“Anyone who’s gazed at the moon or stood still in a magnificent stand of trees knows what it’s like to experience the Power of Awe – it seems to slow time, proffer reverence for life and connect us to one another. Recent research shows that when we spend time outside in nature, engaging all our senses, our heart rates slow, our stress hormones dip, our thoughts grow both more expansive and less self-focused.”

This week on Cultivating Place, award winning author Florence Williams discusses her newest book “The Nature Fix – How Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative," which is out on shelves from Norton the first week of February.

Having grown up in New York City, Florence went on to spend a large part of her professional writing career, which focuses on science, the environment and health, till now living in or close to the wide open wild spaces of the West - notably Colorado. When her husband’s career took their young family to Washington DC, she found herself experiencing a depression and irritability that ultimately led her to a curiosity about the physical, emotional and intellectual effects of access to nature on not just her but the human body and soul as a whole. The Nature Fix is the story of her researching and reporting on the scientific research going on around the globe into this question. Join us!