Nature Rules
When considering longevity, blue zones, quality of life, I look to models of communities who’ve lived very dependent on cycles of nature, seasons, wild caught foods, and surrounded by nature. I love the thought of living into my 100s. As long as I’m creative, mobile, somewhat independent and ‘healthy’. Longevity should be defined something like this: living past 85, with all faculties functioning well, independent enough to be mobile even it requiring walker, etc, and able to make one’s own decisions, with some friends and family nearby or readily accessible.
My parents at 87 are more likely to die from a mountain bike or a pickle ball fall. They didn’t grow up with pesticides, even though they didn’t fully eat organic, or restrict processed food. They both rode their horses in wild countryside, ate out of their own gardens, made their own art and tools, and played outside while growing up and did those critical social pieces: read books, talked, and listened to the radio.
I grew up in the beginning phase of the fast food and processed food era, which was super convenient for my mom, less advantageous for me. I grew up playing and training in chlorinated swimming pools almost every day throughout my childhood. I also set a world record in springboard diving and am a regional champion in mountain biking. And I had cancer a few years ago. I faced a health crisis that put me in denial and confusion. I’ve never looked at my health other than my performance metrics until very recently.
Wellness isn’t a luxury that you find at a Santa Barbara retreat- it’s a requirement if you want a quality of life into and beyond your 90s. Yes, we live longer, but our bodies are living in a sympathetic nervous system state of fight or flight. Our bodies and minds are working so hard to combat the toxins and overexposure to stimuli that we can’t see nature unless it’s a dramatic sunset or rainbow.
Our bodies are too busy combating free radicals that attack healthy cells. It’s like we’re walking in a body that’s vibrating with such agitation, we’ve had to numb ourselves to most stimuli to survive. So, being open to hearing natures subtle rhythms doesn’t register
Our brains can digest the minutiae of nature, if we attune ourselves to recalibrate. Typically, we require a higher level and more complex stimuli to hear, see, feel. We can’t just watch a TV show. We need to shop on our tablet for the outfits we’re seeing on our Netflix show and eat and pet our animals or kids at the same time.
Why is this important?
To spend hours in wild nature, not a local park, but in the wild side of nature that has not been developed, is where we will give our bodies and minds the chance to reduce their demand for more stimuli. And in that rhythm, over time, we can see differently. How the trees interact, microbiomes of the soil, fungi and the differently levels of animals and birds, insects that converse, interact. Sitting still, moving slowly in wild nature si where our bodies and minds pick up the cue to stop fighting. We speak, walk, feel and interact differently. And the depth of each moment becomes richer, more diverse, more layered. There is healing there.