3BI: nature as a therapeutic, the joy of anticipation, and visualizing behavioral economics
Welcome to my weekly 3BI newsletter sharing three insights from the worlds of psychology, decision-making, and behavioral change. Sign up here to have it delivered straight to your inbox.
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Happy Friday everyone! The newsletter’s back after a too long of a delay. I’ve had a hectic schedule lately and struggled to fit writing in, but am getting back on track. Weekly editions to follow!
The therapeutic benefits of nature
Spring is in the air. Take advantage of the weather and leave the house, because research shows time in nature can have greater therapeutic benefits than we realize.
From the Wall Street Journal:
As people spend more time indoors, a mountain of scientific research says spending time in nature is critical to health and increases longevity. That means being in fresh air, under trees and away from cars and concrete—on a regular basis.
The health benefits of time spent in nature documented by scientists are numerous:
Researchers have repeatedly found that human anticancer natural killer cells significantly increase after walks in a forest.
Time in a forest is linked to decreased inflammation, which has been implicated in chronic disease.
Spending time in the woods—a practice the Japanese call “forest bathing”—is strongly linked to lower blood pressure, heart rate and stress hormones and decreased anxiety, depression and fatigue.
Instead of obsessing about lifestyle details like food types or meditation, we may be better served by simply walking outside.
People are deciding whether or not this type of coffee bean or that type is better for you, when there is such an obvious health tool at your disposal. You literally just walk outside. People don’t know.
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A 45-minute walk in nature can make a world of difference to mood, creativity, the ability to use your working memory.
I’ve often favored taking vacations to outdoor destinations like ski mountains or national parks for this reason, but even with a lack of travel during the pandemic, I’ve been thankful to live near Humboldt Park, an oasis of nature in the middle of Chicago. Walks there have been crucial for sanity in the last year.
Read more at the Wall Street Journal.
Make plans and enjoy the anticipation
After an arduous year of living through a pandemic, the end seems to be in sight. As cases drop and vaccinations increase, it’s increasingly likely life will be much more normal by summer.
If that hope has lifted your mood despite your day-to-day not changing yet, you’re enjoying the psychological benefits of anticipation.
Anticipation plays a big role in our happiness. You probably feel happier on Friday rather than Sunday despite having to work. On Friday, you have the whole weekend to look forward to, while on Sunday, the work week looms.
“Anticipation is such a valuable source of pleasure,” Elizabeth Dunn, a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia told the New York Times. Dunn is a co-author of one of my favorite behavioral science books, Happy Money, and gave some tips on how to utilize anticipation as the pandemic comes to close.
First, start small. Even the simplest trips will seem amazing at first.
When we begin traveling again after months holed up at home, we will likely experience what Dr. Dunn referred to as a “happiness reset”— the result of which may be that even modest, less costly vacations will give us extreme pleasure.
“You can do something pretty simple and it’s going to feel fantastic,” she said.
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The theory behind why a more low-key trip may be a smart strategy is because at some point (faster than you think), you’ll get used to vacationing again.
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To take advantage of a happiness reset, begin with a simpler trip — a beach getaway close to home, a cross-country road trip, a fishing expedition with friends. No need for an extravagant getaway on the other side of the world.
You can time the planning of that first getaway to maximize anticipation, too.
When you don’t give yourself enough time to actively anticipate a vacation — to pore over photographs of places you plan to see, read about history, browse things to do — you miss out on a potent source of pleasure.
As the authors of investigations that examined people’s anticipation of, experiences in and recollections of, meaningful life events (including a trip to Europe, a Thanksgiving vacation and bicycling in California) wrote in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology: “people’s expectations of personal events are more positive than their actual experience during the event itself.”
So give time to anticipate, but not too much time.
The problem with things that lie in the future, researchers have found, is that we almost think of our future selves as other people. Dr. Dunn, for example, said she essentially thinks of her older, retired self as a different person. And it’s difficult to get excited about a distant, future self. But, she said, planning a trip with a “reasonable length of runway” (maybe a year as opposed to five years away) still feels like you’re the one who will be taking it.
Read more at the New York Times.
Behavioral economics in one graphic
A cool visual of the basic principles of behavioral economics (click to enlarge):
I’ll be back on schedule with another newsletter next week. Have a great weekend!