July 2

Check in

Nature’s Benefit for our Mental Wellbeing

Before we get started, welcome to a new month on Decompress! Thanks for using this site; we hope you’ll like what we have for you this month, too :)

Just being outdoors can improve your mood greatly. This can mean moving your workout outdoors, talking a walk with family, or simply studying outside for an hour or so. One study in 2015 showed that people who took a walk in nature had lower activity in a particular region in the brain responsible for repetitive negative thoughts; being in nature helped them focus on something else other than an overflow of worries or anxieties about the day. This article talks more about your brain and nature if you’re interested.

Today’s questions:

What is your favorite place to be? What kind of emotions do you feel when you remember or be in that place?
1. Remember you can send us and post your responses to the Board with the ‘Post’ Button below!
Send us a photo of the outdoors that you took recently. Or if you don’t have right now, send us a photo of nature if you try going for a mindfulness walk today (explained in the mindfulness resources)! You can email the file to us at decompress.reminders@gmail.com. Mention in the email if you’d like us to post it to the Community Board :)

Post

Activities

Studying Outdoors

Studies show that studying outdoors can reduce your stress and improve mood and productivity. It’s also nice to get a change of scenery from being indoors too much. If you are unable to be outside, studying near a window or in natural sunlight can help your productivity too!

Appreciate Earth :)

Students spend a lot of time indoors at school, doing homework, studying for tests, etc. Sometimes we can forget how amazing our earth is. Check out this playlist called Earth, Appreciated to see how our earth sustains us and how we need to protect it.

Mindfulness Resources

Mindful Walking

Try listening to this video while walking outside. Being outside improve your wellbeing, even during a short walk!

Mindful Walking Meditation (Relieve Stress) - MyLife

Link to Mindful: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkB9zEEqnP9kMIf5VChd99Q

Direct Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09EO9IJgOiI

Headspace - Mindful Walking

Sometimes sitting still during meditation doesn’t work; in the moments when you have too much energy but still wish to meditate, try this short mindful walking exercise by Headspace.