Episode 5
The Wild Fix: Prescribing Nature for Better Health
We all know that getting outside feels good, but the actual science behind what happens to our biology when we connect with nature is extraordinary. In this episode, Dr. Suzy Scarlett speaks with two guests on a mission to make time outdoors a fundamental part of our healthcare.
Writer and photographer Anna Deacon discusses her new book, The Wild Fix. She shares how recovering from burnout taught her the value of seeking out natural "glimmers." These small, everyday moments of beauty actively calm the nervous system, proving you don't need a wilderness adventure to feel better. Simply admiring a houseplant or watching rain in an urban puddle can be enough to start.
Professor William Bird, a GP and pioneer of green prescribing, then unpacks the hard data. He explains how spending time in green spaces physically shrinks the stress centers of the brain while reducing negative rumination. Crucially, he also addresses the very real barriers to getting outside, such as safety concerns in deprived urban areas, and explains how community-led projects are helping people reclaim their local parks.
Key Takeaways:
- How spending just 60 minutes in nature physically alters the brain, shrinking the amygdala and drastically reducing negative rumination.
- Why actively hunting for "glimmers" triggers a parasympathetic nervous system response that instantly calms stress.
- How the formula of "people, purpose, and place" helps communities, especially in deprived urban areas, overcome safety concerns, reclaim their local green spaces, and start moving.
Resources Mentioned:
- The Wild Fix by Anna Deacon
- Wellbeing Walks (Ramblers) & Beat the Street
- British Society of Lifestyle Medicine: bslm.org.uk
Produced with support from the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine.
Find us at https://themovementprescription.co.uk/ and join the conversation!
Transcript
Suzy: Welcome to this episode of the Movement Prescription Podcast,
Speaker:Suzy: hosted by three GPs with an interest in getting our patients moving.
Speaker:Suzy: I'm Susie Scarlett, a GP in Edinburgh, and I'll be today's host following on
Speaker:Suzy: from Callum's reflections on his time with the Richmond Fellowship and how our
Speaker:Suzy: colleagues are integrating physical activity into modern-day healthcare internationally.
Speaker:Suzy: Closer to home in this episode, I'll explore how nature can be so powerful for our health.
Speaker:Suzy: I've had the privilege of chatting with Professor William Byrd,
Speaker:Suzy: a pioneer of nature prescribing, who's recently taken on a role at Parliament
Speaker:Suzy: to help scale up his career application of nature and physical activity in healthcare.
Speaker:Suzy: And as a contrast to this, I'm also interviewing writer and photographer Anna
Speaker:Suzy: Deacon, who is on a one-woman mission to make nature popular again.
Speaker:Suzy: Anna, I don't know if that's a fair comment to make, but it's so lovely to have
Speaker:Suzy: you today here to talk about your experiences and what you refer to as the Wild
Speaker:Suzy: Fix, which is also the title of your new book.
Speaker:Anna: Thanks for having me. It's a wonderful thing to chat about this.
Speaker:Suzy: Yeah, you've been passionate about this for years, Anna, and I've sort of followed
Speaker:Suzy: you from your wild swimming books and then discovered your tree book.
Speaker:Suzy: How on earth did you end up writing about nature?
Speaker:Anna: Well, it started off actually as a photographic project.
Speaker:Anna: I was quite burnt out with my work and swimming a lot in the sea in Edinburgh.
Speaker:Anna: And on that journey, sort of meeting some really interesting people that perhaps
Speaker:Anna: I might have not crossed paths with in my usual life.
Speaker:Anna: And as I was chatting to them in the sea, I just thought, oh,
Speaker:Anna: the light's hitting them beautifully or, you know, there was something that
Speaker:Anna: just made me want to take a portrait.
Speaker:Anna: So I started sort of just saying, well, perhaps we could, you know,
Speaker:Anna: have a chat and I can take a photograph of you and then I could find out why
Speaker:Anna: you're swimming and then maybe I can do something with that.
Speaker:Anna: And the powerful stories that came out of those conversations with us both in
Speaker:Anna: the water and me taking a portrait, you know, stories of people who were,
Speaker:Anna: coming to the water with grief with long-term pain problems,
Speaker:Anna: and also just lots of stress depression loneliness the stories were extraordinary
Speaker:Anna: and people were very open to sharing them so I started an Instagram page to
Speaker:Anna: put the stories and the photographs together and,
Speaker:Anna: that's kind of where this began but in in that time I got introduced to Vicky
Speaker:Anna: Allen who's a writer for the Herald newspaper.
Speaker:Anna: Who also had just started Wild Swimming and was interested in it.
Speaker:Anna: And this mutual friend just said, well, you know, I think you two should meet
Speaker:Anna: and make this into a book.
Speaker:Anna: And actually within a year of us, that first meeting, the book was out, taking the plunge.
Speaker:Anna: And it really was a book where we kind of explored people's connection to wild
Speaker:Anna: swimming, but also nature in general and their sort of journeys through mental
Speaker:Anna: health and physical health and well-being.
Speaker:Anna: So that's kind of the premise of it. And then the books just carried on from there. Um...
Speaker:Anna: And through it, we did a book about trees as well, about people's connection
Speaker:Anna: directly with trees and specific trees or pieces of woodland and what it meant to them as a person.
Speaker:Anna: So we're really telling people's stories, but through the kind of prism of nature, if you like.
Speaker:Anna: But through doing all of this, I'm meeting all these incredible experts who.
Speaker:Anna: Are teaching us all these amazing things about what nature's doing for our bodies.
Speaker:Anna: So my big mission really, especially through lockdown, was to just explore this
Speaker:Anna: more. And I could see the benefits it was having on me.
Speaker:Anna: But what I wanted to find out was, is this the case for everybody?
Speaker:Anna: What is it actually doing to us? What are all the different things we can do,
Speaker:Anna: and how? And, you know, so I started really diving into the science about five years ago.
Speaker:Anna: And I'm not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination. So this was not an easy thing to do.
Speaker:Anna: I've read more of the scientific papers than I can throw a stick at.
Speaker:Anna: But I've really enjoyed the process and then trying to distill what I've learned
Speaker:Anna: down into something that's really accessible and easy for anybody.
Speaker:Anna: Sort of bite-sized chunks of why this is good for you, how to do it and,
Speaker:Anna: you know, just hopefully inspiring people to get started.
Speaker:Suzy: I absolutely love that because it's so important to understand the why before you can do the how.
Speaker:Suzy: But there's a lot of the why out there and not so much of the how and I love
Speaker:Suzy: how you sort of bring this out
Speaker:Suzy: in your books and like you said making this accessible to such a wide um,
Speaker:Suzy: such a broad sort of category of people and sort of bringing it to the masses
Speaker:Suzy: in a very different way than a healthcare professional might do that.
Speaker:Suzy: I just want to sort of go back a little bit. You said that you were experiencing
Speaker:Suzy: burnout. So I think from my understanding, and I didn't obviously know you then,
Speaker:Suzy: but I know you now, which is lovely.
Speaker:Suzy: But it couldn't be further from the sort of the calm and the serene world that you now seek out.
Speaker:Suzy: During a sort of a high flying career in media and music and entertainment in
Speaker:Suzy: big cities and places like that. Am I right in thinking that?
Speaker:Anna: Yes. So I started working at age of 18 in London in the music business.
Speaker:Anna: And it was, you know, hard to get into in those days, you know,
Speaker:Anna: I was making the tea and learning on the job and supporting myself with basically
Speaker:Anna: two other jobs in order to meet the rent.
Speaker:Anna: And it was exciting. It was a really exciting time to be in that world.
Speaker:Anna: And my husband also worked in that world in the film business.
Speaker:Anna: And we were having a great time. I mean, it was, we were in the city in London,
Speaker:Anna: we were going to parties, we were working all the hours, it was just an all
Speaker:Anna: encompassing lifestyle.
Speaker:Anna: But the great thing for me was that my parents lived in the Highlands of Scotland,
Speaker:Anna: so my antidote to this kind of completely wonderfully fun but very intense and chaotic.
Speaker:Anna: World that I was working in of music festivals and concerts and it was just
Speaker:Anna: a 24-hour job really it was a whole your whole life,
Speaker:Anna: but then I could jump on the sleeper train on a Friday night after work and
Speaker:Anna: wake up in King Yussey where my parents lived and just get off the train and
Speaker:Anna: just I'll see you next time.
Speaker:Anna: Exhale and just be in the forests and the glens and the rivers and the places
Speaker:Anna: that were my home really the places that have always been where I return to
Speaker:Anna: when I need to find myself so,
Speaker:Anna: you know even through all of that time I had this connection back and this was
Speaker:Anna: always my you know the real heart of who I am.
Speaker:Anna: And then from you know having children and dialing down that lifestyle you know
Speaker:Anna: going more into photography and things like that it was an is also a way of managing my,
Speaker:Anna: kind of burnout cycles as someone with ADHD I now understand why it's happening,
Speaker:Anna: so I'm able to manage myself more but it's been a long time of,
Speaker:Anna: just going at things full pelt and then getting ill and not being able to function
Speaker:Anna: and then having to rebuild myself differently and I've been doing that for many
Speaker:Anna: years and I think a lot of this has been almost a return to the,
Speaker:Anna: heart of who I really am and what I really love which is being outdoors and
Speaker:Anna: being in nature and it's it's been really lovely to kind of,
Speaker:Anna: find that again and then also share it with other people.
Speaker:Suzy: And I think that's that's what you're doing so beautifully is sharing that with
Speaker:Suzy: other people and and seeing that through you know the an evidence-based lens which is which is what,
Speaker:Suzy: I see the lifestyle medicine approach is about trying to share with people this
Speaker:Suzy: evidence-based approach to health that doesn't need to be overly medically complex.
Speaker:Suzy: One of the questions actually that I asked,
Speaker:Suzy: William Bird was, should we be medicalizing nature?
Speaker:Anna: Oh, wow. That's a difficult one because I'm not a medical professional in any way.
Speaker:Anna: What I can say is from what I've read, I love the fact that it's coming together.
Speaker:Anna: I don't think we should be medicalizing it, but I think also a lot of people
Speaker:Anna: that I'm speaking to are not aware of the medical benefits of being in nature.
Speaker:Anna: And it's almost like there's two very separate things. You go to the doctor
Speaker:Anna: about illnesses, but actually a lot of the ways that we can help prevent illnesses
Speaker:Anna: are by living a different kind of lifestyle, potentially.
Speaker:Anna: And I think hopefully...
Speaker:Anna: Um, the fact that it's becoming something that doctors are talking about more,
Speaker:Anna: is something that also potentially validates it for people as an option,
Speaker:Anna: as something that they potentially should be doing.
Speaker:Anna: It's not just a nice thing to do on a weekend, go for a walk in a park,
Speaker:Anna: but actually my doctor's telling
Speaker:Anna: me this is really good for me and this is why it's really good for me.
Speaker:Anna: So I think it's good because I think it potentially pushes people into it who maybe,
Speaker:Anna: weren't thinking it would be that good for them really you know without what's
Speaker:Anna: the evidence for this why is this going to help my you know my blood pressure
Speaker:Anna: or or whatever the the problem might be or how can this help with my mood,
Speaker:Anna: um but then I'm also seeing things like um,
Speaker:Anna: this just just missed my book deadline which I'm a bit gutted about but that
Speaker:Anna: King's Hospital have just opened this incredible rooftop,
Speaker:Anna: um intensive care unit for their patients just because they were saying that
Speaker:Anna: it's it's so important for people to have that connection.
Speaker:Anna: With nature and with the outside world, especially when they've been for months
Speaker:Anna: on end, just inside with the bright lights of a hospital and the beeps and all the
Speaker:Anna: unnatural sounds and the straight lines and all of the things that go against
Speaker:Anna: what we need as humans, which is the messy, tangly world of nature, that our,
Speaker:Anna: bodies really require access to that and so the fact that they've done that
Speaker:Anna: is is um is is incredible and i and i love the fact that this is becoming more of a topic um,
Speaker:Anna: that patients are hearing and that people are hearing.
Speaker:Suzy: And I couldn't agree more about the outdoor ICU.
Speaker:Suzy: And I think it's just, I remember doing my acute medical training I did before general practice.
Speaker:Suzy: And, you know, you'd be inside under unnatural light for 12 hours.
Speaker:Suzy: And when you finally emerged, it was just so nice to be outdoors in the fresh air.
Speaker:Suzy: It was usually dark by the time you came out, especially living in Scotland,
Speaker:Suzy: especially in the winter, in the winter months.
Speaker:Suzy: But actually, I sent you an article yesterday about UK Biobank data,
Speaker:Suzy: which has shown the importance of sunlight even, hasn't it?
Speaker:Anna: It's incredible. I mean, there's so much coming out of this,
Speaker:Anna: of the research on circadian rhythms and sunlight and also the light at different times of day.
Speaker:Anna: And you hear so much about this, but actually, the more I read into it,
Speaker:Anna: the more understanding I had of why it's so important to get light,
Speaker:Anna: the right light at the right times.
Speaker:Anna: And also the problems with your circadian rhythm going out of sync can be really quite intense.
Speaker:Anna: So I think just trying to help show people just like really simple things like
Speaker:Anna: getting that morning light helps set your body up for the day and send the right
Speaker:Anna: signals at the right time to digest your food, when to help you go to sleep at night.
Speaker:Anna: And it doesn't necessarily feel like something like going for a morning walk
Speaker:Anna: might help you sleep better that night.
Speaker:Anna: But actually, when you look at why, I think that helps people kind of understand.
Speaker:Anna: But also, you know, things like having the low lights in the evening,
Speaker:Anna: just side lamps, not having, you know, even on a phone, you can change the colour
Speaker:Anna: of the background of the phone so that you're not getting that blue light in the evening.
Speaker:Anna: But also knowing that at lunchtime, going out for a walk during that sort of
Speaker:Anna: blue light period in the middle of the day,
Speaker:Anna: it is going to wake you up you know and help prevent that afternoon slump so
Speaker:Anna: it's been really interesting finding out how much different light affects affects
Speaker:Anna: us on many different levels and but how to sit very easily sort of change,
Speaker:Anna: your pattern a little bit to to help help with that.
Speaker:Suzy: In terms of sunlight, it was interesting. I bumped into a well-known professor
Speaker:Suzy: of dermatology in Edinburgh,
Speaker:Suzy: who was just talking about how he feels that dermatologists have actually done,
Speaker:Suzy: the greater public a disservice because we've forgotten the balance,
Speaker:Suzy: the importance of sunlight.
Speaker:Suzy: In our sort of fear of melanoma, which is a serious, serious skin cancer,
Speaker:Suzy: we see more and more of that.
Speaker:Suzy: But I think, I guess it just has to be, we have to focus on the early morning
Speaker:Suzy: sunlight and I guess in Scotland we don't have quite so much of the dangerous,
Speaker:Suzy: rays that they have elsewhere so I guess it as we were discussing you know balance
Speaker:Suzy: is is so important yet so hard to achieve,
Speaker:Suzy: but I think it's really good that we are now talking about the importance of
Speaker:Suzy: sunlight again and you talk there about the rhythm as well which I think it's
Speaker:Suzy: my one of my favorite things actually
Speaker:Suzy: in in sort of lifestyle medicine and understanding the science behind,
Speaker:Suzy: the patterns in our bodies.
Speaker:Suzy: But I've got a question for you, Anna.
Speaker:Suzy: Is all outside time equal or do some places have bigger benefits than others?
Speaker:Anna: Well, I couldn't give you a definitive answer here.
Speaker:Anna: I think any is better than none. And I think if you can even,
Speaker:Anna: even looking at pictures of nature, pictures of nature has a measurable effect on your well-being.
Speaker:Anna: So if we start from there and build up you know,
Speaker:Anna: I think you you can find that the longer you spend in nature and probably the more diverse the nature,
Speaker:Anna: the the the better it is I would suppose but I think honestly that you can get
Speaker:Anna: so many benefits just from sitting in a garden um that I don't,
Speaker:Anna: what I'm really keen to do is try and say to people you don't have to go and
Speaker:Anna: climbing Monroe or being you know,
Speaker:Anna: in a really remote location to get the benefits of nature you can get the benefits
Speaker:Anna: of nature in your garden or looking out of your window
Speaker:Anna: or walking in a park or being in a city centre and looking at a tree or looking up at the clouds
Speaker:Anna: from an office window you don't have to,
Speaker:Anna: change too much to get the benefits however I do think that there are benefits
Speaker:Anna: to being around um around trees
Speaker:Anna: particular trees there's a lot of benefits to being in or near water so,
Speaker:Anna: you know if you can bring those elements in brilliant all the better um but it's.
Speaker:Anna: I think you probably feel more calm the quieter it is and the more,
Speaker:Anna: you know, serene the atmosphere and the place around you.
Speaker:Anna: But if all you can look at is a beautiful crop of wildflowers in the middle
Speaker:Anna: of a roundabout, then that is better than nothing.
Speaker:Anna: So, yeah.
Speaker:Suzy: I had a registrar in one of my teaching groups recently and I forget how it came up.
Speaker:Suzy: I think we were talking about humanities in medicine, which is,
Speaker:Suzy: I think most of them were a little bit closed minded before that session.
Speaker:Suzy: But actually, I asked them all to bring along something which they felt would
Speaker:Suzy: be relevant to that session.
Speaker:Suzy: And she brought a photograph of the window that she created in the windowless
Speaker:Suzy: room because their GP practice had expanded so much.
Speaker:Suzy: She was put into this windowless room and she couldn't cope with this because
Speaker:Suzy: she needed some outdoor space or some way of connecting with the outdoor world.
Speaker:Suzy: So she went along to just a local home store and bought a multi-aperture photo
Speaker:Suzy: frame and a window handle.
Speaker:Suzy: And she put a lovely photograph of nature behind her. And so it transformed
Speaker:Suzy: this windowless room into something. Yes, she didn't have any natural light, which is miserable.
Speaker:Suzy: But she said that she felt better and lots of the patients commented on it.
Speaker:Suzy: So I guess you can start with something being better than nothing and then work out from there.
Speaker:Anna: Yeah, I think that's very much, you know, as I said, I want...
Speaker:Anna: People to feel like it's not something they had to change everything all at
Speaker:Anna: once because that can be too overwhelming it's just about tiny baby steps and
Speaker:Anna: understanding that that something is better than nothing always you know.
Speaker:Suzy: In your book, you said that hugging trees is not just woo-woo.
Speaker:Suzy: And you mentioned there the science behind the trees. Could you tell us a bit
Speaker:Suzy: more about that? What have you learned?
Speaker:Anna: Well, there's so many parts to it. I've been reading a lot about forest bathing,
Speaker:Anna: and how the Japanese government brought it in in the 1980s as a kind of antidote
Speaker:Anna: to the kind of city life and the burnout that was happening amongst their sort of workforce.
Speaker:Anna: Force um and they brought in this forest bathing and and they've been doing
Speaker:Anna: so many studies on it since all kinds of different ways um,
Speaker:Anna: and it's really interesting from a couple of different viewpoints one is
Speaker:Anna: that that the trees are um emitting phytoncides which are incredible kind of
Speaker:Anna: antibacterial anti-inflammatory and we we do absorb them
Speaker:Anna: um and they've done these trials where they've actually pumped them into,
Speaker:Anna: sterile hotel rooms.
Speaker:Anna: So people are still getting the benefits of the phytoncides,
Speaker:Anna: even if they're not in a forest, through a diffuser, the essential oils.
Speaker:Anna: And then they had a control group in another sterile room who didn't have it.
Speaker:Anna: And the sleep was measurably different. And there's lots of trials like that
Speaker:Anna: that have been done measuring frightened side so obviously it's great to to
Speaker:Anna: experience that in a forest but also the,
Speaker:Anna: the eye is naturally drawn to green we see more colors of green than any other
Speaker:Anna: color it's a calming color to us as humans which is why um.
Speaker:Anna: Green rooms which is where people go before they go in on tv or on the theater
Speaker:Anna: or if they're playing a live show you go in a green room but they're never normally
Speaker:Anna: green but the green room was invented as a calming place.
Speaker:Anna: And, you know, the eyes are more relaxed when we're in nature. We are able to...
Speaker:Anna: You know, calm our nervous system down, just the sounds of the birds in the
Speaker:Anna: trees and the wind in the trees.
Speaker:Anna: And also just, I think just being in a forest and just.
Speaker:Anna: Allowing yourself to slow down and be mindful of what's around you,
Speaker:Anna: which is so much a part of forest bathing is just observing what's around you and just seeing it.
Speaker:Anna: You don't have to do anything, but just being aware of the smells the sounds,
Speaker:Anna: um and where you are in the world um,
Speaker:Anna: so there's those parts of it but also there's an element of you know grounding
Speaker:Anna: if you're hugging a tree and you're kind of connecting in to to the earth um,
Speaker:Anna: through the current of the earth you know by touching um with your bare hands
Speaker:Anna: or or bare feet on the floor um so there's,
Speaker:Anna: there's so much there's so much to it as um from a sort of scientific standpoint
Speaker:Anna: there's so many studies showing why it's good for us but you know i think we all,
Speaker:Anna: know that we feel better when we go into nature and actually sometimes weirdly
Speaker:Anna: hugging a tree actually does it does feel like you know a really nice thing
Speaker:Anna: to do i don't know those who haven't tried it just give it a try it's actually really nice,
Speaker:Anna: i was just quite keen to like look at like why is it that we feel good when
Speaker:Anna: we go in a forest What is it about hugging trees or forest bathing that makes us feel good?
Speaker:Anna: And so, yeah, the idea was to try and just sort of look into the research and
Speaker:Anna: then show people how to kind of practically do that.
Speaker:Suzy: And I guess if you don't have a forest nearby, you know, what can you do?
Speaker:Suzy: You know, is it enough to get some houseplants or, I don't know, where do you start?
Speaker:Suzy: Where do people in urban environments who don't have this access,
Speaker:Suzy: you know, we're so lucky to live in this beautiful city that is,
Speaker:Suzy: you know, there's always green spaces accessible.
Speaker:Suzy: And, you know, we're talking in August and there's been this drought up and
Speaker:Suzy: down the country and all these horrendous forest fires.
Speaker:Suzy: So, you know, some of the green spaces will have been obliterated recently,
Speaker:Suzy: which is, which is, I mean, I don't know if you've had much,
Speaker:Suzy: much to do with, with, with that or thoughts on that.
Speaker:Suzy: On the disasters that we were seeing, you know, how on earth can we,
Speaker:Suzy: you know, help protect these green spaces that we have?
Speaker:Anna: I know. I mean, I spend a lot of time in the Cairngorms and I was up there,
Speaker:Anna: you know, when the wildfires were really raging. And.
Speaker:Anna: It was so shocking to see. And just, you know, the fire that was in,
Speaker:Anna: I think it was the Peak District that got set off by some teenagers letting
Speaker:Anna: off a firework into the dry grass.
Speaker:Anna: I mean, it was awful and it was inconsiderate, but I can also see that these
Speaker:Anna: were young people that perhaps weren't aware of the impact that this action could have.
Speaker:Anna: And I think so much of this is about awareness and about understanding why we
Speaker:Anna: don't light fires at this time and that bottles left discarded can catch fire.
Speaker:Anna: And I think it's like so much of it's about education and about understanding,
Speaker:Anna: you know, how precious these environments are.
Speaker:Anna: And hopefully the more time people kind of understand more about them,
Speaker:Anna: the more they want to protect them and the more they want to,
Speaker:Anna: you know, to look after what we have. But it happens every single year.
Speaker:Anna: There's something. It's like the sun comes out and people go wild camping and
Speaker:Anna: they leave their stuff everywhere and someone else has to clear it up.
Speaker:Anna: And it's like, I see this over and over every single year.
Speaker:Anna: And, you know, I guess we all just have to do our part.
Speaker:Anna: And if we see litter and we're out and about somewhere that's dry and,
Speaker:Anna: you know, has the potential for a fire, if we can pick it up and take it with us, great.
Speaker:Anna: You know, if there's a discarded bottle or anything that might potentially catch
Speaker:Anna: fire or report it if you see a, you know, a fire. But it's...
Speaker:Anna: It was truly heartbreaking to see the scale of it driving through near Nethy
Speaker:Anna: Bridge and just being able to see the smoke and smell the smoke from quite a
Speaker:Anna: distance away and just see the burn line.
Speaker:Anna: And then just also hearing how deep into the peat the fire had got.
Speaker:Anna: So it was really hard to get it out. It's still going. It's not over yet.
Speaker:Anna: And such precious landscape, you know.
Speaker:Suzy: Although we've had some rain. I don't know if that's been the same elsewhere,
Speaker:Suzy: really quite heavy rain.
Speaker:Suzy: Yesterday, I was actually thinking of you, Anna, as I was walking past an urban
Speaker:Suzy: puddle, and I just got down on my hands and knees and took a little video of,
Speaker:Suzy: just the beauty of the raindrops in the urban puddle.
Speaker:Suzy: I think, yeah, my neighbours thought I'd gone absolutely mental,
Speaker:Suzy: but I was having a moment.
Speaker:Anna: I've often done stuff like that, sitting in a NASDAQ car park,
Speaker:Anna: taking photographs of the raindrops on the window.
Speaker:Anna: So I think the thing is, is once you start looking for beauty in nature, you start seeing it.
Speaker:Anna: And it's like this polyvagal theory that Deb Danner came up with this concept of glimmers.
Speaker:Anna: And I absolutely love this because glimmers are the opposite of triggers.
Speaker:Anna: And so, you know, when you're triggered by something and it kind of provokes,
Speaker:Anna: a kind of fight or flight, Thank you.
Speaker:Anna: Sympathetic nervous system response a kind of panic uh.
Speaker:Anna: Maybe it's a loud bang or something that that a smell even that takes you to
Speaker:Anna: a place that makes you feel afraid or um,
Speaker:Anna: you know anxious but the idea that the glimmer is the absolute opposite of that
Speaker:Anna: a glimmer is something that makes you feel safe it makes you feel joyful and it makes you,
Speaker:Anna: it kind of provokes that parasympathetic nervous system response you know it makes you feel,
Speaker:Anna: calm and I think that we can find so many of these glimmers in nature,
Speaker:Anna: and what she was saying was the more you look the more you see and I've absolutely
Speaker:Anna: found this to be the case myself and actually the times where I've really struggled
Speaker:Anna: over the last five years or so since I learned about that.
Speaker:Anna: I force myself to go out on a glimmer
Speaker:Anna: hunting walk, when I'm going out to purposely seek beauty in nature.
Speaker:Anna: And I tell you, some days, especially in Scotland, when it's dark,
Speaker:Anna: and it's raining, and the rain is sideways, and I'm going out on those days,
Speaker:Anna: and I'm looking to find something that's beautiful and take a photograph of it.
Speaker:Anna: Because then I can sort of almost remind myself like there is beauty always,
Speaker:Anna: it just you have to sometimes look a bit harder.
Speaker:Anna: And on the really toughest days, you know, we've had a couple of family bereavements
Speaker:Anna: this year and it's been bleak and on those days I know to lean into nature
Speaker:Anna: more than ever and it's those days where you just want to lie on your bed and
Speaker:Anna: block out the world and I know,
Speaker:Anna: you know that doesn't do anything for me the best thing I need to do is actually
Speaker:Anna: just put on a coat and just go outside and look for that whether it's bouncing
Speaker:Anna: puddles in a bouncing raindrops in a puddle or it's the,
Speaker:Anna: shadow from leaves on the pavement or it's a beautiful wildflower meadow or
Speaker:Anna: it's the big crashing waves.
Speaker:Anna: There's always something that you can find, but you have to sometimes make yourself look.
Speaker:Suzy: Yes, taking that first step, isn't it? And I know this is, I've got loads more
Speaker:Suzy: questions that I plan to ask you, but as always, we've spoken and spoken.
Speaker:Suzy: And I think to sort of bring this all together.
Speaker:Suzy: When I was talking to William Bird, who we'll hear speak next,
Speaker:Suzy: he talks about the importance of the three Ps, the people, the purpose,
Speaker:Suzy: and the place, I think, when it comes to getting outdoors.
Speaker:Suzy: And you've just described that so beautifully, you know, if you've got a purpose
Speaker:Suzy: and that purpose is for you going and finding a glimmer or, you know,
Speaker:Suzy: sometimes it's the accountability as well, isn't it, of going out, you know,
Speaker:Suzy: you're less likely to do it if it's just you thinking, oh, I might go for a walk today.
Speaker:Suzy: But if you've arranged to meet your friend at 10, you're jolly well going to
Speaker:Suzy: do it. Or if your dog's crossing its legs because it needs to go out for a pee,
Speaker:Suzy: then, you know, you can't not do that either.
Speaker:Suzy: And I guess it's about the importance of having that permission um to do that
Speaker:Suzy: but um and if you were to give um,
Speaker:Suzy: the people that tune in to the movement prescription podcast and we focus mainly
Speaker:Suzy: on on nature and getting outdoors but as a byproduct of that people will be
Speaker:Suzy: moving in order to get themselves to the places um,
Speaker:Suzy: that they find beautiful nature this is this you know this is not exercise this is,
Speaker:Suzy: physical activity by accident sometimes.
Speaker:Suzy: What would be your sort of take-home message to healthcare professionals from
Speaker:Suzy: all the research that you've done?
Speaker:Suzy: What do you feel that healthcare professionals maybe need to know or think about?
Speaker:Anna: I think that probably...
Speaker:Anna: What I think is the greatest barrier to all of this is people thinking it's
Speaker:Anna: too hard I need to do this huge thing in order to get these benefits and I think,
Speaker:Anna: the thing that I'm I keep saying all the way through this and I really advocate
Speaker:Anna: for this is that everyone can do it and it's free and it doesn't need to be
Speaker:Anna: huge it could be a pot plant it could be
Speaker:Anna: looking out of your window at the clouds it doesn't have to be a great big adventure
Speaker:Anna: that takes all day and you don't have to set aside that time.
Speaker:Anna: Um to just begin to dip your toe into observing nature and but when you understand
Speaker:Anna: actually what it's doing for you as well as something that you enjoy just,
Speaker:Anna: doing for fun when you actually see the benefits um and i think,
Speaker:Anna: if we could have more of that um in in a kind of prescription way i mean the
Speaker:Anna: nhs scotland are doing nature prescriptions and i think it's wonderful and it's like they,
Speaker:Anna: you know the response has been brilliant to these leaflets and things like that
Speaker:Anna: and it's sometimes it just takes,
Speaker:Anna: someone to inspire you to do something so it might be why don't you go on a
Speaker:Anna: glimmer walk you know someone who's really struggling with something you don't have to walk very far,
Speaker:Anna: um but just look for a different color of the rainbow and don't come home until
Speaker:Anna: you found something red yellow green you know and just do it like that just
Speaker:Anna: give someone like a little little mission and i think sometimes,
Speaker:Anna: just having a little mission and a small win that helps you to then bring more in.
Speaker:Anna: But if it feels too hard, I think you give up, you know. So I think that's how,
Speaker:Anna: I would just say if people can start with something tiny, a tiny adjustment,
Speaker:Anna: and then hopefully they'll see the benefits and build up from there.
Speaker:Suzy: So go get your wild fixes, everyone.
Speaker:Suzy: Anna, it's been so lovely to chat with you. And thank you so much for coming
Speaker:Suzy: on the Movement Prescription Podcast.
Speaker:Anna: Thanks for having me.
Speaker:Suzy: So from the author of books on wild fixes to co-author of the textbook on nature and public health.
Speaker:Suzy: And since recording with William Byrd, he's taken on a new role with the Cabinet
Speaker:Suzy: Office on Neighbourhood Health.
Speaker:Suzy: Thank you so much for joining us for this part of the podcast on nature on prescription
Speaker:Suzy: or whatever we end up calling this.
Speaker:Suzy: But it is an absolute delight to have Dr.
Speaker:Suzy: William Byrd with us today, who has written the textbook on nature and public
Speaker:Suzy: health, but I think actually is so passionate about the need for nature in the
Speaker:Suzy: health industry. And I just wanted to invite you along, William,
Speaker:Suzy: and thank you for coming today.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Susie, thank you. Great pleasure. I always love talking about this.
Speaker:Rob Bird: It's something which is really close to my heart, but it's also something very
Speaker:Rob Bird: professionally, I believe, is important. So, lovely to be here.
Speaker:Suzy: Thank you. So, you are a well-known GP to many of us and honorary professor
Speaker:Suzy: with the University of Exeter, I understand, amongst many other things.
Speaker:Suzy: Could you tell us a little bit about how on earth you arrived at this and ended
Speaker:Suzy: up being such a wonderful, trusted voice on nature, on prescription?
Speaker:Rob Bird: I'm not sure about the trusted voice but a voice might be okay um but it is
Speaker:Rob Bird: a it is a life history really and I think probably because my dad was a doctor GP,
Speaker:Rob Bird: um and my mother was a naturalist so probably there was a couple of genes that
Speaker:Rob Bird: kind of crossed over there and came to me so I'd had that kind of both both inputs from,
Speaker:Rob Bird: my parents was nature was very important and when I became a GP at Sonnenkommon,
Speaker:Rob Bird: um back in oh gosh I hate to even say this 1991 when I first started in general
Speaker:Rob Bird: practice um i was given the kind of the junior role you've got the diabetes
Speaker:Rob Bird: clinic you know and the past,
Speaker:Rob Bird: person who had it last very happy to hand it over it wasn't very much nurse
Speaker:Rob Bird: led then you actually had to know what you're talking about as a gp whereas
Speaker:Rob Bird: now of course you've got the amazing nurses doing a lot of the work and understanding it
Speaker:Rob Bird: so they as you know all the patients move around and when they came to me we
Speaker:Rob Bird: talked about physical activity and they kind of I said, yeah, well.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Yeah, I'll do a bit, Doc, you know, but next I'll do better.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And it was always that same old, same old, too expensive, not able to get the
Speaker:Rob Bird: weather right, not able to have time to go out.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And I went for a walk and it was a beautiful July evening. And of course,
Speaker:Rob Bird: old-fashioned GPs, we knew where everyone lived. We knew, I knew exactly where
Speaker:Rob Bird: those patients with diabetes were.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And as I went past, I kind of peered into their, not quite badly,
Speaker:Rob Bird: but looked into their living, seeing the television on. It was a beautiful day.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And I thought, hang on a sec.
Speaker:Rob Bird: I'm out here in this beautiful day, walking, and you're all indoors moaning
Speaker:Rob Bird: about the fact that the weather's bad all the time, and it's not, it's beautiful.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So what's stopping it? So we got them all into Village Hall, and...
Speaker:Rob Bird: Got about 100 patients with diabetes into a village hall.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And I said, look, what's stopping you from exercising? And it all came out that
Speaker:Rob Bird: the women found it a little bit scary to be on their own.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And the men were a bit more worried about losing, being lost,
Speaker:Rob Bird: and also not being able to climb over the styles, which were quite high, some of them.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So we said, well, that led walks, and that started off for health walks.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And that's how I started the health walks back in 1996.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And then we realized that nature was the biggest draw as well as community so
Speaker:Rob Bird: they talked to each other that was huge,
Speaker:Rob Bird: um and then they said it's so lovely to be outdoors we didn't i'd never go to
Speaker:Rob Bird: this place and this is literally 100 yards from where they lived and they weren't going to it,
Speaker:Rob Bird: um so started the green gym fairly soon after which is conservation work um
Speaker:Rob Bird: and we realized that nature was playing a huge part,
Speaker:Rob Bird: um and i got a lot more interested and actually natural england which was a
Speaker:Rob Bird: countryside commission then helped sponsor and fund the health walks but they
Speaker:Rob Bird: wanted to know a bit more about the connection.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And as the research I started looking at research I thought this is extraordinary
Speaker:Rob Bird: there's loads of research here about nature and health,
Speaker:Rob Bird: and so it kind of led on me joining Natural England when it first formed as
Speaker:Rob Bird: their health lead and I set up all the health programs for Natural England including
Speaker:Rob Bird: green social prescribing which is very embryonic then.
Speaker:Rob Bird: I like to think we were starting out in the green gym.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And it kind of meant that I realized that when you're looking at people,
Speaker:Rob Bird: there are three things. It's a people, purpose, and place.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So the people connect with each other, that's the people bit.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Having a purpose, doing outdoors, et cetera. But the place was so important.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And that connection to nature seemed to both help people connect with each other,
Speaker:Rob Bird: and it also helped them feel relaxed and de-stressed.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And kind of that's how the story started that got me into into the nature part
Speaker:Rob Bird: and then the academic bit came a bit later um with a really good friend um we kind of edited a book,
Speaker:Rob Bird: and I'm still talking about it.
Speaker:Suzy: That's absolutely brilliant. So this all came from your childhood,
Speaker:Suzy: actually, I guess, your own childhood experiences. You mentioned your mum was
Speaker:Suzy: a, did you say a naturalist?
Speaker:Rob Bird: Yeah, not a naturist. She may have been, I don't know.
Speaker:Rob Bird: But no, she was a naturalist and I loved nature and I was immersed in it really,
Speaker:Rob Bird: being brought up. So I remember all my really kind of brilliant moments were
Speaker:Rob Bird: being outdoors in nature.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Not because I was being, you know, I didn't have any friends.
Speaker:Rob Bird: I did have friends, but it was just so lovely. And I think there was that kind
Speaker:Rob Bird: of aura about nature in the family.
Speaker:Suzy: Absolutely. And I think the challenge for the people that you then go on to describe is that maybe,
Speaker:Suzy: people who don't naturally go outdoors when it was a beautiful July evening,
Speaker:Suzy: maybe they haven't had that opportunity to experience nature as a safe place
Speaker:Suzy: and a haven as a child and you know i'm thinking about the the pocket of deprivation in which i work um,
Speaker:Suzy: and when i suggest you know going out for a walk a lot of the barriers and you
Speaker:Suzy: touched on some of the barriers there are safety um,
Speaker:Suzy: are well it's not for folk like me people feeling like they don't almost deserve
Speaker:Suzy: the beauty of nature if you come across that in your work william.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Absolutely. And I think you've touched on two of those things,
Speaker:Rob Bird: really important things. And I'd say the number one thing is safety.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And it's a feeling of, particularly in a really deprived area,
Speaker:Rob Bird: you've got fantastic green space on the doorstep.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And you've mentioned those two most important things. first of all they don't
Speaker:Rob Bird: feel safe to be out there it's a discomfort it's not a kind of safety that something
Speaker:Rob Bird: horrendous is going to happen it was a
Speaker:Rob Bird: it's just an uncomfortable feeling much prefer to be indoors where you can hold
Speaker:Rob Bird: your children close to you and feel safe,
Speaker:Rob Bird: as opposed to letting your children out in a place you feel really a little bit hostile and,
Speaker:Rob Bird: again you don't feel it's your park you don't feel it belongs to you you think
Speaker:Rob Bird: it belongs to other people those people over there that's their park that's not my park,
Speaker:Rob Bird: and that is the biggest barrier and that's why you got beautiful green spaces in,
Speaker:Rob Bird: places just not being used by certain groups and when we do our street work
Speaker:Rob Bird: which is something i might touch on later we we monitor where people have walked
Speaker:Rob Bird: we know exactly where they are we know how much they feel safety and you can get.
Speaker:Rob Bird: One street with some people saying it's a brilliant park we go all the time
Speaker:Rob Bird: in the same street people saying it's a really dangerous park and we never go out there
Speaker:Rob Bird: and it's the perception that people feel so the more you go into a more deprived
Speaker:Rob Bird: area the more people feel that hostility and that sort of unsafeness so that's
Speaker:Rob Bird: the thing we have to it's not building more green space of course you want to make it safer
Speaker:Rob Bird: and well kept etc that that's important but that's not necessarily going to bring new people in.
Speaker:Suzy: I love what you um said there about it's the people it's the purpose um and
Speaker:Suzy: it's the place and I suppose it's a good opportunity for me to ask before we
Speaker:Suzy: come on to some of your academic work should we be medicalising nature.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So I think sometimes, because we've just said there's safety issues,
Speaker:Rob Bird: I think having a doctor or nurse or whoever, healthcare professional,
Speaker:Rob Bird: saying it's a good thing for you to go out and it's going to be really good
Speaker:Rob Bird: for your children as well.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And I often talk about the brain development in children, which I mentioned later.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And you've kind of said, look, do it. And it could just be the jolt they need
Speaker:Rob Bird: to get that started. Because once they've gone out there, children don't need to be told what to do.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So I'm thinking of a young family here, and I know we're talking about all ages,
Speaker:Rob Bird: but particularly parents who are trying to, you know, not taking their children out.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Once those children are out there, they just have a ball, they just love it,
Speaker:Rob Bird: they just be, they don't have to be told what to do, they just do it, they just are.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And I think that suddenly makes a parent feel much happier, but they have to
Speaker:Rob Bird: have that incentive to go out. And sometimes it is that medical voice,
Speaker:Rob Bird: it is that healthcare professional.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So I don't think we're kind of medicalizing it i think we're giving permission
Speaker:Rob Bird: for people and giving out a little bit of comfort that it's okay to do it um,
Speaker:Rob Bird: so i think that's the first thing for older people i think it is important that
Speaker:Rob Bird: we talk about it because one.
Speaker:Rob Bird: As we know in general practice just one comment we make we have no idea what
Speaker:Rob Bird: the impact it has on that person's life and it's only come a year later they
Speaker:Rob Bird: come back to you and said you know doctor you've mentioned that
Speaker:Rob Bird: and that's completely changed my life you think well i can't even remember saying
Speaker:Rob Bird: that and didn't feel important at the time
Speaker:Rob Bird: but telling someone to go out to a park or green space or do your daily walk
Speaker:Rob Bird: or do your walk even a 10 minute walk i tell really slowly,
Speaker:Rob Bird: is the thing that got people to start going outdoors and they said they've not
Speaker:Rob Bird: stopped they love it and now they bring a wife or husband and they now bring the family so,
Speaker:Rob Bird: Is it medicalising it? I suppose it is, but it's us doing our job,
Speaker:Rob Bird: which is really creating conditions for the patient to be healthy,
Speaker:Rob Bird: as opposed to creating the health ourselves and imposing it on the patient.
Speaker:Suzy: Absolutely. The thing I quote all the time is doing the simple things well.
Speaker:Suzy: I think we do tend to over-medicalise and over-complicate things,
Speaker:Suzy: don't we, to follow the guidelines?
Speaker:Suzy: And as the lovely Rob Lawson said at a meeting recently, remember guidelines
Speaker:Suzy: are not tram lines um and i i think,
Speaker:Suzy: it's really important that we in modern health care and all the way through
Speaker:Suzy: actually it's interesting um sort of hearing you say that you started walks
Speaker:Suzy: in your practice we're still talking about starting walks from our practice or,
Speaker:Suzy: connecting with third sector organizations like it's a new thing but it's not
Speaker:Suzy: a new thing why does it still feel like a new thing do you think.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Because i think we have to keep reinventing it and sometimes that's not a bad
Speaker:Rob Bird: thing because um we want to own it a bit of permission and do it ourselves,
Speaker:Rob Bird: um when i set up the health walks it gave a structure for people to be able to do it so,
Speaker:Rob Bird: there were things that most walk leaders didn't want to do was deal with the
Speaker:Rob Bird: insurance deal with health and safety deal with the training if something went
Speaker:Rob Bird: wrong and also often there was no money coming unless you monitor it and you
Speaker:Rob Bird: actually take some you know details
Speaker:Rob Bird: so by setting up health walks we did all of that and then it allowed any health
Speaker:Rob Bird: any walk group and there are hundreds and thousands in the country i mean i
Speaker:Rob Bird: think we've estimated probably over about five million people have gone on health
Speaker:Rob Bird: walks since it started across the country um,
Speaker:Rob Bird: but there are loads and loads and loads of walking groups got nothing to do with health walks at all,
Speaker:Rob Bird: I don't think that matters. And some start and they stop and then they regenerate.
Speaker:Rob Bird: But I think as long as it keeps bubbling up all the time and there are different
Speaker:Rob Bird: versions of it, I think people do sometimes say, oh, I set up this amazing idea.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And I think, well, we've been doing it for 30 years exactly now.
Speaker:Rob Bird: But I don't think that matters too much. I think we are a bit daft.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Sometimes we don't look around and see what other people are doing before we
Speaker:Rob Bird: start doing something ourselves,
Speaker:Rob Bird: because it's hard work and you'd like to feel that you're doing something innovative
Speaker:Rob Bird: and I did as well when I started it so it's not a problem but I think we are
Speaker:Rob Bird: sometimes a little bit blind to what has happened before and as you say the simple things,
Speaker:Rob Bird: are sometimes just overlooked because they're just too simple,
Speaker:Rob Bird: and I think that's been one of the problems of walking,
Speaker:Rob Bird: and group walks you look at parkrun high profile it's got very good excellent
Speaker:Rob Bird: but it's been really high profile, a bit of gadgetry because you've got your
Speaker:Rob Bird: code and you put it in there and you've got running and you've got volunteers.
Speaker:Rob Bird: But that's running and that's quite something, you know, a bit more energetic,
Speaker:Rob Bird: whereas walking is really, you know, it could be seen as boring.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And I think that's why it's been a problem for that to get the traction that it probably deserved.
Speaker:Suzy: Now, you mentioned that collecting data is one of the key things to get funding.
Speaker:Suzy: So that maybe brings us on nicely to how you then got involved in the academic
Speaker:Suzy: world, which is not just collecting data, it's moving to sort of a bigger scale,
Speaker:Suzy: isn't it? Tell us a bit more about that.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Well, I am a bit of a, I didn't know I was because I hated stats and I hated
Speaker:Rob Bird: everything to do with numbers, but I actually started looking at the data we got in.
Speaker:Rob Bird: I remember the one of the people working in the practice, her son was doing
Speaker:Rob Bird: A-levels and he kind of looked at the data as a project. And I thought,
Speaker:Rob Bird: oh gosh, that looks really amazing. You know, we can start to see differences
Speaker:Rob Bird: between men and women and the length of walks and how they're progressing, etc.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And I started collecting more and more data. I did a quick review then of literature
Speaker:Rob Bird: for the RSPB, which is a bit strange because my surname's Bird.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So I commissioned a bird to do the review.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And that came out in 2003 and was surprisingly effective in getting people to
Speaker:Rob Bird: understand actually nature is really important.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And it's when I did that review and I realized how much there was that I thought
Speaker:Rob Bird: now I've got to really understand this what's going on in the brain and that's when,
Speaker:Rob Bird: Oxford University Press said well we need a book on it um I didn't have the time I was,
Speaker:Rob Bird: doing general practice I was running a company I was having young children it
Speaker:Rob Bird: was just a disaster in time ways but it just had to be done sometimes in life
Speaker:Rob Bird: you just have to do when an opportunity comes up and it we published it in 2018.
Speaker:Rob Bird: But the great thing was it made me connect with, I think we had 120 authors.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So you connect with all of those authors around the world who are really good
Speaker:Rob Bird: at their stuff, really know their stuff.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And those people I still remain in contact with. And that creates a sort of
Speaker:Rob Bird: a big movement almost of understanding at different universities.
Speaker:Rob Bird: But then, even back then, it was still small fry. Now it's huge.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Pretty much every university has some aspect about nature and health.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And you've got the Derbys, the Exeter universities, you've got Scotland,
Speaker:Rob Bird: you've got so many universities now doing it.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And it's really important that we do get that evidence. But as we know with
Speaker:Rob Bird: evidence, it's only a third of the story of getting it into practice.
Speaker:Rob Bird: The other part has got to be really easy for GPs to be able to do and very simple.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And it doesn't have to be complicated. And then the other part has got to emotionally
Speaker:Rob Bird: feel right. It's just got to be in the heart and gut that they think this is
Speaker:Rob Bird: the right thing to do. And I think when you get all those three things,
Speaker:Rob Bird: it happens. But we didn't have the evidence at the time.
Speaker:Rob Bird: I don't think there's any question we've got. No, we don't heavy evidence are. We have plenty of it.
Speaker:Suzy: And what do you think the key evidence is? For someone who hasn't really dipped
Speaker:Suzy: their toe into looking at the evidence behind this or any of the literature,
Speaker:Suzy: what do you think the key messages are?
Speaker:Suzy: What do you think we should know as GPs and practice nurses and all the rest?
Speaker:Rob Bird: I always quote the kind of studies that were done. And it is only two studies,
Speaker:Rob Bird: but they were really done well.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And they were done quite recently in Berlin.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And they took people out onto a walk in the green space and it took them out
Speaker:Rob Bird: into the urban environment.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And they looked at, they did fMRI scans immediately after and before.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So when they came back from that walk and they had the scans done,
Speaker:Rob Bird: it showed that the amygdala had shrunk significantly and the hippocampus had
Speaker:Rob Bird: increased significantly in 60 minutes.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And I think as a medic you know you look at that and think what how can the
Speaker:Rob Bird: brain change in that short time and of course it's blood flow that goes through
Speaker:Rob Bird: it is the way it changes um and,
Speaker:Rob Bird: you then look at a child who's been brought up in an urban environment and think
Speaker:Rob Bird: well if every single day their amygdala is getting,
Speaker:Rob Bird: is getting more blood flow and their hippocampus is getting less blood flow
Speaker:Rob Bird: their brain is going to change shape and we know that we know people children
Speaker:Rob Bird: who have been brought up in urban environments have got a smaller hippocampus
Speaker:Rob Bird: than children brought up in nature or rural.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And they've obviously have to adjust for IMD and all of the other things,
Speaker:Rob Bird: social determinants and those things. But when they've done all of that and
Speaker:Rob Bird: it's been replicated, that's what we're seeing.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And we know that also in the prefrontal cortex that when you actually walk,
Speaker:Rob Bird: your blood flow into that part, which is negative rumination.
Speaker:Rob Bird: That's the bit that obviously makes our negative thoughts go round and round,
Speaker:Rob Bird: which is a very evolutionary positive thing because it makes you focus on the
Speaker:Rob Bird: dangerous things in your life.
Speaker:Rob Bird: But of course, that gets stuck. And it's a very, very high risk factor for depression
Speaker:Rob Bird: if you keep going with that.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And we talk about our heads clear. Yes, they did the scan. And what did they find?
Speaker:Rob Bird: That part of the brain where the negative rumination sits actually shrank right down.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And that was after another 60-minute walk.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And nature seems to have a fact that we think we're safe. We feel there's food,
Speaker:Rob Bird: there's water, there's shelter.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Whereas in an urban environment, our brains still haven't quite got used to
Speaker:Rob Bird: the fact that it's not that. It's everything but that. There's no water,
Speaker:Rob Bird: there's no food, and there's no kind of restoration at all.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And of course, there's lots of things in the urban environment which are telling
Speaker:Rob Bird: us to bleeps going off, cars reversing, horns, all the sirens and everything
Speaker:Rob Bird: else like that. saying it's not a safe place to be.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And nature does it really quickly. So I think from a brain point of view,
Speaker:Rob Bird: the de-stressing, which is one of the Roger Ulrich, right back when he did that amazing study with,
Speaker:Rob Bird: people who were recovering from gallbladder disease, looking out onto a wall
Speaker:Rob Bird: compared to looking out onto the trees in the same ward, same surgeons,
Speaker:Rob Bird: same nurses, same everything, but there was a reduction in pain relief required
Speaker:Rob Bird: and there was a shorter stay in hospital.
Speaker:Rob Bird: I think that's what we're seeing we're seeing a stress reduction pain gets better
Speaker:Rob Bird: we know that and therefore all the consequences and the other thing it does
Speaker:Rob Bird: I think it's really important to know is yes you can reduce that stress and change the brain,
Speaker:Rob Bird: but when you do get that de-stress our.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Oxytocin levels start to get back up again. So oxytocin and cortisol literally
Speaker:Rob Bird: just have a kind of one's up, the other's down, the other's down, the other goes up.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Oxytocin is vital for trust.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So if you've got oxytocin, you will talk to someone, you'll be much more able to be with them.
Speaker:Rob Bird: But when you've got low oxytocin levels and cortisol, you actually distrust
Speaker:Rob Bird: people and you push people away.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So that's why nature is so good for people to connect to each other.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And there's evidence in big high-rise flats where they've got nature on the
Speaker:Rob Bird: bottom that people know each other from the same, you know, 15th floor of that
Speaker:Rob Bird: tower block compared to the tower block which has just got concrete underneath
Speaker:Rob Bird: where nobody knows each other.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So we are seeing that evidence. I think those two things, and then of course
Speaker:Rob Bird: Kathy Willis is a professor, Oxford has written a book, Good Nature, and she talks about,
Speaker:Rob Bird: all the terpenes and all the chemicals and the biodiverse and all the gut biomes
Speaker:Rob Bird: and everything else all coming through.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So you've got the physical aspect of nature as well.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So I think those three things, I'd say the de-stress, social connections,
Speaker:Rob Bird: and then the physical stuff is what we all should know as doctors.
Speaker:Suzy: And then be able to explain to our patients and find out how they can then,
Speaker:Suzy: I guess, engage with nature.
Speaker:Suzy: So you mentioned some of the big projects that you've been involved in,
Speaker:Suzy: like Beat the Street, which is your favorite project that you have been involved in?
Speaker:Rob Bird: I think from history, the health walks probably was because that kind of got me going.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And it's still around. It's called Wellbeing Walks now from the Ramblers.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And I've just been to the 30th anniversary for the one locally.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And there's another one in Somerset which I went to as well.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So they're still going. Somerset had 28,000 people walking last year.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So that health walk program in Somerset has been going really strong.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And they have, I think it was 80 volunteers working, no, 800 volunteers constantly
Speaker:Rob Bird: working on it. So incredible.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Beat the street, though, I think is the one that really does excite in the way
Speaker:Rob Bird: that we are shifting a whole population.
Speaker:Rob Bird: We've just been in Penzance, not huge, but we had 23% of the entire population playing.
Speaker:Rob Bird: You know it's a quarter of the population every man woman and child were playing
Speaker:Rob Bird: the game and they were engaged in getting out into nature which they weren't doing beforehand
Speaker:Rob Bird: families who really felt in the deprived areas who really felt locked into their
Speaker:Rob Bird: flats or houses were able to go out because they saw thousands of other people outdoors.
Speaker:Rob Bird: In Sheffield when we did it we had 60,000 people playing and when you've got
Speaker:Rob Bird: that number of people outdoors suddenly,
Speaker:Rob Bird: as you said before everything becomes safe and also there are people like you
Speaker:Rob Bird: out there you suddenly feel you're part of the movement that's going out so,
Speaker:Rob Bird: and we've managed to do that simply by not putting it all on an app it's on a phone it's on a card
Speaker:Rob Bird: and we put up receivers on lampposts all around the city we've kept on doing
Speaker:Rob Bird: that because that's what drives people they see it they notice it and the children
Speaker:Rob Bird: want to get to it and the children become the marketeers
Speaker:Rob Bird: but we get 50 adults 50 children and huge returns on trust on physical activity
Speaker:Rob Bird: going up well-being life satisfaction all of those things move up and even after
Speaker:Rob Bird: two years we go back and we know that those people who took
Speaker:Rob Bird: still have that benefit it's still hanging in there,
Speaker:Rob Bird: because we we kick-started something we,
Speaker:Rob Bird: it wasn't the thing itself it wasn't beat the street itself it's we kick-started
Speaker:Rob Bird: for people to suddenly realize they lived in a beautiful place and there was places for them to go to,
Speaker:Rob Bird: and that's what I find exciting because we see that legacy move on for years
Speaker:Rob Bird: afterwards well after the game has actually gone away that's.
Speaker:Suzy: Incredible you must be very proud of of having sort of been the enzyme that
Speaker:Suzy: got all that going um and I guess it it needs somebody who is able to to pioneer
Speaker:Suzy: something like that isn't it and then we all follow because it because we see
Speaker:Suzy: the benefits that people people can have,
Speaker:Suzy: I suppose, what about the naysayers? How would you convince the naysayers that
Speaker:Suzy: it is worth our time and energy to engage in these conversations with people?
Speaker:Rob Bird: Yeah, and I think it's definitely a point where this is not right for everyone.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And I think there's an element there where you have to be really careful because,
Speaker:Rob Bird: if someone's really struggling with their health, their mental health, etc.
Speaker:Rob Bird: The last thing they might want to know is go for a walk in the wood or go for
Speaker:Rob Bird: a walk in the park, because that does sound so demeaning.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And it could sound as though we're actually just brushing them off and not caring.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So I think you have to judge that conversation so well.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Try and get it out from the patient themselves about, look, what would really
Speaker:Rob Bird: help you? And so many patients do say,
Speaker:Rob Bird: They go back to their past, they go back to their childhood,
Speaker:Rob Bird: and they said, oh, I used to love roaming around in nature. And he said,
Speaker:Rob Bird: well, why don't you do it now?
Speaker:Rob Bird: And then they use the excuses which you mentioned. And then he said,
Speaker:Rob Bird: well, why don't you just try it?
Speaker:Rob Bird: But I think there is a bit of a problem that we can lecture patients on certain
Speaker:Rob Bird: things that we believe strongly in, simply because we can't quite understand why they don't get it.
Speaker:Rob Bird: We kind of get impatient, and it's not just that, it's lots of things.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And I think it is that listening to the patient. is this the right thing to
Speaker:Rob Bird: say now and has it come from them have they helped create that kind of conversation
Speaker:Rob Bird: so it's not it comes naturally as opposed to kind of,
Speaker:Rob Bird: diagonally coming across for conversation so you've got to go under the park
Speaker:Rob Bird: it's really good for your brain will shrivel if you don't do it kind of thing,
Speaker:Rob Bird: so i think the naysayers can be right in many ways you've got to be very careful
Speaker:Rob Bird: and cautious how you present it without it being a fob off without it just being
Speaker:Rob Bird: And just, you know, that doctor just talked about, he.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Doesn't seem to care about me.
Speaker:Rob Bird: He just talked about me going for a walk in the woods or my gran could have told me that, you know.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So I think, so that's why I feel the evidence is so important to have in your
Speaker:Rob Bird: back pocket that you can say that, but then just wait for the right time.
Speaker:Rob Bird: It may not be the right time.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And nature can be quite scary for some people. In fact, can make things worse,
Speaker:Rob Bird: if they're not in the mood and they're not prepared for it.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And then you might find actually it's going to worsen their mental health because
Speaker:Rob Bird: they just get more anxious so yes we've got to be really careful how we use
Speaker:Rob Bird: it but doesn't say we don't use it at all because the benefits are just huge when you see it happen.
Speaker:Suzy: And i love how sort of practical you are about you know the the importance of
Speaker:Suzy: even you know the five ten minute walk because that's the beginning of something
Speaker:Suzy: you know that there's a place for heroics and you know
Speaker:Suzy: wonderful um And people like those who do mind over mountains and take people on these huge walks.
Speaker:Suzy: And there is a beauty to that, but it's not accessible for everyone, is it?
Speaker:Suzy: And I guess, as those on the front line, we sort of need to make sure that we're
Speaker:Suzy: starting small, but thinking big, I often say.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And just being outside, sometimes, as we know for patients, they've got so kind
Speaker:Rob Bird: of stuck indoors that even going out of that front door is a big deal.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And sometimes I started not even a five-minute walk. It's just go outside to
Speaker:Rob Bird: your front door and look up and just see the sky.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And there's a good evidence coming through now about how important the sky is
Speaker:Rob Bird: as well, which I find really fascinating being a little weather geek as well.
Speaker:Suzy: Oh, yes.
Speaker:Rob Bird: But when you're looking up you feel free you do feel and they realize that some
Speaker:Rob Bird: of the reasons weren't actually the nature it was because there was an open sky
Speaker:Rob Bird: and people found a lot of freedom of feeling good about that so I mean I think
Speaker:Rob Bird: that's quite early on that research but I think sometimes you can,
Speaker:Rob Bird: just forget how cooped up and how scared patients are to make that first move
Speaker:Rob Bird: and so yeah out your front door look up
Speaker:Rob Bird: and see what you can see and often you'll see birds going over you'll see lovely
Speaker:Rob Bird: clouds that's it plane probably see drones coming across now but anyway but
Speaker:Rob Bird: you'll see some lovely things and it's just that first step outdoors which is so important you.
Speaker:Suzy: Alluded there to your health forecasting you alluded there to your health forecasting,
Speaker:Suzy: Tell us a bit more about that phase.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Yeah, well, as I said, I promised I did have friends when I was young,
Speaker:Rob Bird: but I was also very interested in the weather.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And when I used to go around to friends, I used to take my little rain gauge
Speaker:Rob Bird: around when I was 10 years old because I wanted to make sure I didn't miss the
Speaker:Rob Bird: rainfall. So it was a bit sad. But anyway, it was a passion I had continually.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And I knocked on the door of the Met Office when I was in general practice because
Speaker:Rob Bird: I wanted to work there. And of course, they didn't know why I would have adopted coming in.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And I remember going to the professor of meteorology at Reading University with
Speaker:Rob Bird: one of the Met Office people who was quite keen for it to happen.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And he just looked at me and said, it's all witchcraft.
Speaker:Rob Bird: All witchcraft, he said, health and weather. Anyway, I did get the position
Speaker:Rob Bird: in the Met Office. I did work there for a very, very happy six years.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And we set up a health forecasting unit, which we used for the NHS.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And it worked very well. We did quite a lot of research about weather and health.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And it was the beginning of climate change really getting a grip of how climate
Speaker:Rob Bird: change is going to impact health as well so there's a lot to do um but it was
Speaker:Rob Bird: the first department the first met office in the world that actually had a health,
Speaker:Rob Bird: um person in there um and others have now done it,
Speaker:Rob Bird: because the weather and health obviously is a much bigger bigger issue but that's
Speaker:Rob Bird: how it got going and i've i'm still i still look up in the sky i still like the forecast but um,
Speaker:Rob Bird: Most of it's now not kind of perhaps collecting data as I used to do,
Speaker:Rob Bird: but it's certainly, I think, something we underestimate.
Speaker:Rob Bird: We talk about patients, you know, patients tell us that before it rains,
Speaker:Rob Bird: their joints get really painful, and people who say when it snows,
Speaker:Rob Bird: they get migraines, and we know there's a huge amount of evidence, but it's still
Speaker:Rob Bird: unknown about why pain is worse in gout and phantom limb pain before it rains.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Says all of that is unknown and yet we've known that for about 500 years or
Speaker:Rob Bird: even Hippocrates knew about it.
Speaker:Rob Bird: So it's just more of a fascination I think but I think when patients do say
Speaker:Rob Bird: that I think the thing I would say to them is listen carefully and agree with
Speaker:Rob Bird: them because they're right, there is evidence about it and we don't understand it.
Speaker:Suzy: Oh I could talk to you all day but I realise we don't have that.
Speaker:Suzy: William it's been absolutely lovely to begin to touch on the importance of nature,
Speaker:Suzy: and health of the whole nation.
Speaker:Suzy: You've touched on your work with the RSPB. You've touched on collaborating with,
Speaker:Suzy: other professionals like the weather forecasters, academics.
Speaker:Suzy: What was the other thing I wanted to pull on here? Oh, yes, you mentioned about
Speaker:Suzy: the importance of biophilic buildings, essentially. I didn't use that word,
Speaker:Suzy: but I was thinking back to a conversation at the BSLM, British Society of Lifestyle
Speaker:Suzy: Medicine Conference, recently.
Speaker:Suzy: And just to wind up if you had a call to action to those who've decided to tune
Speaker:Suzy: in to hear about this today what would that call to action be?
Speaker:Rob Bird: I think, first of all, get yourself connected to nature. And some of us will
Speaker:Rob Bird: be well along that path and immediately enjoy it.
Speaker:Rob Bird: Others may not be, may actually don't quite get what this is about.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And I think it is something one has to do in a stepwise process,
Speaker:Rob Bird: but do that. I'd say just get yourself and your family.
Speaker:Rob Bird: And if you've got children, absolutely, not just because it's a good thing,
Speaker:Rob Bird: because it's essential for their
Speaker:Rob Bird: health, not just because of the brain development, but because of all the,
Speaker:Rob Bird: gut microbiome and everything else that they have to have it is absolutely essential
Speaker:Rob Bird: for a healthy child and if we're going to get children back to this next generation
Speaker:Rob Bird: in any shape or form they have to have that connection so,
Speaker:Rob Bird: that's what I'd say start with yourself, your family and then obviously patients later Start small.
Speaker:Suzy: Start young but get started Indeed Thank you so much Thank you,
Speaker:Suzy: We hope you've enjoyed listening to this episode of the Movement Prescription
Speaker:Suzy: Podcast, an episode of Two Harves on nature and health.
Speaker:Suzy: I didn't really need convincing that nature is good for our health,
Speaker:Suzy: but when you learn about the change in blood flow seen on functional MRIs after
Speaker:Suzy: time in nature, and the early adopters giving,
Speaker:Suzy: critically ill patients access to outdoor wards, you can't help but feel you
Speaker:Suzy: owe it to your patients to give permission and guidance on getting the most
Speaker:Suzy: out of this free resource.
Speaker:Suzy: But more than that, taking action to protect our green and blue spaces.
Speaker:Intro and Outro: Hi it's callum i really hope you enjoyed the episode,
Speaker:Intro and Outro: we are so grateful to the british society of lifestyle medicine for their support
Speaker:Intro and Outro: in producing these podcasts and we wholeheartedly share their vision of transforming
Speaker:Intro and Outro: health care and leveling health inequalities through lifestyle medicine,
Speaker:Intro and Outro: if you want to find out more please head to bslm.org.uk,
Speaker:Intro and Outro: although catering for healthcare professionals this podcast is for everyone,
Speaker:Intro and Outro: if you enjoyed it please share it and we love hearing from you so do reach out thanks for listening.
