Human beings, as a species, have always been linked to nature. Our body, our brain, our physiology are perfectly synchronized with its rhythms, we benefit from the goods and services it gives us. When we force ourselves to be in indoor environments, or within the confines of a city, that is when asynchronies arise that can end up leading to health problems. To this we can add many other causes of stress and anxiety, the so-called evils of the 21st century: the lifestyle, the pressure of work or studies, the omnipresent noise, the overwhelming traffic, the rush for everything, the harassment of the networks. social, advertising, overconsumption… There are many voices that warn of the danger of these stressors and give guidelines to tackle them from the source.
Going out into nature gives pleasure and well-being, no one doubts it, we don’t need a book to tell us that. However, this one goes further. The nature that takes care of us offers a wide overview of the elements, living beings and scenes of nature that contribute to our health, which are many more than we usually think. From the grandeur of a mature forest to the bacterial flora in our gut, the therapeutic effect of nature is in the details. We can perceive them in places as diverse as wild nature, the balcony of our home, a hospital or even a prison and, all of them, they are beneficial and necessary.
With this work, Katia Hueso, biologist, co-founder of the first open-air school in Spain and outstanding expert and disseminator on education and the environment, nature conservation and sustainable development, invites us to explore those benefits that nature gives us and reveals where to find them. She also, with a close, simple, direct and empathetic tone, offers tools to distinguish the wheat from the chaff. So that nature takes care of us in an effective, genuine and safe way.
In the first chapter, the author provides an overview of abiotic elements, such as air, water, soil and various forms of energy, that can contribute to our well-being. It is surprising to discover how many of these contributions have been known since Antiquity, such as thermal baths, therapeutic muds or mountain air.
Following the same scheme, In the second chapter he talks about the contribution of living beings to this end, from plants and fungi to animals of all sizes and conditions. From the act of whispering to plants to the pleasure of petting a dog, passing through the importance of the intestinal microbiota, it takes a tour of the deep connection we have with living beings and how it influences our health through contact with them or their sensible and responsible use.
The third chapter is focused on green care, that is, the well-being provided by natural spaces or those in which nature is given a certain prominence. This includes places as diverse as forests, beaches or even cities, where already established therapies are practiced, such as forest bathing, hortotherapy or adventure therapy.
Finally, add some ideas about the role of virtual nature in this effort towards well-being, for when we cannot go out, an experience that, by the way, we have all gone through not long ago. Finally, it offers two codas: one on the ethical aspects associated with the use of flora and fauna for therapeutic purposes and another that proposes tools for the discernment of therapies, since it seems to me of capital importance to know what one gets into when one’s health is at stake.
“I wish, I hope, I trust that the results of this search can be useful to whoever reads them, not only because we have health problems, or absence of well-being for any (other) reason, but because it will be a reunion with our essence” says Katia Hueso.
About the author
Katia Hueso was born on a torrid July 14 in Madrid and, perhaps for that reason, she always seeks refuge in nature. He studied Biology in Leiden (Netherlands)he did his doctoral thesis in sustainable development and, after going around many times, returned to his homeland to settle in a quiet town in the Guadarrama mountain range located between the provinces of Madrid and Segovia.
