Stressed about climate change? Take a hike

Written By Peter Allan

Photo by Matt Hanns Schroeter on Unsplash

 

By Chris Hatch

Is your anxiety spiking along with the temperatures, fires and floods this summer? (I’m asking for a friend.) If we’re going to stay functional amid spiralling climate impacts, it seems like an important time to look at proven strategies to counter climate anxiety. So, like more and more people are doing lately, I called the doctor.

She told me to take a hike.

She wasn’t kidding and it wasn’t just good general advice. Dr. Melissa Lem has distilled the evidence for nature’s healing powers down to prescription-level precision: “Two hours a week, at least 20 minutes at a time,” she gently instructed.

You get big improvements in your levels of the stress hormone cortisol after 20 or 30 minutes, according to medical research. And there’s similar evidence for nature’s healing effects across a wide spectrum of problems. Health professionals across Canada are now writing prescriptions through a program called PaRx (who knew doctors were so deft with the double entendre?).

I reached Dr. Lem after a full day seeing patients but she showed no hint of fatigue. Quite the opposite — her enthusiasm for getting people into nature is infectious and she’s riding a wave of success. Barely three years ago, the PaRx program started as a side project with the BC Parks service and already doctors are bringing nature-based programs into hospitals in London, Ont., and schools in Nova Scotia. The Canadian Medical Association is on board and the World Health Organization has profiled the PaRx program globally. Within Canada, nature prescriptions are now being filled in all provinces by over 11,000 Canadian medical professionals.

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Peter Allan
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