The Beach as a Prescription?

I love getting the weekly email newsletter from Coastal Living magazine, as I always get great tips and information.

This past week, they talked about a  2011 study, where university researchers at Washington University and UC Irvine asked over 1,000 beachgoers about their mental state before, and after, trips to the ocean. Now obviously this applied to the Pacific Ocean, and not the Gulf beaches (like above), but obviously it's relatable as it's sand, water and tides. The researchers discovered that beach trips reduce stress, increase creativity, reduce feelings of depression and anxiety, and were psychologically restorative! 

The respondents, who experienced more stress and fatigue in their daily life, found their beach visits the most helpful and reinvigorating. Obviously being the west coast, they had an abumndant of mild temperatures for their visits as well, which was a positive factor. Other positive factors were low tides and sparse crowds, which makes sense, as the more you can walk the beach and be by yourself, creates less stress! Which means of course that beach visits during off hours would be more helpful! And that makes sense, as if you've ever taken a beacj trip during the height of Summer, with kids, you KNOW how stressful THAT can be with the huge crowds!

That original study begged for more research, and recently a team of researchers from New Zealand and the U.S., found that people that live on the coast, or in sight of water, also had lower levels of psychological stress. It was the amount of exposure to visible blue space (but not green space), like that of a beach or lake, that reduced stress! 

And that ties into recent prescriptions that doctors have been making, about spending time outdoors to reduce stress. It isn't always about tablets and pills. Sometimes we just need to reconnect to back when we had no stress, were kids rolling around in the grass, and playing in the tide water. God gives us the ultimate stress reducer, it's up to us seek it out!

So when you start feeling over-stressed, take a day to the lake or beach. Soak in that blue space, even if only for a day, and see how it brings down YOUR stress too!