Through contact with Mother Earth, a charge balance is created that works down to the cellular level and thus has a healing effect.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

• The more and the longer a Man cut off from nature the more susceptible he is to illnesses, especially of a psychological nature.
  
• There seems to be a To give connection between growing large cities and increasingly occurring mental disturbances.
  
• The more contact with nature Children in the first years of life, the healthier they will be throughout their lives.
  
• Multitasking is an (additional) stress factor, which also reduces the positive effects e.g. from Forest bathing can nullify.
  
• Whether you use it Ecotherapy, Garden Therapy, Earthing or forest bathing - using nature therapeutically is an idea that is at least 150 years old and has become more or less fashionable over the decades.
  
• grounding images can partially reproduce the positive natural effects, which for patients of a hospital or nursing home
  
• The plant world has a kind of intelligent, cross-species communication system, which makes it possible, for example, to identify and respond to a deficit in an individual plant.

"Nothing can come upon me that nature cannot heal."

Ralph Waldo Emerson 1836 in his writing 'Nature'.

Man has cut himself off from nature

During America's Iraq and Afghanistan interventions, 800 soldiers were observed for their ability to detect sneaky bombs. It was found that the best people were those who came from rural areas and spent a lot of time in nature, for example as hunters.

A good surfer is able to recognize the rhythm of the highest waves and "read" the sea accordingly. Thus, he chooses the lowest waves when paddling out and the highest waves when surfing to shore. In addition, good surfers have a trained compass for ocean currents.

An experienced sailor recognizes a change in the weather and an impending thunderstorm long before an inexperienced person would think of taking precautions.

But those people who have such a fine sensorium are a small minority today.

And they are becoming fewer and fewer. At the beginning of the 21st century, more people already live in cities than in rural areas. A person from the Western world now spends over 10 hours a day in front of a screen and 90% of her time indoors. Half of the remaining time is spent sitting in a vehicle.

This does not remain without consequences. A large number of people seem annoyed, stressed, nervous, unfocused, sleep badly and generally don't feel well in their skin. "You often hear, "You're ready to go on vacation again.

And what do you do on vacation? Long walks on the beach, hiking, cycling, fishing, swimming, lying in the sun, reading, etc.

The beneficial effect of all these activities is not only due to the physical activity, but also to the fact that we tune in again to the frequency of Mother Earth. We get "grounded" again.

The fundamental frequency of the earth is 7.83 Hertz, it is also called Schumann frequency after its discoverer. Through early space travel, it was discovered that the Schumann frequency is, in a sense, the clock for our brain. For the astronauts of the 1960s and 1970s had to struggle with many kinds of malaise.

Therefore Schumann generators were built into the space capsules. From then on, even astronauts were connected to the fundamental frequency of the earth, which is received by the pineal gland located in the brain. The pineal gland is a tiny gland located deep in the midbrain, which among other things has a great influence on the wake-sleep rhythm and the regeneration of cell damage.

A 2008 study brought to light that the percentage of Americans who go camping, fishing or hunting in the outdoors has declined by 1 percent annually since 1980. In a survey conducted in England, 70% of respondents said they had had the best adventures outdoors. Of their children, only 20 percent said the same.

Being separated from a natural environment takes a toll. Not only do we cut ourselves off from a - normally permanently acting - healing power, but we usually burden the body at the same time with impure air, noise, the feeling of being crammed together with simultaneous loneliness.

Over 30% of the adult population in North America - and it is reasonable to assume that the figures in Europe are similar or at least approaching - are now taking antidepressants on a regular basis. At the turn of the millennium, that number was still around 10 percent. So this is an exponentially growing trend. But a number of other diseases have also demonstrably risen sharply in recent decades as a result of urban lifestyles, most notably:  

• Myopia
• Overweight
• Diabetes
• Cardiovascular diseases
• Depression

Author's Notes:

Already in 1982 the film "Koyaanisqatsi" published. The title comes from a Navajo– Word and means so much like "life out of balance". Formulated in one sentence, the film is about how the Nature and living in harmony with it more and more by "modern achievements", such as factories, roads, screens, pipelines, skyscrapers, shopping centers, etc. is replaced.

I was 13 years old at the time and deeply touched by the film. Because my connection to nature was already extraordinary as a child.

I grew up in a rural area, on the outskirts of a village of 1000 souls, surrounded by fields and grassland. We children were allowed to move freely outside, that is, to visit friends, to go to a small wood or to cycle to the soccer field. Whenever the weather permitted, I was out and about.

My favorite place to spend time was in a small patch of woods near my parents' home, which was a little world of its own for me. There were old construction machines rusting away here, and there were embankments and hills where you could hide wonderfully and where you could make fires, roast potatoes, carve bows and arrows, and climb trees.

In addition, my grandfather was hunting district leader in the village and, with the exception of the winter season, drove out every evening to observe the game population from one of the high stands. He often took me with him, and although I always had to sit very still and was not allowed to say anything so as not to frighten the animals, these were very special moments.

When I was thirteen or fourteen years old, I rode my bicycle to the Au, a kind of overflow and nature reserve of the Danube, a few kilometers away. There I had my place of power, accessible only by a narrow trail. A wonderful old tree, whose strongest branch grew across a small river. I climbed it and not infrequently spent hours there without moving or doing anything.

Since I did not have the easiest relationship with my mother and also had a lot of problems at school, my youth was not exactly unencumbered. This place in the Au was my place of purification and strength. As bad as I sometimes felt when I arrived there, after one or two hours I was completely balanced every time, in my center and felt able to face the quite heavy challenges of school and family again.

This passion for the "wild" also resulted in one or the other adventure. At the age of 19, I really wanted to explore an untouched, completely wild piece of nature in eastern Austria. The only catch was that this was a military training area - entry strictly prohibited. So I drifted downriver in a rubber dinghy from the nearest town until I arrived at this very military training area, got out there, and spent a whole day roaming the area with my camera and notepad.as forbidden Terrain. It was a fantastic experience, which at the time gave rise to one of my first magazine stories.

Over the years, I have often used my I changed the center of my life. But in whatever place or country I was, after a short time I always looked for a Power placeon which I be alone and just sit and immerse myself in my natural environment. I only realized later how healing this was for me in each case. Although I was often surrounded by people who were itself as being quite close to nature, but this Einfach–only–for hours–still on–a–Location–Sitting, was nevertheless somewhat exotic and for most simply too "boring".

My In my opinion, the perfect balance prevails in the wilderness, to which both physical and mental energies are gradually directed. to swing in.

Exactly this feeling has been put into words by one of the wisest people of our time and channeled into a sadhana (= spiritual homework) derived from it:

The Indian mystic Sadguru prescribes that all visitors to his ashram in southern India have direct skin contact with the earth for at least half an hour a day, i.e. lying on a meadow, walking barefoot, or simply touching the ground with their hands. Sadguru says that this alone balances the body energies in a wonderful way.

"The earth on which you walk has tremendous intelligence. By touching the earth with your hands, your whole system reorganizes itself on several levels. Why is this so? Because our body is made of nothing but this very earth - from which we have only borrowed elements for the period of our life. And we will repay it atom by atom one day."

Sadguru (Indian mystic)

Large cities favor mental imbalance

Our increasingly data and algorithm based world offers tremendous opportunities for research. In Denmark, for example, it was possible to present the only recently completed (2019), largest and most comprehensive study to date on the topic of environment & mental health:

First, all residential areas in the country were classified on the basis of satellite data. This was done in terms of "green environment. Then, from the Danish population, they filtered out all those born between 1995 and 2003 who lived in the same place during their first ten years of life - a population group of no less than one million people.

Now the following question was asked: Where did those people grow up who, according to the Danish patient register, went to outpatient or inpatient psychiatric treatment? 16 mental illnesses were specified, e.g. depression, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, etc.

It could be predicted that children who could enjoy more nature around their home would come from richer families and therefore be more mentally stable. So they also included family income as a factor and filtered the data accordingly. The result was as clear as it was surprising:

"We thought we might see an interesting association within a group of diseases" says Kristine Engemann, the study leader.

"But it clearly emerged that people who grow up in natural environments generally have a lower risk of mental illness." It wouldn't matter where in Denmark the children lived or what the social environment was like in the neighborhood.

Summarized in one sentence: Children forced to grow up in concrete deserts have a 55 % higher risk of mental illness.

Details of this study can be viewed here: https://is.gd/bCCIKM

Of course, one could argue that the relationship need not be causal, i.e., that the correlation between natural living environment and more stable mental health could also be coincidence.

And that's exactly what another study on the same topic answers: 

In the American city of Philadelphia, 110 places near high-rise buildings were found to be unused, and it was possible to create a mini-recreation park there. This is exactly what was done in 37 of them.

Another 37 were left unchanged and at the remaining 36 only regular cleaning was carried out. Four people were interviewed at each site, both before and after the change in location. The interviewers were not privy to the purpose of the study; they were simply collecting mental health data from the residents. The experiment spanned a four-year period and yielded the following results:

Individuals in the resident group who were graced with a mini-recreation park felt 42 % less depressed, 51 % less worthless, and in 63 % better mental health than before the greening.

In contrast, there were no significant changes in the two comparison groups.

Details of this study were published here:

https://is.gd/IiOrxW

Garden Therapy - the healing power of nature at home

In 2013, the following experiment was conducted in a home for dementia patients: One group of patients was allowed to spend 15 minutes twice a week in a Snoezelen room - a specially designed environment for stimulating sensory perception. A second group of patients spent the same amount of time in a room where an elaborate Japanese garden had been created.

During the visits, the heart rate and behavioral changes were recorded.

The result was that a significantly reduced pulse rate was measured in the visitors to the Japanese garden, in all patients without exception and for each individual visit. In the comparison group, on the other hand, hardly any deviations in heart rate from baseline were observed.

Behaviorally, too, the garden visitors reacted more positively than the patients who stayed in the comparatively artificial environment of the Snoezelen room. This became particularly clear when the Japanese garden was dismantled and re-equipped with the normal furnishings. Now the garden visitors reacted angrily, they had not only remembered the Japanese garden but also wanted to experience it again in its original form.

The publication of this study can be viewed here: https://is.gd/SUYZ4m

Garden therapy (technical term "horticultural therapy") is a relatively new, alternative approach to mental and stress-related disorders that seems very promising. As the name implies, garden therapy involves plant- and garden-related activities and experiences, and of course in the fresh air.

What common sense already suggests is confirmed by science: Outdoor activity and occupation with plants has a health-promoting effect.

"The combination of contact with nature, self-directed physical activity, and observable impact of my actions (on a plant) shows highly promising results," says Thomas Erskine, horticultural therapist from Atlanta, USA. "And for a few moments, patients can forget the frenetic noise of an accelerating world, a factor often missing from therapeutic activities in a building."

No one should believe and no one must believe that the doctor has healed him or her. It is not in his power. Nature heals, the doctor treats."

Georg Groddeck

Earthing - Consciously absorb the healing power of nature

The healing effect of direct skin contact with Mother Earth, which is firmly rooted in many ancient cultures and traditions, has only recently been rediscovered and scientifically studied by the "modern world".   

"Earthing" or "grounding" is what we call it today.

In the 1970s, the American Clint Ober founded a company that equipped private households with cable television. Due to a serious illness, he retired in the 1990s.

One day, sitting on a park bench, he observed passers-by. As he did so, he noticed that practically all the people who passed him were wearing shoes with a rubber sole.

Ober thought to himself: "A television signal is perfect when it is transmitted via a suppressed cable. Interference suppression is achieved by grounding the shielding of the signal-carrying cable. Could this kind of shielding or interference suppression also play a role for the human organism?"

In the years that followed, this intuition led to numerous experiments by Ober, which he - fascinated by the subject matter - carried out as a private person and continued to push forward. Due to his persistence and the many anecdotal success stories, he finally succeeded in winning over physicians and scientists to the subject.

And so, to this day, dozens of scientific studies have been conducted on the subject of earthing, and they all come to the same conclusion: It is healing to walk barefoot over wet grass, to swim in a pristine river, or to protect oneself from electric fields at home.

The body reacts to grounding with a greatly increased sense of well-being and a better immune defense, but above all with the faster healing of inflammatory foci.

The theory is that the earth's surface has a natural charge of negative ions, while in the body of man, decoupled from nature, a positive ion charge is rampant. Due to modern life and the resulting stress, too many free radicals are formed in the body. These then attack even healthy cells and cause numerous harmful effects, such as the emergence of inflammation.

Inflammation, in turn, is responsible for a large part of all chronic diseases. Earthing thus balances the charge, putting the body into a healthier "tension". So far, so logical. The interesting thing about the more detailed research of Earthing is that this healthy tension can be detected down to the cellular level. And the more of these charged cells there are in an organ, the healthier the organ is.

The German physician Dr. Klinghardt actively uses earthing techniques not only to alleviate existing complaints, but also to avert impending illnesses. For example, if one makes a thermogram (thermal image) of aching knees, one usually finds that they are colder than, for example, the neighboring upper or lower legs. If you let this person walk barefoot on a meadow for 30 minutes - even in cool weather - you can then observe that the temperature difference has disappeared.

According to Dr. Klinghardt, a breast cancer can be detected as a "warm zone" on a thermogram as early as 7 years before the lump develops. Just as in the example above, the temperature difference disappears after a few weeks through Earthing therapy. Since life circumstances and weather do not always allow to walk barefoot in nature on a regular basis, so-called Earthing pads are used to balance the load. D

hey are sheets or floor mats interwoven with conductive fabric, for example silver threads, which are grounded via a wire. If one sleeps on such a fabric, it is possible to balance the charge all night long. Dr. Klinghardt: "This is by far the cheapest and at the same time most effective antioxidant."

"Caveman medicine" is what Steven Sinatra, cardiologist and co-author of the book Earthing, calls it. In his opinion, one of the best effects of earthing is that it has a blood-thinning effect. Our blood, he says, is full of toxins and is also often too thick. This is the reason for many health problems such as heart attacks and strokes.

"Think of your blood as ketchup. Walk a little on a beach, wet grass or a forest floor, and the ketchup becomes (the consistency of) red wine. And guess what's easier to transport through the body?"

Dr. Stephen Sinatra

Forest bathing

Today we live in a world where even the most obvious facts want to be proven with studies. And lo and behold, in Japan these studies on the subject of "forest bathing" were carried out as early as the 1970s. And because they revealed so many positive effects, "Shinrin Yoku," which translates as "taking a bath in the atmosphere of the forest," exists as a therapy paid for by the state.

And already the seminar industry is jumping on the bandwagon, and a certified forest bath instructor can be booked at almost every city garden, inviting you in flowery words to let your soul dangle. But can a soul held so tightly on the leash of digital distractions still dangle at all?

"Any man who can kiss a woman and safely drive his car at the same time is not giving the kiss enough attention."

Albert Einstein

Smartphones enable us to be permanently connected to the digital world and thus to any information around the clock. This tempts us to multitask, and it is precisely this attempt to do more than a single thing at a time that is doomed to failure. Because as scientific experiments have shown, only 2 % of the population are capable of performing two or more activities simultaneously.

David Strayer is a professor of psychology at the University of Utah and something of the multitasking pope of brain research. He found that drivers who talk on the phone are at the same high risk for accidents as drunk drivers. Other studies by Strayer show that multitasking can cause

• about 25% of daily work capacity is wasted
• the general stress level is raised
• the release of dopamine is stimulated and thus addictive behavior is promoted
• the susceptibility to errors is drastically increased, which can have drastic consequences for doctors or pilots, for example
• critical thinking and problem solving capacity are limited

The reason why Strayer's work is mentioned here is that he also looked into the question of the extent to which nature experiences contribute to the regeneration of the brain stressed by multitasking. In one experiment, he had a group of test subjects hike through a wooded area, having previously put away all digital devices. A control group had to walk the same path, but was asked to make a phone call on their cell phones during the walk. Twenty minutes later, theta waves were measured in the EEG of all test subjects.

The result is that the group without technical toys showed less theta activity, i.e. was more rested and relaxed. The group that had used the phone still showed increased theta wave activity 20 minutes after the hike, which is an indication of inner restlessness. This experiment thus showed that using a cell phone causes unwanted brain activity even long after the conversation.

In this context, another fact about cell phone calls should be mentioned: Thanks to a dark-field microscope, it is possible to visualize the structure and movements of blood cells. Already after a five-minute cell phone call, clumping can be seen quite clearly, and the movements of the blood cells are also reduced. The so-called "sludge phenomenon" causes oxygen deficiency in the tissue and clogged capillaries.

So if you want to avoid embolisms, heart attacks and strokes, keep your cell phone as far away from your body as possible, especially during a call.

Ecotherapy - using the healing power of nature therapeutically

While researching for this article, I came across a fact that really surprised me. Environmental protection and the knowledge about the relationship of an intact nature with the mental health of humans is a good 120 years old!

In 1898, Frederick S. Thomas, a physician, gave a speech at the annual meeting of American physicians: "We are dealing today with an increasing rate of mental-mental disorders. This is due to the stressors of our civilization, i.e., over-stimulation, noise, and stench."

Mind you, this analysis was made over 120 years ago, long before everyone had access to electricity, television or even the Internet, and at which time the world population was just 1.6 billion!

Also in the 19th century, landscape architect Frederic Law Olmsted wrote:
"Immersion in nature is beneficial for health, drive and intellect. Beyond the joy felt in the moment, there are long-term effects that positively influence overall happiness in life."

John Muir (1838 - 1914), philosopher, author and one of the first environmental activists, wrote:
"The peace of nature will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their freshness into you, the storms their energy, while your worries will fall away from you like leaves in autumn."

These quotes suggest that scientists then - unlike today - were not afraid to approach these issues with common sense.

In the 1950s, Western scientists made statements like this:
"It is far more edifying and cheaper to prevent mental illness, or even to treat it in its early stages, by periodically immersing ourselves in the peace and stillness emanating from the great trees, the rivers and lakes, and the mountains of wild nature, rather than waiting until a real mental disorder manifests itself."
J. Berkeley Gordon in The Psychiatric Value of Wilderness.

"Proximity to large-scale, pristine landscapes is essential for mental health - for both children and adults."
Karl Menninger

The 1974 American Psychiatric Association annual meeting brochure discusses "mental disorders caused by human interference with the natural balance," and the term "ecotherapy" is mentioned for the first time.

But to this day, ecotherapy is struggling because, in fact, there are still a large number of scientists who claim that more studies are needed to prove the therapeutic effect of experiencing nature.

For example, the authors of the book "Your Brain on Nature" write:
"We live in a scientific age. So we need to find scientific evidence that nature actually has healing power." 

Here's another quote from over a hundred years ago that shows we haven't learned much since then:
"We are currently living in conditions where our children and ourselves have lost the connection with nature. But this is a temporary consequence of our industrial development. Sooner or later man will add himself again better into the great context of the world, or if he does not, he will perish."
Georg Groddeck

Wood Wide Web - Plants look after each other

More than 120 years ago, Charles Darwin already found out that plants are able to react to the environment. Although there is neither a brain nor a neuronal network, messages can be sent from the root to the leaves and vice versa. For example, when the soil becomes dry, the root sends the message to the leaves, "Now close stomata (leaf gaps)!" In this way, evaporation can be kept to a minimum. Darwin's assumption could thus be confirmed by modern research methods.

But through scientific study of the subject, an even more amazing discovery was made. The roots of a tree are covered by a type of fungus called Mycorrhizal Fungi, which thrives underground and grows filaments that stretch for miles. The symbiosis with the tree results from the fact that the fungus helps the plant to absorb water and nutrients such as phosphorus and in return is supplied via the tree root with sugar solution, which it cannot produce itself. The long fungal threads form a network that connects all the trees in a forest, even across species.

Since the analogy of the Internet is obvious, the phenomenon has been named 'Wood Wide Web' by scientists. This connectedness represents something close to a neural network. Information and even nutrient exchange is possible through it. The following examples show the complexity of this natural system:

• In autumn, a deciduous tree loses its leaves and can now no longer produce glucose. The mycorrhizal network notices that this tree is suffering from a nutrient deficiency, whereupon increased nutrients from conifers are transported to it via the same network.
  
• In summer, when the deciduous tree has plenty of glucose, it sends it to a sapling of the conifer.
  
• However, a tree species can also "determine" to whom increased nutrients should be sent and who should tend to be cut off from them. In this way, the tree's own saplings can be given preferential care over plants of other species. It has even been observed that trees were completely closed off from the network, i.e. were virtually mobbed.
  
• Plants can also warn each other of danger. If a tree is attacked by pests, e.g. worms or beetles, it sends a warning signal to its neighbors, which then produce insect-repellent substances.
  
• This production of chemicals adapted to the environment even goes so far that an acacia shrub stores substances in its leaves during a dry phase that have a lethal effect on an antelope that likes to eat these leaves
  
• But plants can communicate not only via the mycorrhizal network, but also by releasing volatile substances, so-called messenger substances, which are secreted via the foliage and can be absorbed by neighbors. This is another way of passing on a warning, for example against leaf-eating caterpillars, and causing a corresponding reaction.

Author's Reflections:

When plants are able to communicate at both the cellular and etheric levels, and quite in a complex way, then the assumption would be far-fetched that also a human being who touches the earth with his skin becomes part of this etheric network, und in this way healing and balancing energies are transmitted?

From my experience as a "natural bath master", a maximum healing effect through nature results from the following factors:

• Alonebeing is better than in the group. 
• Pristine wilderness is better than a city park.
• One and a half hours is the minimum duration (for me even 3 hours is still a pleasure) per session, with at least one session per week
• SI open and surrender to the ordering forces of nature. This surrender is of transformative and even ultimate importance at the end of your life. The Aztec speaker Xokonoschtletl says about this: "If ihr finally understand what nature is, you will never fear death again."
• Find your own place of power and stay there regularly.
• Be aware of the finiteness of your physical existence, just like the simultaneous embeddingsone into the Infinity of creation. 

Healing power of nature as Placebo effect

When patients in the hospital can see green trees through the window, they get better faster. They need fewer painkillers, call for nursing staff less often and can be discharged earlier than patients with the same illness who cannot see greenery. This is the conclusion of a well-received study by architecture professor Roger Ulrich, conducted in 1984. Source: https://is.gd/TcrRxO

However, it is not always possible to provide a view of nature; many a hospital room does not even have a window.

Elaine Poggi, a photographer from Florence, lost her mother to cancer in 2002. The cold and sterile hospital environment was a thorn in her side, so she began hanging her photographs in hospital rooms, much to the delight of patients, staff and visitors. The initiative met with such a good response that it became a global movement, with over 400 hospitals worldwide already participating.

"White, sterile walls promote stress and anxiety, while colorful images of nature are calming, hopeful and encouraging," says Elaine Poggi.

A 2011 study by the University of London confirms Poggi's suspicions: it was found that patients showed a similar physical reaction when looking at a beautiful picture with a nature motif as when visiting a beloved relative.  

Constructive images thus have a positive physiological effect on the brain, regardless of whether one looks through a window or at a photograph. In this way, the photograph could be understood as a placebo.

Summary Everyday tips to support healing:

• Stay in nature as often and as long as possible. 
• We strive to ensure that our children receive a good education for life, forgetting that it would be even more important to give them a good foundation for lifelong health. The more contact with nature you give your little ones, the more solid this foundation will be.
• Do not talk on the cell phone directly to your head. 
• Do you know someone with a mental illness? Encourage this person to take part in garden therapy.
• If you are ever confined to bed, try to get a window view of open nature. If this is not possible, hang nature pictures in the sick room.  

This article is an excerpt of the book "How self-healing works" (245 pages) by Gerald Hagler.

Gerald Hagler lives and works as Self Healing Trainer and author in Thailand.