Host Verla FortierVerla's website https://treesmendus.comVerla's new book Optimize Your Heart Rate: BalanceYour Mind and Body With Green Space. Verla's previous book Take Back Your Outside Mindset: Live Longer, Stress Less, and Control Your Chronic IllnessMichelle Schuman's book: The Understory: A Female Environmentalist in the Land of the Midnight SunMichelle Schuman's website: https://meschumancom.wordpress.comYour Outside  Mindset Podcast episode #36Time Stamp (minutes: seconds)1:31 Michelle Schuman is an environmental scientist with over four decades of experience in Alaska working for the federal government, state government, and the private sector. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Wildlife Biology and Range Science, a minor in Soil Science and a Master’s in Environmental Policy and Wetland Restoration. Schuman is a certified Senior Ecologist and Professional Certified Wetland ScientistSchuman is credited with writing hundreds of technical documents, including the Wetland Functional Assessment Guide for Alaska. But her greatest and hardest, accomplishment was a first responder on the Exxon Oil Spill analyzing one of the most devastating and long-term human caused disaster in North America.She resigned from federal service in 1987, expanding her professional career into private consulting and state government in wetland science and oil spill response.In October 2020, she began writing her memoir, The Understory: A Female Environmentalist in the Land of the Midnight Sun. A year later, she signed an option agreement with HTWIP Productions for a screenplay.4:26 I am 66 now.  I was born in a small, rural town in eastern Washington, where I was free to explore the basalt cliffs and sagebrush fields. After receiving my undergraduate degree in wildlife biology, range management, and soil science, I married my soulmate, whom I met working in the Blue Mountains of Oregon.4:44 Our adventure took us to California, where my husband was a mechanical engineer; and Nevada, where I tracked wild horses. And then, I was offered a position in Alaska, working with reindeer and muskox. We thought it destiny, as his company also had a position in the same state and the same city, Anchorage. Early on in our Alaskan dream, my husband Rick was killed in a traffic accident.5:01I was working in the bush at the time and found out through a one way radio  what happened. I  sat on the ground for about 6 hours. That is all in my book ...5:19 This led me down this path of realizing how short life can be -- and to try to never regret and look back. See the complete transcript at Treesmendus.com 

Host Verla FortierVerla's website https://treesmendus.comVerla's new book Optimize Your Heart Rate: BalanceYour Mind and Body With Green Space. Verla's previous book Take Back Your Outside Mindset: Live Longer, Stress Less, and Control Your Chronic IllnessGuest Ernesto Rodriguez, Executive Director Nature In  The Classroom (tree mural ceilings) and in hospitals Sereneview (nature  mural hospital curtains).Shownote  Timeline3:45 Ernesto grew up in Cuba, grandfather a renown muralist6:30  Visited  his friend in hospital (got the creeps). Then went to assignment in the Redwood Forest. As  he  was waiting for the light to come through the trees (about  an hour) was thinking of his friend  in the hospital.  Ernesto felt so good  there and  wondered why hospitals can't feel  like this? Research  on scientist Roger Ulrich in the 80s.10:11 Brain reacts so quickly to nature. 11:36 Story  of Asia: emotional soothing with nature  curtain.14:27 Professor Richard Taylor's definition of fractals17:17 Hôspital curtains for veterans, National Parks18:26 10 days in National Parks22:11 Attention Restoration Theory (ART): nature helps to calm, focus, and learn. Nature gives brain a break. 24:00 Pilot Project to put tree mural ceilings in school.25:18 One of the drawbacks of introducing something new: only 2% off the population is going  to get it. It takes 18% before it goes mainstream. 31:07 Images of nature has to be life-like. Canopy has blue sky, see branches, see leaves, camera on a  tripod combined with software. 12 by 12 foot  squares  or 16 foot squares. 37:07 Tip: go outside -there is no substitute for that.38:11 Tip: We don't recognize your own anxiety until we see nature or get outside40:03 Follow Ernesto's work Nature in the Classroom on Facebook and Instagramand Sereneview.com

Michelle Olson, PhD, LCAT, ATR-BC, ACC/MCFounder, Executive Director www.evergreenminds.org  Verla's website https://treesmendus.comVerla's new book Optimize Your Heart Rate: BalanceYour Mind and Body With Green Space. Verla's previous book Take Back Your Outside Mindset: Live Longer, Stress Less, and Control Your Chronic Illness1:19 Michelle Olson is a social gerontologist, who started as a creative arts therapist with WWII vets who had serious mental health and dementia. Expressive arts include visual arts, music,  dance and drama.05:15 What makes the difference is the ability of people who are experiencing mental difficulties to communicate in different ways. 6:21 Michelle Olson: "When people lose the ability to talk... they can still move their bodies and use their senses -- as ways to connect and feel better."7:19 Michelle Olson: "to do this as a family member -- we sometimes make it harder than we need to make it. It is the simple things sometimes the activity might be -- being together outdoors. Here we might spend time noticing the leaves or the light, the shadows, the textures....7:38 Maybe its the smell in the air 7:49 Sometimes I do forest therapy with clients and we turn around and notice things in different directions. Eg what does this acorn feel like? Maybe you can make a nature sculpture - something that will recreate this time together. 8:47 Maybe a person does want to make a painting - then I focus on the process - maybe that product is interesting. Or maybe they want to make a poem - it might rhyme or it might not. It is the whole process of connecting that matters. 09:58 As a social gerontologist I am interested in where we live and what we do across out whole lives....how we eat, how we move, how we socialize, how we interact with the world, do we feel safe..10:17 When I was an arts therapist that is when the light really went on...I wanted to know more about aging. In social gerontology we look at the person holistically over the course of their lives. The field of gerontology is growing, there are financial gerontologists, environmental gerontologists... we need to know all these perspectives.14:00 We often  don't think about environment when we think of aging.  United Nations just declared access to a healthy environment a human  right.  We  don't question why  we keep  patients and older people inside.     Dr Allen Power says balance the risk of safety and keeping people away from natural spaces. We can ask  staff  - to honour these  older people with dementia the option to go out everyday.   Paul Falkowski  PhD says  It  is  matter of changing behaviour and involving volunteers. 24:11 Evergreen Minds  Foundation - brings people together through expressive arts and green space -  helps educate staff and society.  Interview  show notes continued on Verla's  website

Dr. Bing Zhao  is a geriatric doctor in the first university of science and technology of China. This hospital is in  Hefei, a city located in the east China with a population of more than 9 million. She completed her medicine degree in China and PhD in University of Tasmania in Australia. Then she went to Duke University in the US as a research scholar. Her PhD research interest is air pollution and cardiovascular diseases. She is recognized for her presentations at the youth section of annual congress of the European Society of Cardiology, the largest cardiology congress in the world. She has published several papers and one of them was published in the Lancet planetary health.Please go to my website for the link to her paper. In my new book Optimize Your Heart Rate I tell the story of my close friend Leslie, aged 64 and apparently healthy with no diagnosis of heart disease,  who died of sudden cardiac arrest after  2 days on a road trip. Time line of my interview with Dr. Bing Zhao3:29 Breathing polluted air threatens our hearts4:19 The consequences of PM2.5 particulate  matter is dramatic5:03 PM 2.5 is a mix of solid and liquid - very thin- less than the size of a strand hair -goes right to lungs and heart7:22  Study in Japan nation wide - Out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) - compared # of OHCA with air pollution over 3 days.7:58 1/4 million cases over 2 years -  65 years of age increased incidence8:30 Japan has air quality stations all over the world9:01 Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart suddenly stops pumping = major medical emergency9:42 Study finding: Short term exposure to PM2.5  up to 3 days associated  with increased risk      of OHCA -- men and women over 65 more susceptible 10:24 Gases in traffic emissions -  nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide11:02 What surprised Dr Zhao the most?  People assume that air quality is safe at levels at levels below WHO levels. There are no safe levels of PM 2.5 air pollution for our hearts. 11:35 Current air pollution policy has to be changed12:28 We  need new health care responses to air pollutionChose public transportation over cars, use air purifiers indoors, and access green space in day to day activity.14:49 Acute exposure to air pollution increases risk of sudden cardiac arrest in less  than 3 days. 18:43 Time line and more info on my website https://treesmendus.comFor the story of my life long friend Leslie who died of a sudden cardiac arrest at the age of 63 on day 3 of her road trip see my new book Optimize Your Heart Rate: BalanceYour Mind and Body With Green Space.   

Time stamp interview notes continued on my website: https://treesmendus.com My new book Optimize Your Heart Rate: Balance Your Mind and Body  With Green Space1:19 Professor Andy Jones is a public health academic who holds the position of professorial fellow in Norwich Medical School at the University of East Anglia in the UK. He has wide ranging interests including the pragmatic evaluation of public health interventions, the role of the environment as a determinant of health and related behaviours, and the impact of access to services on health outcomes. He has a strong focus on policy and delivery in his work and collaborates with several key organisations working in this field, including the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and Cancer Research UK.Interview timeline:2:20  childhood, mother took him outside along the Suffolk coastline. Studied environmental science and always interested in health. Nature and health relationship - advocate for both.4:36  definition and history  of green space, UK companies like Cadbury recognized that if  you wanted productive workers, you needed healthy workers  --  so developed new settlements that integrated green space - 6:47 everyone had a garden7:31 green space in UK has been an urban centric movement eg massive Hyde Park09:37  “The health benefits of the great outdoors: a systematic review and meta-analysis of green space exposure and health outcomes.” Published in the Journal Environmental Research, 2018. What did you want to know? The  process?   Individual studies may not offer a strong case for causality but when you combine individual  studies in a way that allows for more broad conclusions. According  to 290 million people  in 140 studies (96% of studies from last 10 years – illustrating the rapid growth in green space and health). Living close to green space and spending time outside has significant and wide ranging benefits. Time in green space reduces risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, premature death, stress, high blood pressure. 10:02 Review of the literature, systematic, so that somebody else can some along and do the same thing - and would get the same thing. 10:53 Why  did do review? Take stock, let's try and cut through all the noise and get the signal. Find out what is common. 11:57  looked at everything except mental health 12:34 Health outcomes that we can measure - heart rate, heart rate variability HRV, mortality, cortisol levels13: 26 143 studies - signal, explosion of interest 14:41 Populations in green space had better health outcome, particularly stress outcomes 1)  heart rate and 2) heart rate variability HRV 3) cardiac mortality15:56 Results: 20% reduction in bad things, if we had a pill that would do that we would take it. 17:07  The most surprising thing was the consistency of the findings and size of differences in populations with more green space and those with the least access to green space. 18:08 Threw out some studies and only kept the highest quality  studies and got the same result. Still consistent. 19:36 Interesting unanswered questions on quality  of green space. Do we have to use it or is it enough to just look at it? 

Ben Rawlence The Treeline Ben Rawlence City of Thorns Ben Rawlence Radio Congo Ben Rawlence on TwitterBlack Mountains College  websiteBlack Mountains College on TwitterVerla Fortier Optimize Your Heart Rate: Balance Your Mind and Body With Green Space Verla Fortier Take Back Your Outside MindsetVerla Fortier Take Back Your Outside Mindset Workbook Interview with Ben  Rawlence: Recording  Time Stamps5:00  Radical hope and clear eyed awareness.2 degrees means awful things  but also opportunity  to reconsider  our  ways, and embrace our roles as guardians of nature - re- entangle with nature.8:12 New  ways of looking and seeing. Ancient and some modern with  huge datasets  re  future impacts. Biochemical research on trees, we have characterized so few.9:15  See forest as a garden and laboratory, change in perspective, "timber is the least valuable thing in the forest." Travel writing, Adventures with Characters.Seven Chapters, Seven Species, Seven Stops Around the World in the Boreal 10:15  Wales The Yew Tree in Ben's back yard. Simple questions: Why is that tree in that place?How long has it been here?Ice Age, reminders of the patterns vegetation on earth and time scale of 2000 or 8000 years. Long time scales. 13:43  Scotland story here is deforestation. Treeless landscape.  Aventure to find small patch of old pines. 15:34 Norway - Finmark, top of Europe. Different story  of "afforestation." Birch used to be in the valleys, now it is zooming up into the tundra. Lapland nomads way of life hunting reindeer disappearing as trees move in -- taking over grassland, lichen, and trapping snow to produce soil. 18:21 Russia - immense forest, half of the boreal forest is in Siberia. Most northernly forest in the world. Larch is frozen 260 days a year. Prevents injury to itself in the freezing process by freezing solid like glass. Here trees are not moving at all. 21:00 Alaska -  Spruce trees are galloping north. Species that live off the trees, the beaver....Continued on Treesmendus.com

My new book is here on Amazon: Optimize Your Heart Rate: Balance  Your  Mind and Body With Green  Space Amazon.com  Amazon.ca Amazon.co.ukComplete show notes: https://treesmendus.comYou might think that diet and exercise are the best ways to avoid a heart attack. And yes that research is well understood. But this another way.  This is to be aware of the environments that can either help or harm your heart.  Do you know that your heart is under attack every day by hidden threats that you cannot see  in your environment?  This is what my new  book Optimize Your Heart Rate is all about. In it I tell the story of my life-long friend Leslie’s sudden cardiac arrest at the age of 63. I want you to know what Leslie didn’t know. By the end of the book you will know how to use green space and your own heart rate numbers to:  avoid these hidden threats, protect your heart, know when your heart is in danger and what to do about it. I wrote this book so that what happened to Leslie does not happen to you—so that you can live your best life possible. 9:09     Why nurses use resting  heart rates 10:59   What low and high  resting heart rates  mean for you13:00   Is heart  rate data from wearables reliable?14:00   U of C smart phone heart rate apps compared  to gold standard ECG.15:15  A  patient care revolution 17:00 Stanford study, Dr. Snyder,  resting  heart rate, your  early warning system18:31  Your resting  heart rate in  green space

https://treesmendus.com for  transcript of this episode.  For more evidence- based research and tips please check out my book and workbook Take Back Your  Outside Mindset: Live Longer, Stress Less, and Control Your Chronic Illness.  University of Louisville Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute https://enviromeinstitute.com/Follow @UofLEnvirome on Twitter https://twitter.com/UofLEnviromePick up “Environmental Cardiology: Pollution and Heart Disease (Issues in Toxicology)” by Dr. Aruni Bhatnagar on Amazon https://amazon.com Ambitious Louisville study seeks to understand impact of trees on our health. (2019, December 12). PBS NewsHour; PBS NewsHour. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/ambitious-louisville-study-seeks-to-understand-impact-of-trees-on-our-health ‌Wood, J. (2019, November 21). Re-greening: can Louisville plant its way out of a heat emergency? The Guardian; The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/nov/21/re-greening-can-louisville-plant-its-way-out-of-a-heat-emergency Aruni Bhatnagar on Google Scholar https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=riRJqrYAAAAJ&hl=enUniversity of Louisville faculty bio https://louisville.edu/medicine/departments/medicine/divisions/environmental-medicine/faculty/bhatnagar-aruniDr. Bhatnagar is Professor of Medicine and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, USA. He is the Director of the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute and Co-Director at the American Heart Association.  He was the Deputy Editor of Circulation Research for 10 years.  Dr. Bhatnagar a leading expert on the mechanisms by which environmental exposures such as air pollution affect cardiovascular disease risk. His studies at University of Louisville have led to the development of the new field of Environmental Cardiology. Dr. Bhatnagar has published 389 peer-reviewed manuscripts, 25 book chapters and reviews and over 200 abstracts. Will you please tell us a little more about you and how you became the  pioneer of  environmental cardiology? 2:47  The true causes of heart  disease: Environmental  CardiologyAs a junior investigator studying the electrical activity of the heart in cardiovascular function anddiseaseI came to understand that  we really have not found that the  true causes of the  effects of heart disease. Most people believe that heart disease is caused by malfunction the heart, changes in electrical activity, blocked blood  vessels, or high blood pressure.These are the net effects of  a larger set of wider causes that  are mostly external  to us.  

Anna Cooper Reid tells us that PaRx is breaking ground as Canada's first national, evidence-based nature prescription program. Two hours a week is all it takes. The following notes the minute mark for points in our conversation:6  minute mark:  PaRx program what it is.  Evidence based and national (Canada) 9  minute mark:  How evidence will help further research: unique provider code & prescription pad compatible with electronic patient record in that province. 12 minute mark: Will be able to evaluate  how well it works14 minute mark:  What prescription looks like is up to the patient (a meaningful connection with nature is individual). Time required in green space: 2 hours/week at 20 minute intervals 20 minute mark: climate/covid. People who are connected to nature are more likely to protect it. We can thank the planet when we get out in nature. 23 minute mark: the future is exciting, providers are excited, patients are involved, PaRx will launch in other provinces, and will be available for use in licensed health care providers (nurses, social work, pharmacy, physicians, occupational therapy, and physiotherapy) undergraduate course content. 28 minute mark: one thing listeners can take away, have a conversation with your health care provider. If you want to iand  my  website nform your provider go to the website: www.parkprescriptions.caHere you will find a tab for patients and a tab for prescribers. Also  organized according to older and younger   age groups,  heart health,  respiratory heath. Graphics and easy to  understand. 31 minute mark: Everything  on  the website is linked to research. All the  evidence in there. You can explore the studies. If you want to reach out to Anna or ask questions you  can do on the website (ask for Anna). 33 minute mark:Wrap up with Verla. Please check out my  book and workbook Take Back Your Outside Mindset: Live Longer, Stress Less, and Control Your Chronic Illness and  my website treesmendus.com for more practical tips, information and resources. As we know getting  outside does not require a trip to the pharmacy, but to your local green  space where you can  soak in the positive and overlapping benefits of green space.

 I was thrown for a loop this summer by a diagnosis of breast cancer. Here is my story: I felt a lump in my breast, it was surgically removed. When  we got the pathology report back it showed that I  had a form  of cancer called  Ductal Carcioma In Situ (DCIS) which means the cancer is contained in ducts in the breast. Just the  word cancer scares everyone. And in a split second, I  had to make the decision about starting radiation therapy immediately. When  my mind started to spin, I knew from my past lupus diagnosis experience with green space – that I  needed the help of nature to ease the ruminations of “what if” and “if only.” My boys said “read your book mom.” Since I know that time in green space goes right to our physiology, mentally and physically, I knew I was not only helping myself to think clearly, but I was putting my entire body into a less stressed state. Green space not only  calmed  the landscape in my mind, but allowed me to reach out to others immediately  who helped me feel comfortable with my treatment decision. I opted not to have radiation at this  time and instead use “active surveillance”  option to see if the cancer was spreading. In November 2021, my mammogram was all clear of cancer. Relief for me and my loved  ones, but I became doubly aware of the  profound  impact of a cancer diagnosis on the person, their loved ones,  and  their community. As I planned I did spend the summer with my loved ones outside swimming, walking, cycling, golfing, and gardening – and we enjoyed the black bears that passed through and sometimes stayed for days in my back yard in Pine Falls, Manitoba. It was a wonderful summer in  spite of the cancer uncertainty. I am so excited to share with you a synopsis of my up coming book. It has been part of my life for a long time – 3 years now. It is about my friend who I love, who died suddenly. Their were a lot of challenges in writing this book: I struggled with the fact that the love of Leslie’s life Bill would be reading it, that her family and friends who also loved her, all live in our small town of Pine Falls, Manitoba.I worried that Leslie was hiding something from us – maybe she knew something we didn’t about her heart and her health? I had no access to Leslie’s medical records, but I did know all I had to know: Leslie was on no heart medication, (so no heart dx) and was not referred out to a heart specialist (so nothing wrong with her heart that would warrant a specialist referral). So in writing this I had to get the balance right between the love of my friend and the peer reviewed science of heart and environment. I am so proud of getting it  done, especially in light of these challenges. The book is close to finished and will  be out in the New  Year. For transcript please visit https://treesmendus.comBook: Take Back Your Outside Mindset