The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative

by Florence Williams

One-fifth of Japan’s residents live in greater Tokyo, and 8.7 million people have to ride the metro every day. Rush hour is so crowded that white-gloved workers help shove people onto the trains, leading to another unique term, tsukin jigoku— commuting hell.

I can't help contrast this with the image of a relaxed, civilized Japan from 130 years ago depicted in Thomas Stevens's "Around The World on a Bicycle" Progress, amirite?

What leads to brain-resting? I had asked her. “Soft fascination,” she’d said. That’s what happens when you watch a sunset, or the rain.

hmm

I was beginning to wonder if reporting about the pleasures of nature was making me too mentally stable to be a reliable research subject.

Such challenges

As the epidemiologist Ian Alcock put it, if you want to be happy, there is a simple, scientific formula: “get married, get a job and live near the coast.”

You can see poverty from space.