Anxiety, stress, worries, imposter syndrome, ruminating, work life balance, home schooling, churning thoughts, zoom fatigue, conflict…

Whatever is causing your cortisol levels (stress hormone) to rise, offer yourself some self compassion and step outside, find some green space, put your phone away, observe the plants, trees, birds, squirrels and let nature do it’s thing. If you are in an urban setting, find a park or sit next to a tree.

There’s a wealth of data to suggest that even short bursts in nature are beneficial to our wellbeing, reducing our cortisol levels.

One study suggests that 20-30 mins in nature is the optimal to reduce our cortisol levels, and on average participants did this 3 days per week.

There shouldn’t be (m)any reasons to not spare yourself 20 mins in the workday to switch off. Be kind to yourself!

Here’s the reference:
Hunter MR, Gillespie BW and Chen SY-P (2019) Urban Nature Experiences Reduce Stress in the Context of Daily Life Based on Salivary Biomarkers. Front. Psychol. 10:722. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00722

I’ve fairly recently been diagnosed as neurodiverse with ADHD which is a condition where one of our neurotransmitters, or brain chemicals, called dopamine is dysregulated. This means that it gets transported, or pulled back in, too soon during a nerve impulse, and as such doesn’t get a chance to do it’s full job like Neuro Typical people. 

But what is the job of Dopamine? Why is it important? What does dopamine regulate? 

In this video I offer a simple explanation of the function of dopamine, along with a few suggestions how to get top ups in nature. ??