How Animals and Nature calm us....

Being in nature and around animals can help reduce anxiety, lower blood pressure, enhance immune system function and boost self esteem and mood. Being around animals and nature gives your brain a break, can help you to feel kinder and happier, can help us to chill out and gives us a chance to connect. Being so busy and distracted can cause us to feel like were operating on autopilot and missing something from our lives. It takes a bit of awareness to realize that we are moving through our days full of things to do and doing things that may not create happiness or good health in order to avoid other things that we should be doing.

Humans have an innate need to connect with other life such as plants and animals. Humans have a built in desire to be near nature. This may be the result of spending the majority of our evolutionary history closely connected to nature. Today however, peoples' time spent in nature is determined by where they live, the pull to be distracted through tv and our devices, their childhood experiences and any barriers to the outdoors and animals. This can create a a division between us and our fellow humans, the natural world and the deep connection that we share with all living beings and ourselves.

Ways to reconnect can be to stay off the phone while out walking your dog, walk WITH them instead. Walks in parks, hikes in mountains, observing the animals and being near water are powerful ways to feel the healing effects of nature.