Nature as Medicine

Last week I attended our Upstate Master Naturalist Meeting. It was held at Table Rock State Park Lodge.

Our guest speaker was Rocky Nation with a presentation titled, "Nature as Medicine: Thinking Outside the Box when Assigning Conservation Value."

Rocky is a biology professor at Anderson University and he talked about all the stress he faced in his life and how it caused transient global amnesia. According to the Mayo Clinic, “Transient global amnesia is a sudden, temporary episode of memory loss that can't be attributed to a more common neurological condition, such as epilepsy or stroke.” Thankfully this doesn’t last too long, and he is able to go about his normal life. There is no known cause or cure, but Rocky believes it is caused by the extreme stress he has had.

One of the ways Rocky copes with stress is getting outdoors. He has found that is the medicine that helps him from having recurring bouts of this amnesia. He notices a difference in his life and how it has helped him deal with stress. Rocky talked about the “fight or flight” response that our body has when it is really stressed out and nature has a way of helping us “rest and relax.”

This helped to remind me that we need to get our students out in nature more. We need to teach them ways to cope with the stress they will face as they grow up and get out in the real world. Too many young people are dying from drugs, suicide, and violence. Maybe if the learned how to deal with stress, these numbers would decrease because they wouldn’t have the “fight or flight” response.

Do you help students get out and appreciate nature? Please share.