Novel Thoughts

It's not that we NEED nature...it's that we ARE nature.

To refocus, I only have to look out of my kitchen window where the dogwood is splendid in pink in the spring, leafy and cool in the summer, burnished as a jewel in the fall. In the winter, there are bird nests in the bare branches--they've been hidden like secrets.

Inside, among all the crazy TO DO lists on the kitchen table it helps to have flowers looking cheerfully back at you, like these sunflowers...a birthday gift from my hubby.

To wit-- an article about a growing body of research evidence that proves nature is one way that seems particularly effective at alleviating mind fatigue.

"In one study, children who live in public housing, girls who had access to green courtyards scored better on concentration tests than those who did not. In another study, children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder found that walks outdoors appeared to improve scores on tests of attention and concentration. Notably, children who took walks in natural settings did better than those who walked in urban areas, according to the report, published online in August in The Journal of Attention Disorders. The researchers found that a dose of nature worked as well as a dose of medication to improve concentration, or even better.