Vitamin N – The Ultimate Rejuvenation • Kate Van Isle Writes

Vitamin N is one of the most powerful supports for human health, rejuvenation and longevity on the planet. It is abundant and it’s free. As if that isn’t amazing enough, we humans are hard-wired to respond to it. As a result, anyone at any age can reap the benefits with minimal effort.

If Big Pharma could sell Vitamin N, you would already know about it. But because it’s free, most of us not only take it for granted but we have no idea just how vital it is to our wellbeing. Vitamin N is a topic everyone should be discussing, especially in this era of green space and wilderness loss. I recently embarked on a little research to satisfy my own curiosity. What I found was a treasure-trove of fascinating and helpful information.

What is Vitamin N?

The term “Vitamin N” was coined by Dr. Ming Kuo after 30 years of research into the human- nature connection and how urban forests affect our health. “N” ostensibly means nature. We humans tend to think of ourselves as existing outside of the natural world. We hole up in our offices and homes and use our wits to bend nature to our whims. We even often think of our bodies as vehicles or property that we are “in”.

Wealthy nations craft dense urban settings for people to live in. Corporations market living spaces full of interactive devices and screens as the latest ideal. Many of us dream of a living extraordinary lives on the moon or Mars or in spaceships. But before we buy into these seductive visions, we need to ask ourselves how well our ideas serve us as organic beings.

How do we assign value to nature? How do we evaluate and prioritise our connection to it? What risks do we face when we fail to recognise ourselves as part of a biological ecosystem?

Dr. Ming Kuo, Leading Research Scientist

Dr. Ming Kuo leads the Landscape & Human Health Laboratory at the University of Illinois; Urbana-Champaign. She holds degrees in psychology and biomedical science from the University of Michigan, the University of California, and Berkeley. Dr. Kuo has studied and written extensively about how natural settings affect human physiology. She is something of a celebrity within her own field. Her research is internationally recognized and has supported urban forestry initiatives worldwide, including in the EU, UK, Caribbean, and the USA.

Throughout her career, Dr. Kuo has documented links between access to green spaces and important aspects of health including mental health, childhood learning, ADHD, immune system function, aging, and even community aggression and crime rates.

Effects of Time in Nature on Cellular Health

Some of the ways interacting with the natural environment affect us on a cellular level include:

Exposure to phytoncides (antimicrobial organic compounds that plants produce) effectively reduce blood pressure, inflammation, oxidative stress and boost immune functioning.
Exposure to mycobacterium vaccae (common bacteria in the soil) has beneficial mood- enhancing effects.
Exposure to negative ions in the air of forests, alongside rushing rivers, babbling brooks or beaches in pollution-free areas, reduce depression and promote feelings of well-being.
Sunshine triggers the production of vitamin D in our bodies, crucial for mood, the immune system and circadian rhythm regulation.
Even the sounds of nature have the effect of lowering heart rates, improving memory and activating the parasympathetic system.

What is more, the effects of time spent in nature are long-lasting. According to Dr. Kuo, a three-day camping trip in the wilderness resulted in a fifty percent increase in white blood cell counts among participants. Fifty percent! That is phenomenal. Even thirty days later, the white blood cell count of those same people was still twenty-three percent higher than before the trip. The longer the time spent in nature, the greater and more enduring the benefits.

Stanford Research on Nature and Health

A study by Stanford researchers published in “Proceedings of the National Academy of Science” also documented a variety of health benefits associated with nature-time. Researchers found that people who went for a ninety-minute walk in nature showed measurable changes to a part of the brain associated with depression. Negative feedback loops and rumination were markedly reduced. In contrast, study members who went for ninety-minute walks in a bustling urban setting did not experience the same benefits. A link to the study is provided at the end of this article.

In 2015, Stanford News published findings of health differences between urbanites and rural dwellers. Urbanites had a twenty percent higher risk of anxiety disorders and a forty percent higher risk of mood disorders compared to their rural counterparts. People born and raised in cities were also twice as likely to develop schizophrenia. A link to that publication is at the end of this article.

Have you noticed a sense of reset after a walk in nature? It turns out that reset is a biological reality on multiple levels.

Dr. Kuo on Nature and Urban Housing

Stanford’s findings align with Dr. Ming Kuo’s public housing research in Chicago. She discovered higher incidences of violence, aggression, and crime in housing without access to green space. Even within the same housing project, she found that buildings where the occupants had access to a small green space had decreased rates of dysfunction and crime over those buildings that didn’t.

In one case, she found that adding eleven trees to a residential city street had such a profound effect on residents’ health that it effectively reduced their ages by 1.25 years each. Trees hug us back.

Dr. John La Puma

Dr. John La Puma is an internist, chef, and celebrity blogger. He has also been exploring recent research on the connection between nature-time and the prefrontal cortex. The research he cites shows improvements in mood, memory and decision-making in tandem with time spent in nature. Research is also starting to uncover ameliorating effects from nature-time on dementia. A link to Dr. La Puma’s celebrity blog article is at the bottom of this very non-celebrity article.

Those of us not currently dealing with the effects of old age don’t tend to worry about how our activities affect the cerebral hardware. That might one day prove to be a significant societal blunder. According to Dr. La Puma, the disorientation and fatigue we often feel after long periods of engaging with technology are the result of damage to the prefrontal cortex. Although the long-term effects are not yet fully known, we do know that excess screen and machine time can increase rumination and depression, cause loss of focus, memory problems and even cause language and communication issues.

Nature to the Rescue

Before you scroll away in horror, nature can come to our rescue. Dr. La Puma cites a 2018 study in which staring at a bonsai plant for one minute improved the prefrontal cortex function of older adults. Another study in 2019 revealed that university students experienced improved concentration after listening to nature sounds.

Of special note and near and dear to my heart, are 2021 and 2022 studies Dr. La Puma cites illustrating the benefits of gardening on older adults. Even just being outside in the natural light was shown to improve mental function.

My father spent many of the last summers of his life out in the garden with his favourite dog. I remember the sparkle in his eyes after a sunny morning with his hands in the dirt, a flock of robins trailing him, ever hopeful for runaway worms. “Shangri-la!”, he would say. I think the simple memory of him up to his ears in glorious dahlias, tomatoes, canna lilies and fruit trees adds years to my own life.

How to Get Vitamin N?

The best news these researchers bring us is that you don’t have to embark on a three-day camping trip or own a backyard estate to reap instant rewards. You don’t even need a ninety-minute walk in nature. Dr. Kuo found that people could switch their internal systems into rejuvenation mode within five minutes of working with their hands in garden soil. Keep in mind that container gardens are a thing.

Even having a window with a view of green space while working or doing household chores can instantly improve your state of mind. The single act of stopping and smelling the roses apparently has documented, immediate effects on our bodily systems. There is a reason we are compelled to ignore the thorns. Our bodies have wisdom our waking minds do not have access to… and our bodies love the scent of roses.

There is tremendous power in honouring ourselves as organic beings. We are perfectly evolved within our natural surroundings on this miraculous planet. We should not under-estimate the healing that comes from connecting to the natural world, its sights, sounds and perfumes.

So, when you need a break, go feed the ducks in a park. Turn off that phone and wander down a nature trail, take in the sights from a wild hilltop or play in the water at the lakeshore. You don’t need to count your steps or pound through a painful workout program to get the benefits. Leave the Type A attitude at the office. Breathe, observe the plants, let your dog sniff around and show you how it’s done. Feel the wind, sun or rain on your face. Do yourself a favour. Your entire system will thank you.