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Is nature the consolation we need, or do we need to go deeper?
“May you live in interesting times,” sometimes thought to be an ancient Chinese curse, has been repeated on many occasions in the past few years. By me, at least. These are indeed interesting times.
People respond to the fears, confusion, chaos, anger and disappointments that flood our formal and informal news channels in very different ways. Some engage aggressively, spouting opinions, sharing information or misinformation, and often adding to the anger and fear. Others retreat, try to tune out the noise and focus on interests not involving the latest clickbait headline or social post. That’s closer to my approach.
Mental health has become the number one health concern of Americans, surpassing COVID and the normal concerns like cancer and heart disease. There are a number of antidotes to the discomforts that can trigger mental health visits including art, relationships, and nature.
Art of a certain kind
Scientists have explored how visits to an art museum may affect health. They do provide benefits, but it matters which kind of museum you go to. It turns out viewing figurative art such as found in classical painting significantly reduces systolic blood pressure while visits to the modern art museum or the museum office, used as a control, has no…
