Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild

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Both thoughtful and lyrical, this book—which draws on personal experience, research, and interviews with experts from around the globe—offers a powerful plea for humanity to actively seek a more balanced relationship with a planet in crisis. Vibrantly topical.” Today many of us live indoor lives, disconnected from the natural world as never before. And yet nature remains deeply ingr The blueprint exists to help us remake human habitats to incorporate nature. But climate scientists and ecologists tell us that time is running out. We need to restore our relationship with the Earth – to see ourselves as part of the larger ecosystem, not as conquerors of it. It might have been a reaction to the negative ions that are abundant around the ocean and other natural areas where air molecules are broken apart by crashing waves, moving air, or sunlight. Negative ions can help the brain release serotonin and activate the parasympathetic nervous system, calming the body and the mind.

Loodus on ressurss, mida vajame eelkõige elusana. Nii, nagu raamatu tagaküljel sedastatakse, tahan nüüd tõepoolest ringi korraldada nii linnaruumi, haridussüsteemi, tööl käimist kui ka oma elu. Did you know that experiencing awe can make us more generous? Or that all human babies, left to their own devices, will eat soil? Or that three-quarters of kids (aged 5-12) in the UK spend less time outdoors than prison inmates? Losing Eden is a powerful and beautifully written survey of the latest scientific research into the vast range of benefits to our minds, bodies, and spirits when we do things outside. It made me want to throw my phone in a drawer and drag my kids outside—so I did!” When author Lucy Jones was recovering from alcoholism, four elements helped her start anew: psychotherapy, medication, community, and nature. The latter came as a surprise – she found it almost by accident when she moved into a new apartment and became emotionally attached to a pear tree outside her bedroom window. Wonderfully intoxicating. In meticulous detail, Jones quests to bring us an impressive array of answers to the question of whether ‘nature connection’ has a tangible effect on our minds, and how and why it does.”The benefits of experiencing nature may be far greater than is commonly appreciated [...] A fascinating exploration of the new science of our connection to the natural world [...] written in such lush, vivid prose that reading it, one can feel transported and restored." I want to lend this to everyone I know it was just fantastic. Took such a brilliant all-round view at what constitutes an individual’s wellbeing and all the different ways nature can impact it. I realise the irony that I am sitting in front of a laptop screen typing this review about a book that advocates us getting out and about in the natural world. I spend most of the day in an office and factory and drive to and from there. But I do try to get out and about whenever I have the opportunity either by walking down to the woods or the river nearby. It may not be much some days but it is enough A developing area of law in the UK called Wild Law, or Earth Jurisprudence, would grant all components of nature legal personality. Lõpp ei olnud lõpumaiguline nagu eeldasin, vaid lootusrikka tooniga, mis oli igati teretulnud vaheldus doomscrollimisele. Igal juhul ju 5 tärni!

Restored Attention: a state of mind explained by Attention Restoration Theory, or ART, developed in 1980 by University of Michigan psychology professors Rachel and Stephen Kaplan. According to ART, Directed Attention focused on one thing leads to Directed Attention Fatigue, causing stress, irritability, and difficulty focusing. Meanwhile, Effortless Attention can be achieved in nature, watching birds fly or leaves rustling – leading to Restored Attention through feelings like “soft fascination.” In 2015, the United Nations officially recognized the principles of Earth Jurisprudence, stating that “human rights are meaningless if the ecosystems that sustain us do not have the legal right to exist.” In 2008, Ecuador’s new constitution included the “Rights of Nature,” and in 2010, Bolivia passed a “Law of the Rights of Mother Earth.” This book was not only a powerful call to action, but also a memoir of one women’s experiences in nature, and really, the author Lucy Jones wrote a love letter to the natural world itself. I found so many fascinating tidbits throughout, like how interaction with soil or walking through a forest actually raises the immune system. Or how looking at ferns has been scientifically proven to be relaxing to the human brain (which I can non-scientifically attest to!). A study even found that smelling cedar lowers your heart rate. More specifically, there are actually changes in the brain when exposed to nature, like “…lower levels of cortisol…reduced activity in your…prefrontal cortex, a small area in the cerebral cortex which is associated with sadness and negative rumination or brooding” (70). It also activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which has “…many benefits to our health, from emotional regulation to decreased risk of cardiovascular disease” (77-78). I found this information not only fascinating, but also an affirmation of why I seem to be so impacted by time spent in nature. Today many of us live indoor lives, disconnected from the natural world as never before. And yet nature remains deeply ingrained in our language, culture and consciousness. For centuries, we have acted on an intuitive sense that we need communion with the wild to feel well. Now, in the moment of our great migration away from the rest of nature, more and more scientific evidence is emerging to confirm its place at the heart of our psychological wellbeing. So what happens, asks acclaimed journalist Lucy Jones, as we lose our bond with the natural world-might we also be losing part of ourselves? On the whole, I really liked the approach taken here. However, I must say that I found the prologue and epilogue to Losing Eden rather strange. Jones has written an imagined piece about what the world may look like in the year 2100 – clue, something close to apocalyptic. She focuses this upon a young girl named Xena, and her grandmother, who still remembers natural green landscapes, and a great deal of animals who have become extinct in her lifetime. There is no nature whatsoever in Xena’s world; rather, she has to rely on a ‘holographic nature scene (HNS)’ set up in her grandmother’s living room. I completely understand what Jones was trying to achieve with this imagined future, and the stark warning it comes with, but it did not feel necessary in a work of non-fiction, and I do not feel as though it was a particularly good fit. I far preferred the main body of the work.

Delicately observed and rigorously researched, Losing Eden is an enthralling journey through this new research, exploring how and why connecting with the living world can so drastically affect our health. Travelling from forest schools in East London, to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, via Poland's primeval woodlands, Californian laboratories and ecotherapists' couches, Jones takes us to the cutting edge of human biology, neuroscience and psychology, and discovers new ways of understanding our increasingly dysfunctional relationship with the earth. Urgent and uplifting, Losing Eden is a rallying cry for a wilder way of life – for finding asylum in the soil and joy in the trees – which might just help us to save the living planet, as well as ourselves, from the destructive clutches of ecological grief. There is no other time in a human's life course that entails such dramatic change-other than adolescence. And yet this life-altering transition has been sorely neglected by science, medicine and philosophy. Its seismic effects go largely unrepresented across literature and the arts. Speaking about motherhood as anything other than a pastel-hued dream remains, for the most part, taboo.

According to Wilson, even if individuals don’t feel an innate connection with nature, our brains are marked by our past evolutionary responses and behavior. Today, researchers are successfully testing Wilson’s biophilia hypothesis through habitat theory: the idea that we mostly live in park-like grasslands with clusters of trees and water because our ancient ancestors sought out such environments to increase their chances of survival. Looking to the future, Jones emphasises the necessity of biophilic cities and robust legislation to protect the natural world. Detroit has established 1500 community gardens on derelict land, while Singapore creates green walls and roofs to make the most of its limited space. In certain countries, there are laws that cement the rights of nature and prevent it from being degraded. Putting things right “will require unprecedented change, and time is not on our side,” Jones concludes. But in her final chapters she offers many ideas for how societies and individuals can change their attitudes and behaviours. In person, she said that youth activism, ecotherapy and protest successes (like against a tree-cutting drive in Sheffield) give her hope.

Beautifully written, movingly told and meticulously researched … a convincing plea for a wilder, richer world’ Isabella Tree, author of Wilding The American West is defined as that which lay west of the 100th parallel, an appropriate definition since that land receives less rainfall than the land to its east and requires a very different land management ethos.