#85 A Simple Way to Find Peace and Creativity While Supporting Your Health

Amidst life's tempests - be it cancer, financial strain, pandemics, or feelings of profound isolation - there's an innate need to find clarity, to breathe, and to rediscover purpose. Often, we're so engrossed in the digital deluge of modern life that we forget to pause, inadvertently suffocating our minds under a barrage of information.

Yet, research reveals a rejuvenating antidote: nature. Just stepping outside, soaking in nature's serenity, can declutter the mind. And the beauty of nature isn’t solely cerebral. Venturing outdoors prompts movement—whether that's a leisurely stroll, cycling, or swimming. Such activity uplifts the mood, fortifying both mental and physical well-being.

Join us in this episode as we delve into the science behind nature's therapeutic prowess, emphasizing its role in fostering resilience, even amidst life's harshest storms.

Resources: 

Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex activation 

Creativity in the Wild: Improving Creative Reasoning through Immersion in Natural Settings 

An occasion for unselfing: Beautiful nature leads to prosociality 

Exercise is an all-natural treatment to fight depression  

Books: 

Read the transcript:

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Hi, this is Laura Lummer, the breast cancer recovery coach. I'm a healthy lifestyle coach, a clinical or Aveda specialist, a personal trainer, and I'm also a breast cancer survivor. In this podcast, we talk about healthy thinking and mindfulness practices, eating well, moving your body for health and longevity. And we'll also hear from other breast cancer survivors who have reengaged with life, and have incredible stories to share. This podcast is your go to resource for getting back to life after breast cancer.

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Hello, and welcome to another episode of the breast cancer recovery coach. I am your host, Laura Lummer. Thank you so much for being here today for downloading the show. And before I even get started, I have to give a little housekeeping tip about my website. If you have tried to go to the website recently, you may have gotten a warning notice that said something to the effect of this site might not be secure. So without getting too technical, there were two domain names that were pointed to my website. And the one that I wanted showing is the one that says the breast cancer recovery coach.com. So when my text person switched everything over to make that happen, it now brings up an error message the first time you try to go to Laura lummer.com, I assure you it is fine. Once you click past that warning, and you can type in either one, you can type in Laura lummer.com, or the breast cancer recovery coach.com, they'll both take you to my website. And once you click past that warning, if it does come up, you will not see it anymore. So you can feel totally safe. And I just wanted to make you aware of that. Because I know those kinds of what things when they pop up on the website can be very intimidating, especially when there's Lord only knows what technological things going on now with Zoom bombers, and I don't know, bored hackers out there. So if you come across that, while you're looking for my website, rest assured it's safe, click past it, and you'll never have to see it again. Okay, so let's jump into this show. I have to start off by telling you that honestly, I really struggled with what to talk about on this week's episode. And it isn't like there's any shortage of health related topics. But the world is in a very different place right now. And some of you are going through treatment for breast cancer, some of you have a diagnosis, and you can't even get into a hospital or you're being delayed for surgeries, or doctor's appointments. Some of you thought you were just finally passed this freaking nightmare and you were ready to get started working and getting your life going again, and then you got locked down. And you know, in addition, obviously, we're still dealing with the regular pandemic, stuff being quarantined, financial pressures, boredom, isolation, all the things and it's really, really tough. Some people are very fearful, while others are going out of their mind with the need to get out and have some social interaction, but they still want to stay safe. So I was thinking, in this situation, I was having a hard time getting my head around to my ladies really want to hear about another kind of herb to take before to go to bed, or some nutrition tip or some exercise tip. And the last thing I want my show to become is just something that's a bunch of BS topics just because I needed something to talk about. I want this content to always be something that's meaningful and relevant to you. So I'll share a little story with you. Like you I am obviously on quarantine here in Southern California. And one of the things that I love to do when I'm at home is to cook. I love everything about cooking and baking. I don't really love cleaning up but I love everything else. So I tolerate cleaning up. So I've been actually having a lot of fun during this quarantine by challenging myself to make more plant based dishes. And in doing that and sharing those dishes in my Facebook group. And in the breast cancer recovery group. It's been a lot of fun, and it's inspired other people to be making and sharing some of their lovely dishes with each other especially in the revivify group. So this last week last Friday after going out for a walk with my husband we come back home. And in our entry there's a closet and entry closet and next to it is another closet that has like our air conditioning unit in it and there's water pouring out of this closet that has our air conditioning unit in it. And long story short, it ends up being a leak from the unit above us and their leak was draining into our condo. And now if any of you have had water damage

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or leaks in your home. You know, it is extremely unpleasant the whole experience. And even though we caught that leak right away, there was a lot of water. And like most leaks, there's water in other places you can't see before you can see it. So it's soaked into everything it dripped in the ceiling from the inside of the building, it came down our walls, and you know, on the floor board, it's just not a good situation. So the people come out to deal with the water damage, they test every wall, they test the ceiling with their little sensor, if the buzzer goes off, that indicates that there's too much moisture in that area. And so they ended up setting up these tremendous fans forward slash heaters, that sound like airplane engines getting ready to take off, and I have one in my entry, which then the entire entry is sealed off with this plastic sheeting and taped on with blue painters tape. And then the same thing in my kitchen. So here I am, I'm locked down with everything around me closed as far as stuff you can go into. And I'm thoroughly enjoying cooking and baking, I'm dropping off cookies on my neighbor's doorsteps and trying all these new recipes. And now my kitchen is basically shut down. There is a giant very, very loud piece of machinery in it. Plus, it's a heater to and then it's sealed off was plastic. So yeah, there's no way I'm standing in that hot, noisy plastic sheet in place and enjoying cooking, right. So my husband and I are basically living between our bedroom, his office and the balcony. And apparently we're going to be living like this for several weeks, because we were just told that they need to cut out some of our drywall and some of our kitchen cabinets and whatever the journey goes on. But the reason that I want to share this with you is because when I talk with you about today's show today's topic, I don't want you to think that I think life is all sunshine and rainbows, and that you just bounce out of bed every morning feeling great and making some kind of I don't know Kean wall breakfast and then go for an hour long workout with a big smile on your face. I know that's not how life is right now. It's tough. There's a lot of struggle every day in life. And now, even more so because some of you can't even be around family and friends. And you really need that connection right now. Not just because of the pandemic, but because of where you're at in dealing with cancer and dealing with healing. And that social support. And that love is just so important. And my heart goes out to you. If you have to stay isolated this time. It's just terrible, if you really are in need for that connection. And I just want you to know that I understand that things are lonely. And they're challenging. And I don't know what the word I mean, it's unknown. So it's just it's unsettling things are unsettling. And because of this, you have to make a choice every day, to not go down that dark hole, to not stay in your pajamas all day to get up and wash your hair, make the bed and create some kind of life, no matter what it is you're going through because this is it today is it this is everything. So we have to find ways to navigate around the sucky stuff, and figure out a reason to get up in the morning. Those reasons are there. And when I find myself in this mental rut, this place where I don't feel creative, where I don't feel inspired, and I don't even want to be in my house, let alone carving out time to stay here and being focused on writing a show or creating coaching programs. I know when I get in that spot, I have to walk away, it is time for me to get out of the house, I have to feel the sun on me. And for me, my happy place is the ocean. So I need to smell that water, that salt in the air. I need to hear the power of the waves. It just brings me such a tremendous sense of peace, or just looking out at this endless horizon. All of that. It just relieves something in me that creates that space that then inspires me. It's a space where I can clear my mind. And inevitably, when I do that, ideas come to me and not just ideas, but inspiration. It's not just a thought, but a whole feeling of like okay, I'm done here. Now. Let me get back to my computer. I know what I want to talk about. There's nothing forced about it. It's just it's suddenly there and I know that it's the right thing. There's just something that is so healing about being in nature. And you might say

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Wow, that's just a nice thing. And maybe it's just your thing, Laura. But there's actually science behind this science that tells us that nature heals us. And we're going to talk about that in this show. Now, obviously, if you're in nature, you're probably moving your body, right, you may be going for a walk or gardening or riding a bike, but you're probably doing something more than sitting on a couch, or laying in a bed, in that is a very critical aspect of your physical and mental health. And I'll touch on that also, as I go through today's show. And I don't want to just touch on it from the aspect of saying, Hey, get up and exercise. That's why I shared with you that things are tough. And it's not exercise for the sake of don't gain pandemic pounds, it's moving your body for the sake of supporting your mental well being as well as your physical well being. I just want to encourage you to get up and stay in motion to walk that's at the vet, you can do anything you want. But all I ask is please for, for everything for you get up and at least walk. So my mom is 79 She'll be at later this year. And she doesn't really like to be far away from her home if she doesn't have her car with her. Because now that she's older, she's concerned that she might have to go to the bathroom or something, and she won't be able to make it back home or get to a bathroom. So she does feels more secure when she's at home. So she walks around her backyard. And it's just an average suburban backyard. It's not like Martha Stewart acreage or something like that. But she gets up and she goes out in the yard and she listens to something on her phone or show or something. And she just keeps walking around her yard for a specific period of time. It's like being on a track, right, she distracts herself with something else. And she got hummingbird feeders back there that she loves to watch her birds and things that she just enjoys being outside and walking around her backyard. So even if you're in a city or a spot where you don't feel safe being outside or where local laws might not allow you to be outside right now, there's still that alternative. So let's talk for a minute about why it's so important to be outside, and what nature actually does for your mind and your body. A study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, such an official title, found that 90 minutes spent in a natural setting resulted in people having less repetitive negative thoughts. And it reduced this activity in your part of your brain that is normally associated with being withdrawn and being very self focused behaviors that commonly lead to depression. And to this kind of thinking that I actually talked about in episode 78, called ruminating. And ruminating is where you're very focused on a negative idea. And you just keep thinking about it over and over. And that can lead you to a very unhealthy place. But being in nature is one of the things that just by the act itself, just by being in nature, it can change the way your brain is thinking. Pretty cool, huh? It changes your reaction and your thoughts. And here's another interesting point, this study and a couple of other studies I looked at that were evaluating how the brain responds to being in nature found that being in nature has that positive effect on our way of thinking and on reducing stress and people. However, when people were out walking in urban settings, they didn't have that same effect. So it is important to have some grass under your feet or some trees around you or get to smell the flowers. And that doesn't mean urban setting and in as much as just your neighborhood. But let's say it would be a difference compared to walking through a mall or something like that, as compared to walking through your neighborhood and noticing the trees and the flowers and the things that are in people's yards. Now, in addition to reducing the amount of negative thoughts, being in nature has been shown to have a beneficial impact on creativity and on your ability to have better performing executive function. So thinking at a higher level that involves problem solving is actually improved after spending time in nature. And I just spoke about that in the beginning of the show when I said you know when I'm not feeling creative, I know it's time for me to get outside. I get connected to nature. And then that inspiration comes to me. There was a study published in PLOS ONE that looked at these groups of hikers so they took a couple of different groups of hikers and they said to one group you

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We're gonna go out hike and you're going to wait a certain amount of time. And we're going to test you with these different puzzles and see what happens. So they sent this other group out hiking and then tested them after four days of being completely immersed in nature, without having any iPhones any kind of access to technology, only nature. And what they found was after four days of being completely immersed in nature, the group that had been hiking compared to the group that was waiting to go on a hike, performed 50% better at these problem solving and puzzle tests that were given to them than the people who had not been in nature at all. Now part of the thinking when it comes to that is not just you know, looking at a tree that magically makes you think differently. So when we give our brains a break from technology, the technology and the information that's constantly bombarding us, and truly overloading our nervous system and our senses. And instead, we expose our vision and our brain, to the simple beauty of nature. It allows that part of our brain that's most associated with creativity, and higher levels of thinking to slow down a bit, because it's not constantly taking in loads and loads of other information from iPhones and from televisions. And it's actually able to have space to create, it allows your brain to rest and rejuvenate, which then allows you to think more clearly. And we don't all have four days to be immersed in nature. But just spending that time on a regular basis. Having that habit of being outside and exposing your vision and your brain to just simple beauty that you don't have to think about and process is a very beneficial act. And these positive emotions that are spurred by just being in and perceiving the beauty of nature, have even been shown to have more benefits in that people are inspired to be more generous when they have spent time observing the beauty of nature. In a study published in the Journal of environmental psychology, people were shown pictures of nature scenes that they perceived as beautiful. And the more beautiful pictures they were shown, the more they demonstrated generosity and trust to others after having viewed these pictures. Now, you may have heard me talk about a book that I absolutely love, and I recommend it constantly. I know I've talked about it on podcasts before. It's called Radical remission by Dr. Kelly Turner. And that book is focused on that nine key aspects that Dr. Turner found. Every single person in her research, who had experienced a spontaneous healing from cancer took part in it's an excellent book. And she recently published a sequel called Radical hope. And in radical hope she introduced a 10th factor. She explains in the book that this factor was something that so many people did in her research, who experienced this spontaneous healing, but not every single one did. And the first book was about these nine things that every single one of the people who had healed themselves had done. So that's why it wasn't included in the first book. But in the second book, she talks about this 10th factor, and you probably guessed it by now that 10th factor is exercise. Dr. Turner explains in the book that she feels like this wasn't done by everyone. So it wasn't included in the first book. Because at the time, so many people were diagnosed as terminally ill and just honestly didn't have the ability to get up and move. They were too weak to do it. But she goes on to say, and this is a quote, that it has become clear that radical readmission survivors make moderate to intense exercise, a lifelong habit whenever they're physically able. In addition, some radical remission survivors use exercise as a direct healing method, and quote, now, one of the many stories she shares in that new book, radical hope is that of a woman who had pancreatic cancer. And I'd like to share with you part of the story that this woman shares, and this is a quote, she says, I was told it was terminal cancer. So I stopped moving, which I think in hindsight was a mistake. Now, a year later, when she was alive and realize she was still going to live, she says, and I quote, I was neither recovering nor dying. I was just surviving. And one of the things that got me out of that hole was exercise. I had stopped moving for a year, and I thought this is a mistake.

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So I started just walking around the block after work every day.

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And quote, and she goes on to say how she increased her walking and 18 months later, she started doing yoga again. Now in Episode 70, I go into a lot more detail on the benefits and the misperceptions about exercise. But if there's one thing that I could change, it would be this ridiculous perception of exercise as an activity reserved specifically for people who want to lose weight God that drives me insane. I don't care if you never think about losing a single pound. As long as you just keep moving your body and know that that is going to make you feel better. It's going to reduce the risk of all causes of disease and death for you. And it's going to help you feel happier. An article in the Harvard health newsletter called Exercise is an all natural treatment to fight depression, says that exercise works as well as anti depression medications. For many people, as long as they're not suffering from severe clinical depression. The advice in that article by Dr. Michael Craig Miller and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School says, Find something you love and do it consistently. Start slow and do a little bit at a time. This is the perfect approach to exercise. If it's not something you're used to do not feel like you have to jump all in and kill yourself with high intensity interval training, and intimidate yourself by the idea that you have to lift heavy weights or be at a CrossFit gym or something like that. You just have to get out in nature, and gently move your body, start slow, 10 minutes a day, three times a week, and then increase from there. Challenge yourself a little bit, because you're going to see that you're going to feel better mind and body. And that is something you can do even now even in quarantine. Dr. Miller says you should start feeling better within a week of beginning an exercise program. But he also reminds you in this article, that exercise is not a one and done. Exercise is something has to be done consistently, it's got to be part of a lifestyle, it needs to be a regular part of your life. And if you start incorporating it now while there's a little more time on your hands, if there's a little more time on your hands, if you're a healthcare worker, you just need to do it to keep your sanity. But if you do have a little extra time on your hands, and you can start incorporating this habit of getting in regular physical activity, that it will be a little easier to continue with that habit once things start picking up a little more in the world. In a previous show, where I interviewed oncologist, Dr. Nagorny, he just puts it perfectly and he says, exercise is a therapy. And even sometimes when you don't feel like doing it, you have to push yourself, you have to do it because it's so critical. And it's so important for overall good health. So hang in there. Know that I'm thinking of you know, we're all hanging in here together, girls, I'm sending good energy out to you. And if you need more support, if you need more community, more encouragement, come over to Facebook and find the breast cancer recovery group. This is a group full of wonderful women. Some of them still in treatment, some recovering from treatment, but everyone is encouraging and supportive, and everyone gets what you're going through. So it's a great place to be and of course, I pop in there with my two cents worth as well. So I thank you so much for listening. And I just encourage you to stay safe, stay focused on taking care of yourself. And if you enjoy listening to this show, don't forget to subscribe so that you never have to miss an episode. And while you have a little time on your hands if you could go to the iTunes Store and leave a review for the breast cancer recovery coach podcast I would be awesome it means the world to me. So know that you can go to the show notes for this episode, which you'll find at the breast cancer recovery coach.com forward slash 85. And I will post the links to all of the resources and studies that I referred to in the show in the show notes so you can look at them yourself. All right. Thanks for listening and I will talk to you again next week.

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You've got your courage to the test laid all your doubts.

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Your mind is clearer than before your heart is wanting more your futures

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Have

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It All you

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know

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you've been waiting on

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this