Épisodes

  • Ep. 1: A Wild Antidote
    Sep 27 2018

    David Strayer, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Utah, noticed he gets his best ideas when he’s in the wilderness for three days, so he decided to study what he calls the Three Day Effect. Florence Williams, author of The Nature Fix, takes him on a hike to learn more about what this research shows. She meets up with others who we’ll be following in this series, including veteran and activist Stacy Bare and writer Eric Weiner, who would much rather be darting in and out of cafes than river canyons. Florence, herself going through a divorce, signs on for a three-day research trip in the wilderness, hoping the emotional benefits will rub off.

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    21 min
  • Ep. 2: Floating Through PTSD
    Sep 27 2018

    Can three days on a wild river help cure veterans with PTSD? In this chapter, Florence Williams alights on Utah's Green River with a group of veterans and the scientists who are studying their brains outside, including Stacy Bare from chapter one and researchers from the lab of David Strayer, cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Utah. Florence and the veterans talk about trauma and resilience while rafting, hiking and undergoing a series of experiments. They look at their brain waves over time and also test their cognitive performance.

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    28 min
  • Ep. 3: A Place of Comfort
    Sep 27 2018
    What if a lot of what we’ve heard about wilderness therapy is wrong? That it shouldn’t be about finding oneself through hardship and challenge, but about finding a place of comfort instead? Florence goes backpacking in Colorado with an all-women’s group of sex-trafficking survivors through She Is Able, a nonprofit based in Atlanta, Georgia. The women and their guides, along with therapists who specialize in trauma and wilderness therapy, upend everything she thought she knew.
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    35 min
  • Ep. 4: Nature is the Best Caffeine
    Sep 27 2018

    How do you convince a city boy to like camping? By taking him to a killer glamping spot, and then sticking electrodes on his body. Florence, joined by a behavioral psychologist, is determined to explore whether writer and urban proselytizer Eric Weiner, author of The Geography of Genius, can find creativity outside the city. Can they prove it by monitoring their nervous systems with the tools of the laboratory?

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    39 min
  • Ep. 5: Crunching the Nature Data
    Sep 27 2018
    Florence tracks down results from the field experiments in the series, and catches up with the people she ventured out with months and weeks after their trips. Did the Three-Day Effect work, and if so, how long did it last? Neuroscientist David Strayer and psychologist Rob Kent de Gray help her analyze the results. She also talks about how she’s taking the lessons into her own life, and how the rest of us can too.
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    23 min
  • Ep. 6: The Big Awesome
    Sep 27 2018
    Florence learns about the new heady Science of Awe from Dacher Keltner, psychologist and director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. She takes a lesson in awe and then, duly armed, she heads out into the wild - solo - but under the guidance of adventure therapist Aleya Littleton. Littleton brings along equipment to test before and after heart rate variability, a measure of real-time stress response. Florence wants to see if she and some other women can cultivate awe - this understudied and positive emotion - for resilience and emotional balance - skills we all need for the future.
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    31 min