Amazing Benefits of Being Outside: It Gives You More Energy!
There’s one very simple and free way to nourish your mind and body, and it’s all about the benefits of being outside. Emotional, physical and energetic benefits that may surprise you!
Maybe it’s all about the fresh, clean air that fills your lungs. Maybe it’s the tickle of sunshine on your face. OR maybe it’s the sounds of birds or squirrels that lift your mood.
Whatever it is, spending time outside, which most of us in the West don’t get nearly enough nowadays, is oh-so-good for your mind, body and soul.
My favorite outdoor activity is working on my garden. I also love to take walks outside. My children go to forest school once a week and they come home covered in dirt and smiles. It’s free therapy for your brain and probiotics for your body.
But there’s one more important benefit that scientists won’t tell you. It’s that you have greater access to energy, qi, prana or life force, when you’re outside. That’s right! More life force, outside. Totally makes sense, right?
In this post, we explore the many benefits of being outside, including emotional, cognitive, physical and energetic.
Amazing Benefits of Being Outside
Emotional Well-Being
I don’t know about you, but taking a walk outside does wonders for my emotional health. Stress from worries or overwhelm seem to take a back seat, at least while I’m looking up at the swaying tree tops or the hawk flying by.
Scientific research supports my experience. Apparently, exposure to nature helps calm the sympathetic nervous system, which controls the body’s vital organs and manages our “fight-or-flight” response. Similarly, one study found that “people who visit public greenspace more often had lower stress, anxiety and depression scores” than people who don’t.
Being in nature changes your brain activity in the prefrontal cortex, an important player in emotional regulation, according to another research. Yes, this means that exposure to nature literally soothes your brain, without your having to do anything other than sense it. Which leads us to my next point.
Cognitive Well-Being
Research also shows that exposure to nature and green space helps improve our cognitive functions, including memory, attention control and cognitive flexibility. For example, people performed better on certain tasks that required working memory and cognitive flexibility after exposure to nature.
Scientists are still trying to figure out exactly how this happens. But one theory suggests that it’s because stress and cognitive functions are related. So, nature lowers your stress and improves your brain. That also makes sense to me.
Physical Well-Being
Reduced stress has direct benefits to your body. For example, being out in nature promotes physiological relaxation that then leads to decreases in blood pressure levels. Getting more sun on your skin helps make vitamin D and can help you fall asleep faster.
Interacting with nature—breathing in fresh air, touching soil—also diversifies your microbiome, acting as the probiotic supplement that nature intended. I learned this in fascinating reads of the books, Eat Dirt and 10% Human. They suggest that contact with dirt, tree pollens and bacteria outside our doors provide the best probiotics that our bodies need.
More broadly, access to green spaces has been associated with increased physical activity and improved general health for people who live around them. Mayors of major cities around the world are trying to create more green spaces for this very purpose, while fighting climate change. U.S. organizations like Trust for Public Land are also working on programs like 10 Minute Walk, so that everyone can have access to a safe and high-quality park near their home.
Access to nature and green space is definitely a privilege that most of us take for granted. But in addition to all these, there are important, energetic benefits of being outside that often get overlooked.
Being Outside Replenishes Your Qi/Energy
Energetic Well-Being
So, my latest intrigue in energetic studies is Pranic Healing, founded by Grand Master Choa Kok Sui (GMCKS). I’ve already learned bits of it through my reiki mastership program at the Muktinath Holistic Center. But I’m really excited to get more into the actual teachings of GMCKS. This discipline gets into the nitty-gritty of prana (ki, chi, or life force energy), how it works and the do’s and don’ts.
According to GMCKS’ Miracles Through Pranic Healing, which is the basic level book on the teachings, there are three major sources of prana that we have access to. They are solar prana, air prana and ground prana. I’ll explain a little more below.
Solar Prana
Solar prana is gained from sunlight. This strong source of prana “invigorates the whole body and promotes good health,” according to Miracles (page 2). It can be obtained by sunbathing for short periods or drinking water that has been exposed to sunlight. (I thought of sun tea, dear reader. Do you ever make them?) Because the energy is strong, it is not advised that you get too much of it. (I’m thinking of how exhausted I feel after a day out in the full sun.)
Air Prana
Air prana is contained in the air, and according to Miracles, this is why all living things breath in one form or another. It is absorbed directly by our lungs and transmitted to our energy centers, or chakras. Different ways of breathing allows more or less transfer of air prana.
Ground Prana
Ground prana comes from the earth and is absorbed through our feet. Walking barefoot on the earth allows greater access to the ground prana. One can learn to draw in more ground prana, which will “increase one’s vitality, capacity to do more work, and ability to think more clearly,” according to the book (page 4). *
(*I’ve always associated barefoot-ground contact with the earth as a grounding exercise. It has really helped me when my personal energy feels all out of whack. I can literally feel the currents balance out and quiet down just moments after I step on to the grass. I am not sure how that would be different, or similar, to absorbing ground prana. But I promise to update if I find out!)
Miracles Through Pranic Healing explains that water absorbs prana from sun, air and ground that it comes in contact with. Plants and trees then get prana from water, sun, air and earth. People and animal get prana from these elements and food. It says that fresh food contains more prana than preserved food.
Certain trees, such as pine trees or old and healthy trees, have lots of excess prana, apparently. And tired or sick people can benefit from this by resting underneath such trees! It says you can ask the tree to share their prana with you, which will improve the flow, and that you can rest your palms on the trees to feel the energy coming in.
Isn’t this fun stuff?
It also makes sense to me. For the longest time, whenever I was asked to visualize a safe place during guided meditations, I would go to a spot under a giant tree, full of green leaves on a sunny day. The leaves would look all translucent and sparkly in my mind’s eye, and the breeze would just gently brush up against my cheeks.
When’s the last time you actually did that?
It’s been a while for me, too. And I have no good excuse.
As I write this, it is less than 30 degrees Fahrenheit with roaring winds outside my home. But spring is coming. I hope you get a chance to take a walk outside, stare at squirrels playing chase or smell the scent of the wet, spring soil, soon. Scientists say that about 2 hours a week is about all you need to fully reap its benefits. That doesn’t sound difficult to me.