More interesting to me were the bits in the book where she ventured into biology - different bacteria in the soil for example and how they are being used in medicine. Also, I was very touched by the last chapters of the book where she described the extinction of species due to loss of habitat. I am aware that this is going on in many places in the world but Lucy Jones made me care and pay attention even more.

Detroit is one example of a city that is now biophilic thanks to a grassroots movement. Once the hub of the US automobile industry, Detroit became a center of urban decay after decades of abandonment and disinvestment. Detroit residents, longtime victims of systemic racism that drove poverty and health problems, are now reclaiming their city by transforming the vacant lots and open land into natural spaces. The city currently boasts over 1,500 community gardens and small urban farms – providing residents with fresh, nutritious food. Nature writing in recent years has often been about landscapes granting peace, even if that peace has mostly been limited to white men walking up mountains and having epiphanies. (If they tried that today, the police would send them home.) These books, each in their own distinct way, take that idea and twist it. Lucy Jones’ Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild had been on my radar for some time, but it was a wonderfully effusive review by the lovely Gabriella over at Merryweather Knitting which pushed me to find a copy. Losing Eden sounded like just the thing for a cold December weekend, and I chose to settle down with it after a long and rambling walk in my local park. In Losing Eden, Jones is both thoughtful and probing. She speaks to a great deal of different people working across the field, as well as attending specific congresses, and travelling to places of interest, such as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Located within the Arctic Circle, the Global Seed Vault is a ‘man-made deep-freeze containing around 900,000 seed samples to protect agricultural biodiversity in the case of climate breakdown, nuclear war and natural disasters.’ Also, one piece of New Zealand legislation has been called a “new dawn in conservation management.” The Te Urewera Act, passed in 2014, granted legal rights to an ancient forest of the same name that is sacred to the Tūhoe people, a tribe of the Māori.Kaante vahelt leiab lugematul hulgal näiteid, kuidas looduses või roheluse vahel askeldamine parandab vaimset tervist, kasvatades sealjuures sotsiaalsust, empaatiat, keskendumisvõimet jm tavapärasest linnaasukast kuni psühhiaatriakliinikute ja vanglate kinniste osakondade patsientide/kinnipeetavateni välja. Juba pelgalt oma korteriaknast puu kõikumist, lehtede liikumist jälgides muutume rahulikumaks. Throughout, Jones continues to pose very valid questions, particularly about accessibility. Despite the clear benefits of connecting with nature which she sets out, she is aware that a lot of people simply do not have regular access to the natural world, and that those in poorer communities are far less likely to be able to reap the benefits.

A radical new examination of the transition into motherhood and how it affects the mind, brain and bodyLoodus on ressurss, mida vajame eelkõige elusana. Nii, nagu raamatu tagaküljel sedastatakse, tahan nüüd tõepoolest ringi korraldada nii linnaruumi, haridussüsteemi, tööl käimist kui ka oma elu.

A lot of people’s disconnect from the natural world is almost complete. They live in cities or heavily built-up suburban areas with little or no interaction with the wider world. Some cities have been removing trees making that connection to a non-human living thing even more remote. Our phones and screens provide us with non-stop notifications following the latest hashtags and rolling news. This is an insightful environmental read on the existential impacts of our separation from nature. Lucy Jones waxes poetic with her prose about the wild while she presents rigorous research on the myriad benefits of exposure and immersion in nature on our mental health and childhood development. During pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood, women undergo a far-reaching physiological, psychological and social metamorphosis. Urgent, accessible, moving [...] A beautifully written, research-heavy study about how nature offers us wellbeing"

Praise

Research by Professor Rich Mitchell of Glasgow University posits that greener neighborhoods could reduce the health gap between the rich and poor and thus make our society more equal – a concept known as equigenesis. By the time I'd read the first chapter, I'd resolved to take my son into the woods every afternoon over winter. By the time I'd read the sixth, I was wanting to break prisoners out of cells and onto the mossy moors. Losing Eden rigorously and convincingly tells of the value of the natural universe to our human hearts' Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun Time spent in nature often falls on socioeconomic lines. As we’ve seen in earlier blinks, there are fewer parks in deprived parts of towns and cities than in affluent neighborhoods, which tend to be more verdant. But it goes deeper than that. People in lower socioeconomic groups or from racial and ethnic minorities have less access to natural areas. Vulnerable populations suffer more exposure to pollution and toxic chemicals. And society is only becoming more unbalanced as our alienation from nature is exacerbated.

Losing Eden provides the evidence of how nature makes us calmer, healthier, happier, even kinder. Jones moves between close biological evidence – how our parasympathetic nervous system is triggered when we're in nature, how bacteria found in soil increases stress resilience – to large-scale environmental studies. The book is shot through with personal experience [...] but is] not really a memoir; it's about all of us." Research helped her to understand what was behind that sense of well-being. Exposure to the soil bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae leads to significantly reduced stress and inflammation, while smelling fresh rain and seeing fractals in nature activate portions of the brain involved in relaxation. The Amish, exposed to a diversity of microbes through their small-scale farming, have stronger immune systems and a lower incidence of mental illness. Thus, working the land or just pottering around in a garden can be not just fun but fortifying. LOSING EDEN by Lucy Jones, a beautifully written, self help book about nature, how we need to connect with nature and why we need to connect with nature. Since our life now is fully dependent on technology, we are slowly withdrawing from the beauty of our nature and this has affected many people around the world badly, including issues like myopia, obesity, depression, stress etc. I realise the irony that I am sitting in front of a laptop screen typing this review about a book that advocates us getting out and about in the natural world. I spend most of the day in an office and factory and drive to and from there. But I do try to get out and about whenever I have the opportunity either by walking down to the woods or the river nearby. It may not be much some days but it is enoughIn 2015 he led a study of 20,000 people in 34 European countries and found that exposure to nature was the one variable that reduced socioeconomic inequality in mental wellbeing – by 40 percent. Losing Eden begins with the author wondering what the world will look like for her baby daughter. ‘What was coming for her and her generation?’ she asks. ‘Every day brought news of another species in fast decline. Swifts, swallows, hedgehogs, all were on the road to extinction… With 80 per cent of Europe and the United States already without their dark skies because of light pollution, would she ever see the Milky Way? And what would this “biological annihilation”, as scientists had put it, do to her mind and spirit, assuming she managed to survive at all.’ A passionate and thorough exploration of the growing scientific evidence showing why humans require other species to stay well.” Is our modern-day estrangement from the natural world bad for our mental health? That's the question Lucy Jones explores in Losing Eden and, in doing so, visits forest schools, ancient woodlands and a seed vault in Scandinavia's frozen north. Lucy is a friend, so I've known about this book for a couple of years and, as someone with a fascination for neuroscience, I was curious to see how much evidence she could assemble to show a link between mental health and nature. The answer is, a lot. By the time I'd read the first chapter, I'd resolved to take my son into the woods every afternoon over winter. By the time I'd read the sixth, I was wanting to break prisoners out of cells and onto the mossy moors. Losing Eden rigorously and convincingly tells of the value of the natural universe to our human hearts"