Are You Getting Enough Vitamin N?

June 8th, 2017

Awake Goy

Use your Senses: Utilize all your senses and encourage your kids to as well. STOP and smell the flowers, Feel the breeze, taste the rain, touch the trees, walk barefoot and lie on the grass. Close your eyes, take some deep breaths, and feel the energy: Bring your focus to your foot and how it feels against the grass, and slowly follow that energy throughout your body, feeling all your cells come alive and sparkle with life. Visualize the energy running through your body from the earth and ground yourself. By reconnecting to our Energy Body, we bring ourselves back “down to Earth” instead of being in our racing and busy monkey minds all the time.

Negative Ions in Nature: Natural settings like forests, lakes, streams, and beaches are teeming with plant life and water and thus rich in molecules called negative ions. Although you can’t see or smell them, negative ions are known to boost mood and enhance energy, which can help alleviate depression and anxiety and calm us down.

Forest Bathing: Forest bathing originated in Japan and provides evidence that a slow, relaxed walk in the woods has measurable restorative and calming benefits.

Utilize Imagination: When outdoors, let children follow their own intuition and have fun — climb hills, jump puddles, and stop to look at things more closely. Allow them to PLAY and encourage questions and possible answers, making a note to look up items together, once home. Be childlike and curious alongside them. Use your imagination. Have a sense of wonder and investigate nature as if you are seeing things for the first time. (Some of you may be!)

Nature Spot: Have family members designate their own special spot where they can visit to find peace and reconnect. Observe and discuss how it changes according to the light, season, temperature, and bugs, birds, or other aspects nearby. Do a family meditation, tell stories, or utilize everyone’s imagination to bring it to life differently on each visit. Encourage sharing within the group to enhance everyone’s creativity.

High-tech Nature: Use technology to engage kids. Geocaching is a new fun way to engage the family in the great outdoors — think of it as Scavenger Hunting 2.0. Use a cellphone or camera to record nature sounds or a nature activity and have the kids share how they feel, what they see, and what they learn. Download a digital nature guide and follow it together.