar for the afternoon!
thanks for the inspiration, Sarah!
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Being above the clouds definitely does this for me as well as getting dirty with nature…
It is so beautiful and serene that it makes all the challenges in life seem much less complicated and makes everything feel calm.
My dream is to fly in a hot air ballon one day
To just float away…
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I adore this post.
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Love this post. I too, am an adult tree climber, You’ve just reminded me I haven’t done that for a while. Luckily Centennial Park is outside my front door. See ya!
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For me nothing clears the cobwebs like running away to sea. Anywhere in nature will do though
You might have heard of Richard Louv? He wrote a book called “Last Child in The Woods” and recently wrote “The Nature Principle”. He coined the term “Nature Deficit Disorder” in his first book which I am still reading. He is passionate about connecting children (and adults) with nature and getting us to unplug.
I fell out of a tree on Friday trying to get a Banksia tree framed againts a backdrop of surf down at Cronulla
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June 6th, 2011 at 11:22 am
Banksia’s are noooo good for climbing! Wish I’d known about Richard’s books before I wrote this!
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June 6th, 2011 at 1:43 pm
You are quite right, Banksias are hopeless for climbing. I was wearing leather boots with worn out soles so I slipped down the trunk and fell on my bum. Infront of my two small children and various amused onlookers!
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I also really enjoyed this article. The reasons you mentioned for the effect of the trees all sound quite logical. But, there might be another one here – what we call “green odours”. there is quite a bit of scientific evidence to show that the chemicals in leaves have a potent stress relieving effect. You might be interested in the information in serenascent.com.au
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[...] is good for you. Sarah Wilson writes about how being outside makes her feel good. Specifically, when she feels shitty, she climbs a tree.This just brought back memories of MY tree. Back in the States, in our back yard, my brothers and I [...]