A lot of factors affect an individual’s physical well-being and mental state. The power of nature and weather plays a significant role in your level of happiness, whether you are conscious of it or not.
There’s even a debilitating condition termed seasonal affective disorder or SAD, where a person goes through depressive episodes only during the colder months. This is a clear demonstration of what power nature has on us.
Here are a few things that you should know about how the power of nature can influence your mood and emotions:
1. Extreme Weather Conditions Evoke Empathy
Extreme weather is characteristically unexpected and unpredictable, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and blizzards. These phenomena can increase your stress levels and anxiety. However, one significant upside to these unfortunate events is that they bring out people’s compassion and empathy toward each other.
Because they create shared hardships, these extreme weather conditions bring a community closer together through acts of kindness as everyone makes sure that everybody survives. This can lead to a collective feeling of happiness once the storm end and no one was left behind.
2. Sunlight Can Help Treat SAD
SAD generally occurs during fall onto the winter months. It is believed that the gloomy weather causes one’s mood to plummet during this particular time of the year. Although it’s a relatively uncommon condition, the lack of sunshine can pose a challenge for your emotional health.
This type of depression leads to these signs and symptoms:
- Losing interest in hobbies and passion projects
- Changes in sleeping patterns like insomnia or oversleeping
- Loss of appetite
- Feeling sluggish
- Agitation or anxiety
You can fix this by getting as much sunlight as you can during this period. Exposure to sunlight triggers your skin’s production of Vitamin D, leading to more serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter that affects your mood. You can check the weather forecast online so you can take a walk when the sun’s out.
3. Cold Temperatures Contribute to Physical and Emotional Lethargy
In relation to SAD, cold temperature is a contributing factor to lethargy since it decreases sensory feedback, muscle strength, dexterity, blood flow, and balance.
These temporary impairments can reduce your ability to perform complex physical tasks, which can have an adverse effect on your psyche, especially when it adds to the fact that you haven’t been feeling your best self.
4. Rainy Days Sometimes Cause Physical Aches
Have you noticed how old people predict that it’s going to rain because their knees or shoulders hurt? This could be because there’s a drop in barometric pressure or the force exerted by the air that surrounds you preceding a storm.
A decline in this pressure leads to the swelling of the tissues around the joints, causing arthritis. This increases the likelihood that you won’t enjoy your day because let’s face it: who wants to experience a stabbing pain every time they move?
5. Going for a Walk in Nature Boosts Your Mood
It’s common knowledge that any form of physical activity such as walking or biking can decrease feelings of stress and anxiety instantly. You can create more impact on your emotional state by exercising where there are trees and plants, just like when you go on a hiking trail.
Studies found that their participants were at their happiest state in green or natural environments. Being one with Mother Earth or, at the very least, looking at the trees and birds outside your window, can significantly lower your heart rate and blood pressure.
Some simple ways to use the power of nature to your advantage and incorporate it into your workout include:
- Going for a morning or afternoon jog in the park.
- Biking across new terrains, like in the mountains.
- Embarking on fitness trails that incorporate climbing rock walls and rope courses in a green space.
- Taking a walk in the forest to immerse yourself in nature.
- Doing yoga on grass, firm sand like on the beach, or on the water itself to take the exercise up a notch.
- Try kayaking through rivers or streams.
- Testing your balance with surfing.
6. Studying Outside Can Lead to Better Academic Performance
Instead of staying cooped up inside your room, it’s better to breathe in the fresh air and allow nature to be your study buddy. Since learning facts about a particular subject can be likened to mental exercise, this phenomenon may be associated with how exercising outside boosts your mood and can lower feelings of anxiety over your test.
You may think that nature, with the sounds and sights it brings, can distract you from your tasks, but it actually helps you focus on what you have to do. Thus, it can increase the likelihood that you’ll retain the information you put in your mind and retrieve it when you need to.
This can result in feelings of accomplishment which can make way for happiness in your academic performance.
Tap into the Soothing Power of Nature!
Scientists are still investigating the connection between how nature and the weather can affect your happiness. At the same time, numerous studies have shown how powerful nature can be for our wellbeing.
It does make sense that humans respond well to the presence of sunlight and plants since they are interlinked with the species.
