View From a Prairie Home

by Hege Hernfindahl, Columnist

I read and read about anxiety. I know many of you are also struggling. About 40 million people in the U.S. have anxiety disorder and many more have anxiety issues at some point in their lives. All people in grief have anxiety. But, as you know, I have written very much about both grief and anxiety, so this time, I thought I should write about what makes people feel more positive, more happy, more at peace with the world. And with Earth Day just past when you read this, I thought an appropriate topic would be nature.

One of my friends quoted a study she had read that hiking in nature improves the mood in more people than hiking in a city or town. In the study, two groups of participants walked for 90 minutes, one group in nature, the other along a city street. Researchers found that the difference was in that the brain region (subgenual prefrontal cortex) that controls repetitive negative thoughts of yourself (rumination) decreased in people walking in nature versus those walking in an urban environment. So, yes, it is true, walking in nature is important for your mental health. Another study found that if you live in a big urban center you have a 40 percent higher risk of developing mood disorders.

I grew up in suburbia. But close by was nature; woods and hills. Every weekend we would hike here. And when we had vacations, we would go to one of the two cabins our extended family owned; one by the sea and the other in the mountains. Owning a cabin is quite common among Norwegians even those who live in rural areas. This is because we treasure being in nature having been brought up with a strong need to be outside.

When I was a child, even though my mother didn’t work outside the home, I was taken to a barnepark. Quite literally translated, it means a park for children. Here, would be an area with playground equipment, the main item being a big sandbox. There was a little house too, but we were mainly outside despite the weather. When it rained, we wore rain pants, light-weight rubber boots and rain jackets. In winter, we were all dressed in thick snow pants, parkas and warm boots. And of course, there were sunny, warm days too when we could wear less clothes.

The main focus here was play. We all had little plastic shovels and dug and built in the sandbox, adding rocks and sticks to our creations. Through our play with other children we learned creativity, problem solving and how to work together. We learned that being outside is fun and that the only thing that stands between us and the weather is clothing. So we grew up to love the outdoors.

When I met Grant and he took me to visit his family’s farm, I fell in love with the prairie and the remoteness of where his parents lived. Grant and I first lived in Oslo after we married, but then we had our first child and I so wanted for him to grow up in nature. So we moved here and took over the farm. And I loved every moment of being able to raise my children in nature. Of course, they had a big sand box. There, they would play contentedly for hours. They also ran around our grove, making “forts” and even a spaceship, where they flew to the moon and came back to show me their “moon” rocks.

My children are all gone now and their children, who also played in our grove when they were little, are now teenagers and are too busy to come here as often as before. I think about them every day and even more of the two sons who are no longer with us. I grow sad and anxious. Today, the wind is whipping the rain around and it would be so much easier to just curl up in a corner with more coffee, but I put on a raincoat, wind pants, hat and gloves and my yellow rain boots. I go outside. The wind buffets me, the rain hits my face. But I feel fresh and renewed and my mood lifts and I am in awe of the healing of God’s nature.