Innovative healthcare organizations are offering garden and nature programming to reduce employee stress and burnout.
Five types of nature-based programming are described here, with examples from three countries.
Is winter a snowy wonderland to enjoy? Or a miserable slog in the cold and dark? What if I told you that how we think about winter makes a difference in how we feel? A surprising bit of research could thaw our frozen winter mindsets, improve our mental health and enhance our sense of wellbeing.
Legacy Health in Portland, Oregon is making therapeutic gardens a top priority for reducing staff stress and fatigue and for encouraging staff to take regular breaks in the garden near their unit. Legacy Health's interdisciplinary garden design process and their randomized controlled trials are leading the way for other hospitals.
Noticing nature in your daily life can increase your happiness and well-being. It's easy to underestimate how much better you'll feel!
This article was published in the winter/spring 2018 edition of Psychologica, the OACCPP Magazine: Putting Research to Practice.