The Calming Affect Nature Has On Our Brains

Williams, F. (January 2016). This Is Your Brain On Nature. National Geographic, 229(1), p. 54-67.

Before this assignment, I had never read so much as one full article in National Geographic. However, for this assignment I figured I would choose a magazine that is well-known and interesting. Luckily for me, this year's first addition of Time was centered around celebrating the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. I love nature and have gone on a few hikes the past summer, and had a really good time just being in the forest and enjoying the beautiful scenery, so this volume was right up my alley.

A picture I got from hiking this summer with my boyfriend. 

The pages in this volume were full of bright and colorful pictures of some of the most beautiful nature shots I have ever seen, and the article I read was just as intriguing and captivating as the pictures.

A gorgeous photo of the Grand Canyon in National Geographic

The article I read was about how being immersed in nature can actually calm our brains down and help us to have better focus, be less stressed, and be more aware of our surroundings. Starting off the article, the author, Florence Williams, explains how he joins a cognitive psychologist, David Strayer, and his class at the University of Utah on a camping trip. Strayer believes in a concept called the "three-day effect", which is a sort of cleanse on the mind after spending a period of time in nature. Williams explains that after the third day, he is more calm and at peace, and couldn't even remember for a few seconds that he had a cell phone and computer.
Living in a world where technology has all but taken over the minds of humans, connecting to nature is therapeutic and important for our brains. This article contains information and multiple studies about how relaxing it is for humans to be in nature, even if just for a short amount of time.
I'm very pleased that I picked this article to read out of all of the ones within the magazine, because I thoroughly enjoyed it and I now plan to read the rest of the magazine as a whole. It made me realize just how obssessed people are with technology and the impacts that it has on our brains and bodies as a whole. The information I learned in reading this article made me far more interested in nature and it makes me want to spend much more time outside than I ever have before.
Gaining access to National Geographic was not as bothersome as I had imagined it would be: all I had to do was go to the school library and check it out. I was only planning on borrowing it for a day instead of the full week, but after reading the article, I'll take advantage of the time I have with it and read the whole magazine while I still have time to.

Yellowstone National Park. 

Based on the theme of this edition, I was curious to see what kind and how many ads would be in the magazine. Since I have never read through National Geographic before, I was not sure what to expect. After skimming through all 144 pages of this volume, I found only 12 advertisements. As a percentage, only 8.3 pages had advertisements. Compared to many other popular magazines, such as Cosmopolitan, Men's Health, People, and Rolling Stone, National Geographic has hardly any advertisements. In additional, almost all of the ads were in the first 20 or so pages. There were none to be found in between articles, which was refreshing and made me want to read it even more. All of the ads I found were either focused on selling National Geographic, such as ads for their TV channel and for the magazine itself, or for multivitamins.

Overall, the article was a wonderful read. It was informative, interesting, and captivating. I felt compelled to read on and find out more information as I went from paragraph to paragraph, and I never got bored from reading. It compelled me to spend more time enjoying the outdoors, instead of walking around glued to my phone and listening to music.