Alex Barrable: You know, a, a lot of the time we’re thinking about, you know, what sort of planet are we leaving for our kids, but I also want us to think about what sort of children we’re leaving to our planet. The children are stewards of the Earth, and we can’t expect them to look after it unless they feel close to it, unless they smelt it and touched it and, and s- tasted it
Rusty Keeler: Hi, this is Rusty Keeler and you’re listening to the Play Nature podcast where we talk about play, nature, playing in nature and the nature of play. I’m glad you’re here. Let’s have a listen
Hi there.
Alex Barrable: Hi there.
Rusty Keeler: Alex is a researcher in the field of human nature interactions and the relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world. She takes a lifespan perspective and focuses on human and planetary wellbeing. Her latest work explores dirty play, tactile, playful interactions with soil and other biodiverse natural materials, which has been found to support children’s health and wellbeing.
You make
Alex Barrable: it sound very exciting.
Rusty Keeler: It is exciting. Very exciting. Yeah.
Alex Barrable: I mean, I, I think so. Sure.
Rusty Keeler: You’ve been d- you’ve been going in this direction for a long time.
Alex Barrable: Yes. Yeah. I, I came to it late in life. Okay. So I was a teacher for many years, and I was attracted to research. It, it was, uh, uh, circumstances. I wanted to know more.
Hmm. And then I became a mom, and to two very active young boys, and they came into our lives very close together. So, um, I found nature again as a parent and sort of realized just how different my children were when we were in nature, how different I was, and it just happened to be the one place that we could all be regulated and happy together-
Rusty Keeler: Hmm
Alex Barrable: for quite a long time, actually, while they were little, and that inspired me to go into that research. So that… So my research in that space is actually about as old as my eldest, which is 13. Mm-hmm.
Rusty Keeler: Okay.
Alex Barrable: Um, yes.
Rusty Keeler: That’s good. I have a 14-year-old and a 10-year-old, so…
Alex Barrable: Uh, well, yes, 13 and 11. Uh, here we are.
Rusty Keeler: Okay. We’re in the thick of it. Yeah. We’re
Alex Barrable: in the thick of it. We’re in what, um, researchers in the nature connection literature call the teenage dip, actually.
Rusty Keeler: Ah, uh-huh. Well, and certainly now, whether it’s phones or what they wanna do with their peers.
Alex Barrable: Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: What is- Yeah. Yeah, how do you describe the, the teenage dip?
Alex Barrable: So this is from research, not my own research. I’m
Rusty Keeler: not… I, I shouldn’t call my teenager a teenage dip.
Alex Barrable: No, no. No, no. No, it’s not personal. It’s not personal. This is population level statistics. Okay, okay. Let’s just say that. Nobody’s a dip, and nobody has a dip. Um, but, uh, researchers at the University of Derby have sort of taken a, a snapshot of the population and the nature connectedness of different age groups, and they find that it starts off very, very high, age six, seven, which is when we really are able to measure nature connectedness.
Uh, but of course, anyone who works with younger children know that, um, younger children tend to be even more nature connected. You know, they, they start off really curious and close to the natural world. So it starts- Yeah … really high, age six, seven, and it stays high up until about 12, 13, where we see that dip, and that dip, unfortunately, continues for a long time, and our nature connection doesn’t recover until about our early 30s.
Rusty Keeler: Oh, wow.
Alex Barrable: It’s a long time.
Rusty Keeler: Hmm.
Alex Barrable: Hmm. And I
don’t know, but this is certainly what happened to me and what I’ve seen happening to a lot of my friends, is that our children are actually agents of change in our own connection to nature. Initially, we start taking them out because that’s what people do with kids, you know, fresh air or whatever. But then there is a feedback loop of then the kids enjoy it, and they drive it, and then, you know, we enjoy it, and we drive it, and it becomes a, a positive reinforcement loop- Hmm
for all of us. Mm-hmm. I don’t know if that’s the case, but this is my- Mm-hmm … my, um, sort of couch hypothesis.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it, it makes sense of like you get to rediscover it, yeah, with your- Yeah … children and, and slow down. You know, I’m, I’m interested- I’ve been talking about this idea of Earth speed, being on Earth speed.
Hmm. And it’s like following the, the, you know, the ladybug suddenly bec- You know, and I think about grandparents too, suddenly are on the sc- the speed of toddlers- Yeah … moving and exploring and rediscovering it. And I remember, uh, in my 20s when I was kind of doing the natural play and getting into this, and I would go
I grew up going to the beach and the ocean, you know, a week or two a year. But then I had these little cousins, and then they were four and five, and suddenly there was the ocean, and it was speaking to them that I remember the w- And as a 20-year-old, it didn’t speak to me, but then suddenly I recognized, there it is, the call.
Alex Barrable: Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. I, I really think, and we’re seeing it through their eyes and through the wonder of, you know, the, the way that a child thinks things, see things, sees things afresh and new, and everything is so exciting.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Reminds us, oh yeah, the, the world is-
Alex Barrable: Yeah. Yeah …
Rusty Keeler: incredible and wild and unpredictable and,
Alex Barrable: yeah.
It is. Yeah. It’s wonderful. My little niece, who is three, um, I was with her last week, and she saw her first rainbow. Hmm. Her first rainbow.
Rusty Keeler: Hmm.
Alex Barrable: And she was looking at it, and she didn’t quite work out what it was because she’d seen rainbows in books, and they are very different in books than they are in, in real life.
Rusty Keeler: Hmm.
Alex Barrable: You know? A- and it was see-through, and she was looking at it going, “Is that the rainbow?” And, um, it was just a magical experience, and I’ll remember her first rainbow. I don’t remember my first rainbow.
Rusty Keeler: Hmm. Yeah. Wow. You know, that, uh, just reminds me of the rainbows in Scotland and-
Alex Barrable: Yes …
Rusty Keeler: I did not know- We get a lot of those.
Do you get a lot of those? I saw a lot when I was over there. In fact, one of the most epic ones in my whole life, it was like, uh, up at the, what’s that? The castle. Where was it? Stirling Castle, and looking off into the distance, and it was like a full… And we were like the same height of it, ’cause we’re-
Alex Barrable: That’s amazing
up
Rusty Keeler: high. It was
Alex Barrable: incredible. Yeah, and you get double rainbows, and you get full circle rainbows, and amazing, amazing things.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Well, I remember that as a, as a parent of a, you know, and I always like to think about that. It’s like, this is the first time he- my son has seen a fuzzy caterpillar. This is the first- Yes
time he… Yeah. And to get- Yeah … to get to that, live that, and, and then that’s a nice thing for, for teachers or educators or early childhood educators. They get to experience that.
Alex Barrable: Yeah. Yeah, and what a privilege it is, right, to be there.
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, I wanna, uh, you know, I, I told you the, the, that keynote with, I was just like taking notes and, and so excited to hear.
Uh, so there’s, there’s some things I wanna pull from that. I, you know, in my notes, I’m like, “I want, I wanna find out more.” Um, but I like how you kinda just start off by talking about the evolutionary mismatch of like- Yeah … us as a species versus where we are today or where we started. So you, could you talk about that?
Yeah.
Alex Barrable: Yeah. Yes. Well, you know, we, we are apes. Um, we are hairless apes, but we are apes. And we have evolved over the last 30, th- uh, 300,000 years or so to live in… We’re incredibly adaptable actually, as species. Uh, no other ape lives in so many different biomes. But, you know, humans have, uh, adapted to live in, uh, tropical rainforests, in the savanna, which is where we started, of course, and, you know, c- can live in boreal forests.
We, we don’t have many limitations. Um, and we are incredibly adaptable, and we’re k- kind of abusing this adaptability because we’ve created something wonderful, uh, which are cities. And cities are wonderful because they’re places of opportunity, places where people can come together. It’s places of knowledge and work and creativity, and all the wonderful things that cities bring.
And we are largely now Or 8 billion of us, uh, uh, an urban species. Most of us live in cities or other urb- or other urban ce-centers. But unfortunately, the environment that we’ve created in cities is not one that we have evolved to be in. It’s a lot noisier, grayer, and it doesn’t have all the things that we’ve evolved to psychologically find safe and where our happy place is.
And this is what we’re seeing, uh, you know, uh, more and more. Uh, we’re, we’re seeing, you know, mental health crises. We’re seeing also metabolic health crises. Um, you know, diabetes and heart disease and all these, um, uh, diseases that are actually part of us living in urban centers and modern lifestyles.
Rusty Keeler: Hmm.
Alex Barrable: Hmm. So taking various parts of the city experience, which it wasn’t intentionally designed like that, you know, nobody said we’re gonna make them really, really loud. But we know now from the research that, um, the, the loudness of cities, the noise can actually have an impact both on our psychological health and how stressed we feel- Hmm
uh, but also on things like children’s cognitive development, how quickly they pick up speech, how large their vocabulary is, et cetera. It impacts, uh, you know, there is a lot of input in a city.
Rusty Keeler: Hmm.
Alex Barrable: There is constant input.
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm.
Alex Barrable: Um, I, um, I live in a small town in Scotland. Um, I can’t hear the traffic from where I live.
Very occasionally I can hear the odd car driving past. But I recently went and stayed with my brother in Athens, and, um, lying, lying down to sleep at night, I was thinking, “Oh my goodness, I can hear so much human activity from…” You know, he lives in an apartment block. There’s a busy road underneath. I could hear somebody flushing their toilet at a diff- on a different floor of the apartment building.
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm.
Alex Barrable: I actually became acutely aware of how close I was. Of course, there were walls between us, but to the people next door who I could hear walking and talking, not clearly, but-
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm …
Alex Barrable: there was noise, there was activity- Mm-hmm … um, sirens and, you know, there was constant input. Right. Constant input. And we, we think it doesn’t affect us, but it impacts us, uh, both in terms of the cognitive load, but also, and on, on the flip side, it’s missing a lot of the things that- restore our attention, restore our psychological wellbeing, and these are natural soundscapes, natural landscapes, the color green, looking out into the distance, all of these things.
Rusty Keeler: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think like city people, they go to the woods and it’s like they almost feel assaulted by the quiet or the, the- Yeah … the lack of all that ambient. Like, and you get used to that, right? You get numb to it or you… And that’s-
Alex Barrable: Yeah. And, and I’m not sure that getting used to it means it doesn’t impact you physiologically.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Alex Barrable: I think it still impacts you on a physiological level.
Rusty Keeler: Yes.
Alex Barrable: And some of us are more sensitive than others, so I, I understand there are, there are individual differences as well, um, and some people are more able to cope. Uh, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for us, and it doesn’t mean that, you know, uh, we have evolved for that space.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah. It’s like you, we almost like maybe get shells, you know, we develop shells around ourselves to be able to withstand it or, you know, get through it. Yeah. But like- Yeah … oh, how are we leaving to not to
Alex Barrable: have that? Yeah. And also considering, and I, you know, I know we’ll probably talk about childhood, but, but children’s development is impacted.
The, you know, children’s brains are, we know, incredibly plastic and they’re, they’re growing, uh, but that makes them also very, very vulnerable, um, to these environments, which is of course why things like nature nurseries and, and, uh, even kindergartens and, you know, uh, natural spaces are important in childhood.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah. I, I like the kind of the two different ways of like you can take children to nature or I think about design, you know, I’m a designer, come from that side- Yeah … of things of like, okay, how can we bring nature in? How do we design that?
Alex Barrable: Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: Uh, and, and knowing- Yeah … that it’s, that it’s good. You talked about like 20 minutes in nature can make a big deal, uh, big effect
Alex Barrable: on- Yes.
So this is, this is research, um, again, it’s population level research, so they, we weren’t looking at each individual, and they looked at epidemiological data to suggest that there is a minimum dose that can impact our wellbeing and, and it’s 120 minutes a week- Okay … which can be in chunks. Okay. Um, but also in terms of our physiological response, we start going into our rest and digest about 20 minutes into being in a natural environment.
And again, what is a natural environment? You know, what, what, what are the active ingredients of nature? This is, uh, all very, very interesting and it’s being unpicked by, by, um, research. So for example, even touching natural surfaces like oak wood rather than metal or plastic surfaces- Ah … changes our physiological response, our skin conductivity and other measures.
So- We can shift slowly our spaces into more natural spaces in easy ways. We don’t simply have to think of nature as a on/off switch. Yes, this is a natural space. No, this is a unnatural urban whatever.
Rusty Keeler: Okay.
Alex Barrable: Um, there are ways to bring nature into our school environments, our home environments. We know that having flowers or a plant in the room with you also creates a physiological response.
Is it the same as being in a wild forest? Probably not Is it better than being in a padded cell? Probably, yes. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. You know. I, I kinda wanna say it’s not a binary. It’s a, it’s, it’s a continuum, and we can make small changes. And I say this because I talk to people who, from inner city Glasgow who, you know, or I teach, and it’s, you know, my, my…
I have a classroom, and we don’t have an outdoor space. And it’s like, okay, what, what can we do? Mm-hmm. How can we bring nature in?
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm.
Alex Barrable: What are the choices you can make?
Rusty Keeler: I love that idea that even the choice of table surface- Yeah … material-
Alex Barrable: Yes,
Rusty Keeler: yes … that, that has an effect.
Alex Barrable: Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: So what, uh, okay, so what are some of the effects, like, uh, the, in these 20 minutes?
What, what’s going on, like, in, in the body? And the- Yes … you know, like I said earlier, like, you know, you’re, you’re reinforcing things we know, but just a more the headline of, like, nature’s g- we know somehow nature’s good, but what… How?
Alex Barrable: Yes. So we have a nervous system, as do, uh, all animals with a spine. We’re not unique in this.
And our nervous system, our central nervous system has two branches, the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.
Rusty Keeler: Okay.
Alex Barrable: And ideally, they are in balance. They are in homeostasis. They tend to be balanced. So we are able to go into sympathetic drive, which is our fight or flight. So if a tiger were to walk into your room right now, hopefully you’d be able to respond.
It’s not coming. I can see. Okay. I’ll, I’ll let you know.
Rusty Keeler: Okay,
Alex Barrable: thank you. But, you know, you’re, you’re designed to be able to really swiftly- Uh … there’ll be, there’ll be a cascade in your body. There’ll be adrenaline, and your, uh, pupils will, will dilate. There’ll be stomach moving away from your core into your limbs so you can run- Mm
or you can fight.
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm.
Alex Barrable: Uh, you’re getting ready. Your, your breath will get shallow. Your heartbeat wi- will get quicker so you can start running, and you’re, you’re ready to go. That’s our fight or flight. It’s a, it’s a great thing. It’s kept us alive for hundreds of thousands of years. And then there’s our parasympathetic system.
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm.
Alex Barrable: Our parasym- uh, nervous system or parasympathetic drive, which is our rest and digest, and this is where it’s the end of the day, we’ve done our hunting, we go back to our cave, and we sit around the fire with our other cave people. And we tell stories, and we have our food, and we digest it, and we sleep, and we rest, and we’re safe, and we feel safe.
And we have evolved, not just us, all animals have evolved to be able to do that and to, to, to go from- Mm … one state to the other. Readily. What happens when we are in cities and we are in stressful environments, and we have jobs and we have, you know, stresses and we haven’t paid the rent, and there’s a bus coming past and it hoots at us, we get stuck into that sympathetic drive.
Mm-hmm. And we are always on. There’s a lot of input. Yeah, yeah. We’re trying to see, well, actually our body’s still scanning. Is there a tiger coming out? Mm-hmm. Is there a, is there a threat in the horizon? And that keeps us in that state. Elevated blood pressure, elevated cortisol levels, elevated heartbeat.
We can’t rest to digest. We find it very difficult to switch off.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah.
Alex Barrable: And nature is able to shift us into that state. So when we’re in nature, there are various physiological and psychological changes that happen that shift us
Rusty Keeler: into- That
Alex Barrable: bring it down,
Rusty Keeler: that-
Alex Barrable: Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.
Rusty Keeler: Uh-huh. Yeah. Uh-huh. And so the- And we need that.
Yeah, yeah. So, okay, so nature can like, you know, like we think about the city person going into the nature or any of us, but suddenly you’re like, yeah, we could feel it. Our breath changes- Yeah … right, right away. And then, and then so, so then to be bathing in that rest and digest, what… how is that good for us?
What is… yeah, what’s going on there?
Alex Barrable: Well, so f- I mean, I, I call it rest and digest and learn. I think it’s a, it’s a time for connection. It’s a time for being with others. It’s a time where we’re able to take things in. It’s time that we can start synthesizing thoughts and be creative. It’s no wonder that lots of artists will find themselves in natural spaces, both to capture the beauty of nature, but also just to create, uh, you know, th- those natural, um, th- those creative thoughts.
Um-
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm.
Alex Barrable: Mm-hmm … it, it’s a good state to be in.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah. It’d be interesting to see, like, artists who live in the city, what is their art like versus artists who are, yeah, living in the country or
Alex Barrable: Yes. Yes. And, and I say we are very adaptable, and a lot of us thrive in city environments. Uh, a lot of us find them- Mm-hmm
incredibly stressful. Yeah. We’re not all the same. There are individual differences, but for a lot of us, we miss that natural experience. We miss nature. And, uh, to find ourselves in that natural space can actually bring that balance into our lives. And, you know, we, we create interventions, and I don’t know if you know this, but the National Health Service here in, in Scotland, um, you know, has, uh, green prescribing.
They will prescribe, uh, natural experiences for people. Oh, okay. Um, so instead of giving you diabetes medicine, I might say, “You know, you are going to go into the park and exercise with a group for six weeks, and we’ll see what’s happened to your, you know, levels of your, um, you know, H- HbA1c or whatever it is.”
It’s quite interesting that it’s being brought into as an extra tool Not to replace necessarily, but to augment what we’re doing with traditional medicine.
Rusty Keeler: Yes. Yes, that’s amazing. And y- you talked about even like with ADHD as a- Yeah … as its form. Yeah, with-
Alex Barrable: So there’s, there’s, uh, a bit of evidence to suggest that, and, and before I go into ADHD, before I go into sort of a clinical diagnose, diagnosis and, and conditions, for all of us, nature has a restorative effect on our attention.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Alex Barrable: So whether you have ADHD or not, our attention tends to be better, uh, when we’re in natural spaces. It tends to be restored, so it, uh, those spaces are restorative. So if you go after a very hard task, there is research to suggest that, you know, after a very hard task, going into a natural space will restore your attention and you can again attempt another hard task.
Rusty Keeler: Hmm.
Alex Barrable: Hmm. Um, as opposed to if you stay in a gray room or if you look at pictures. A lot of it is experimental evidence, so there, there’s people sitting in rooms with computer screens and some are seeing natural scenes and some are seeing city scenes. But there are– there is also evidence to suggest that with children with ADHD, a 20-minute nature experience can have the same impact on their attention and memory as being on medication.
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm.
Alex Barrable: And look, looking at a, a variety of symptoms as reported by, uh, parents and also as self-reported by the children themselves. Um, it’s, it’s no surprise when you actually work out what’s happening physiologically, actually. Um, I think it’s sort of the next step. Um, but, uh, again, you know, why are we not using this in the way that we design schools, in the way that we design learning spaces, in the way that we design our cities?
It is coming through, but I’m not sure it’s coming through quickly enough, not for my liking.
Rusty Keeler: Uh-huh. Of course. Yeah. We’re ready. We’re ready for the, yeah, the utopian, yeah- Yeah … half nature, half building, buildings that are part of it. Correct. Yes. All that kind of stuff. Yeah. Well, and they’re amazing. Th- it’s good for all of us, all ages, you know, r- retirement homes, elders having that kind of stuff.
Yeah, those, th- those connections. You know, I’ve been, uh, I was telling you, you know, you mentioned one bit about the idea of fractals, and- Okay. … so I’ve been thinking about that. Yeah, and, and, and, and the idea of us evolving with nature and a part of it, and, like, our bodies, you know, if we look at the way our lungs, you know, or, you know, our skin, it looks similar to, like, p- leaves of plants.
Like, there’s the patterning, that we are part- Yes … of the pattern. So the idea of us gazing in nature at the patterns of ferns and plants and-
Alex Barrable: That’s right …
Rusty Keeler: and all of it.
Alex Barrable: Yeah, so I had to… You mentioned fractals. I mentioned them very, very briefly in my talk because I don’t work with fractals. This is nothing to do with my work, but I had to look it up.
I’m prepared, Rusty.
Rusty Keeler: Yes. I was like, “Give me some fractals.”
Alex Barrable: I looked up at the research, so fractals being those repeating patterns that we find in nature quite a lot.
Rusty Keeler: Okay. Yes.
Alex Barrable: Um, and- Spirals
Rusty Keeler: and-
Alex Barrable: Yeah, exactly … yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So yeah, r- repeating patterns that happen again and again and, and sometimes they are, um, you know, in, in different scales as well.
And I found several papers that look at the physiological response that we have when looking at fractals. There seems to be- Okay … something that happens to us, and it doesn’t have to be natural fractals, so it doesn’t just have to be nature. And again, so we’re, you know, w- research is breaking down the components.
What is it? Is it the green? Is it the shape? Is it the size? Is it the oar? Is it the fighters, you know, phytoncides? Is it, is it what we’re breathing in? Is it the bacteria? What is it? Uh-
Rusty Keeler: Hmm …
Alex Barrable: it is all of it.
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm.
Alex Barrable: It is all of it, and we can’t… I mean, we can take parts of it and, you know, if you wanna make your living room full of fractals, you know, be my guest.
But-
Rusty Keeler: Uh-huh …
Alex Barrable: you know, w- I don’t want to lose the, the beauty and the complexity that is found in our experiencing nature in, in its real form.
Rusty Keeler: Yes. That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Uh, there’s a new walk that I’ve, that I’ve found. I’m so excited about this spring, and it’s been a real pleasure just, it’s a lot of spring flowers.
It’s a lot of ferns, and so I’ve been thinking, you know, all this, that- It’s your
Alex Barrable: fractal walk …
Rusty Keeler: it’s my fractal walk. Yeah. And yeah, just, yeah, just that pattern and, but then also one of the other things that I really s- s- uh, uh, of your keynote that I scribbled and starred was the idea that our brain loves non-directed attention.
So almost think that bathing in it, you know, a- again, it’s like we keep going from like nature to city or the, the p- the nervous system, the one to the other, and it’s almost like the, the focused attention and then the non-focused attention.
Alex Barrable: Yes. So, um, researchers who work in the area of attention restoration theory talk about the soft fascinations of nature, the things that kind of- Ah
very gently pull our attention. Like, you know, you’re sitting by the side of a creek and you’re listening to the water gurgling, and you hear the leaves, and you see the dappled sunshine. And it’s not calling for your attention. It’s not going, “Look here, look here,” which is what’s happening when we’re in a, potentially in an urban setting when you’re sort of, you know, you’re looking out and you’re-
Rusty Keeler: Mm.
Alex Barrable: It’s just, it’s not demanding attention. Mm-hmm. It’s kind of softly calling. Those soft fascinations are incredibly restoring.
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm.
Alex Barrable: And yeah, we, we, we don’t have them in many spaces anymore. Certainly we don’t have them in our learning spaces in schools.
Rusty Keeler: Hmm.
Alex Barrable: Schools are all about directed attention, unfortunately.
Yes.
Rusty Keeler: Yes. Golly. Well, then even just thinking about like the screens, our phones. I mean, that is- Yes … just attention. It is directing attention. Yes, yes. And how, how do we even, you know-
Alex Barrable: Demanding. It’s demanding.
Rusty Keeler: D- yes.
Alex Barrable: It’s, yeah. Yeah. Very, very difficult to to, to, to get your space and, and, you know, touch grass, as they say.
Rusty Keeler: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, so it’s like first there’s like, you gotta pull away from that, and then find yourself in another, uh, in a, in an- Mm … environment, your, your nature environment or, you know. But then it’s like you also have to kinda break, uh, maybe as an adult, well, kids too, you have to break that impulse of like, “But I wanna look at my, I wanna look at my phone.”
But I want it. I wanna … Not me. He might.
Alex Barrable: Yes. But- No, of course not. No, no, of course not. But, but, uh, I mean, this is a, again, so this is about executive function. We talk a lot about children’s executive function and that impulse control. Um, this is something that children, uh, practice throughout their childhood.
Yeah. And executive functions grow. It’s a skill like any other, and it sits in the front bit of our, uh, our, our brain, our prefrontal cortex. It’s not fully … We now think it’s not actually fully on board until about 30. Mm-hmm. We thought it was mid-20s at the, the age keeps- Oh. So, so, um- That’s funny … but, um, so when we, you know, uh, y- you’re talking about adults and the impulse to look at our screens, and we use our executive function or not use our executive function to resist the impulse.
But we give a phone to a child who is, whose prefrontal cortex is not quite on board, whose their, their executive functions aren’t quite on board, and we say, “Well, you don’t look at it. Don’t, don’t look at it. You have to keep it in your bag. You have to not look at it.” It’s not gonna happen. It’s not gonna work.
Rusty Keeler: The teenage dips.
Alex Barrable: Yes. Yes. Yes. No, no mentioning of, of names or, or people. But, um, I mean, I, I, I actually think back to, uh, my adolescence and I, I didn’t get a phone until I was 23, just because of my age- Mm-hmm … uh, and when I grew up. Um, but we were lucky. We were very, very lucky to let our- Mm-hmm … prefrontal cortices, our executive function skills develop fully before we were given these devices, or, or close to fully.
Wow. And we know that nature and interaction with nature helps those executive functions develop. So I mentioned a- Oh … study in my keynote which looked at Norwegian, about- Yes … 600 Norwegian children. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s hear about that. And followed them from, from very e- very early childhood into early and mid-adolescence.
And they found that children who’d spent more time in nature during preschool had better executive function, be- better memory and attention skills in, when they entered school in year one and two, so age seven, eight, if you’re in Norway.
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm.
Alex Barrable: But then, and what amazing research, it’s Alsett et al, and, and, and their group, uh, published in 2017 and then again in 2024.
Then they followed these teenagers when they were 14. They found them again. Th- they lost a few, but they had about 500.
Rusty Keeler: Wow.
Alex Barrable: And yeah, it’s not bad.
Rusty Keeler: Yep.
Alex Barrable: And they found that actually academic performance was better in those who had spent more time in nature. And the reason why was the ability to direct attention.
Rusty Keeler: Oh
Alex Barrable: my gosh. Direct and shift attention during tasks. So this is exactly what we’re talking about.
Rusty Keeler: Wow. Okay. They were, because they were in nature, th- their executive func- functioning brain was developed in a, in a certain way.
Alex Barrable: Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: And that helped them with their attention. Yes. Could you go into that? How- Yeah, but-
Alex Barrable: How we pay…
Yeah, how- Yeah … they pay attention. Yeah. How we shift attention from one thing to the other.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah.
Alex Barrable: Um, these are key academic skills, but it seems that spending time in the natural world tends to help us with those key skills of shifting attention, of focusing attention, of withdrawing our attention from something and redirecting it to something else.
It’s not easy. I can’t do it. I’ve just lost… I’ve just heard, my sons have just come in from school, and I can hear them, and my attention’s gone- … and I have to shift it-
Rusty Keeler: Yeah …
Alex Barrable: to the conversation. Uh, it’s not an easy skill.
Rusty Keeler: Right. That is a real, that is a real skill that we don’t often think about. But it, we often think about it in terms of the f- the phone or that the, the, the attention or multitasking or-
Alex Barrable: Not to mention play.
Yes. Can I talk about play?
Rusty Keeler: Yes. Yes. Let’s talk about play.
Alex Barrable: I mean, play is exactly practicing the same skills of controlling my impulses. It looks like a natural flow, but actually it’s training, practicing executive functions, and turning attention and directing attention, and not being impulsive and, you know, especially when it’s play, social play, when children are interacting with each other.
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm.
Alex Barrable: You can’t do whatever you want. There are rules, and that’s part of play. Maybe the rules are what you and I have talked about, or maybe it’s a game that has set rules, but this is training your impulse control. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you, you, if you’re playing football, soccer, you can’t pick up the p- the ball with your hands, you know?
Yep, yep, yep. That’s training your impulse. Right. You, you know, that’s the rules and, and, you know, and, and in free play, uh, rules are there, and they are understood, and sometimes they’re implicit, and sometimes they’re explicit- Mm-hmm … and children will discuss them. I was watching my children a few years back playing The Floor Is Lava.
Love it.
Rusty Keeler: Yep.
Alex Barrable: Um, you can play The Floor Is Lava wherever you want. Mm-hmm. They were playing in our lounge. All the cushions were down, and they were, you know… And, you know, th- this is real executive function building and motor skill and social skill. You can’t create a task as a teacher that will emulate and will get all the benefits that that game that they were playing could do.
Rusty Keeler: Yes. Yes. Yeah. It’s, it– I, I mean, I think about, uh, information and things coming towards the child versus it emanating from, from the child, and that’s them building, that’s them playing, and I think that’s the having those open-ended experiences and opportunities, time, space, materials, loose parts.
Alex Barrable: Yeah. Yeah.
I think we forget time and space sometimes, and the fact that time and space are also affordances. We talk about affordances in nature and in natural environments, and actually time and space are the two things that sometimes lack, you know, are not there. We don’t give our children. Uh, it’s a luxury.
Mm-hmm. So we think about The things that we provide them with in terms of, you know, it’s a fantastic playground, and it’s got this and it’s got that, and it’s got that. Does it have time?
Rusty Keeler: Yes.
Alex Barrable: Do the kids have time?
Rusty Keeler: Yeah.
Alex Barrable: And is there the space? Do we give them the space?
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. Yeah. We… In here in Ithaca, we have a, an adventure playground-inspired place that I, I, I was a part of called the Anarchy Zone.
It’s a- Oh, I love it. … the chil- the Children’s Garden, the hands-on nature Anarchy Zone. And a friend of mine, Dr. Beth Myers, did her PhD study there, and she looked at the same group of children at the Anarchy Zone, which is hil- messy hills, and trees to climb, and loose parts, boards, and straw bales, and, you know, mud and all sorts of stuff, and the, the play that goes on there with buckets and shovels and things versus on the traditional playground equipment.
And- Same
Alex Barrable: group …
Rusty Keeler: same group of kids. Yep. And- Aged? Um, young elementary. So- Okay … maybe, yeah.
Alex Barrable: 5, 7,
Rusty Keeler: 8. Yep, 5 to 17. Yep, exactly. And when they’re at the Anarchy Zone, the play went on for two hours, and the, the adults that were there were like, who were their counselors and f- just sat by on the edges. They’re like, “We don’t have to do anything.”
Nothing to do. Nothing to do, right. At the traditional playground equipment, when they went back to their, the place where their, you know, headquarters was, it was like 20 minutes. They were able to… They had… Now this is the interesting thing. It’s like they were able to have kind of play that was not, with no conflict for about 20 minutes, but then once 20 minutes hit, there was like scarcity of materials, only two basketballs.
They have done everything on the play equipment, and then they start using it in ways that it shouldn’t be, you know, wasn’t designed for, and then there- Yeah … there are all sorts of conflicts. So that alone was interesting, but then it was also then kind of sad to me that then I thought, well, 20 minutes is kind of like the typical school recess.
So, eek. Yeah. Yeah. When, when the rich play happen, when you have that time, the time and space to really-
Alex Barrable: Yeah …
Rusty Keeler: dig in and do that, let it flow.
Alex Barrable: Yeah. Yeah.
Rusty Keeler: Hm. Hm.
Alex Barrable: Yeah. So time and space is a resource, I think really, really important.
Rusty Keeler: Hm. So time, space, and- Microbes. You like that transition?
Alex Barrable: Yes.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah.
Alex Barrable: I love it.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah. So, so we get time, space, materials, and microbes. Yeah. Tell us about the microbial world and us.
Alex Barrable: So I’m not, uh, I, I’m a social scientist. Yeah. Uh, I work in the realm of psychology and education and social sciences. But, um, a few years back, I was reading some very, very interesting research on s- the, the different ways that spaces impact us, and it was some research by Dr.
Jake Robinson talking about the stratification of the aerobiome. For those of you who don’t know, and I didn’t know, and I had to look it up, what was the aerobiome? The aerobiome is all the microbes, microbial species, the, the, that, that float around in the air and they’re around us. And it’s everywhere because microbes are everywhere.
And Jake and their team were talking about the different stratification of the aerobiome in forests, depending on the kind of trees that you had, and I kind of thought that’s really interesting. So we get … Depending on how tall we are, we get a different dose of microbes-
Rusty Keeler: Hmm …
Alex Barrable: when we walk around a forest.
So I emailed him, because I do this, and I said, “Wait a minute. Have you thought about how this impacts children and how we design spaces to ensure that children da, da, da, da?” So we started working together and that was back in 2021, 2022. We started thinking together about spaces designed for children and looking at the microbial aspect and the microbiome aspect.
Uh, the microbiome is the assemblage of microbes that live in and on our bodies that are part of an organism, humans in this particular instance, or human infants if we’re talking about, uh, young children. And I think it’s a, it’s an amazing world, uh, the world of microbes, and I’ve been learning more and more about it, and I’ve been finding out about how those wonderful, wonderful microbes, our invisible friends, can support our health, our wellbeing, our mental health, our, all the processes that happen in our body from not just our digestion, but also the hormones we produce and the way that we feel about things and just all sorts of things.
Rusty Keeler: So the, it’s almost, they’re not invisible, but they’re almost invisible, but it’s like this-
Alex Barrable: Well, they’re invisible to the
Rusty Keeler: naked
Alex Barrable: eye …
Rusty Keeler: to
Alex Barrable: us, yes No, you can’t, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, so you, you can see them in a microscope, but-
Rusty Keeler: Yeah …
Alex Barrable: I don’t think I’ve ever seen any actual real ones.
Rusty Keeler: Uh-huh. And yet they’re, like, a part of our life, and we don’t realize it, and- Yeah
it’s good to have it. I was just talking to another nature play person that is wanting to plant forests at all schools. All elementaries should have forests, and the microbiome of the forest floor, and that we should be in that and touching it, and kids should be in that, and that make, will make them healthy- Yeah
in their, their bodies and their nervous systems, and…
Alex Barrable: Yeah, absolutely. So what, what happens with the microbiome is, and we used to think that, um, that, that, that the amniotic fluid that we’re all, we all start our life in, in our mom’s bellies, uh, we used to thought- think that it was sterile. It isn’t sterile.
It has its own microbial communities. We, depending on how we’re brought into this world, our birth actually gives us our first load of microbial goodies which start colonizing our body, and they start becoming part of us. Mm. And the first thousand days of a child’s life are really important in building those communities and in, in, um…
And then it becomes an interplay between the infant’s body and the microbes. The microbes can teach the child’s body and an, an immune system what is a threat and what isn’t. So we see that, uh, children who are exposed to more microbially diverse environments tend to have fewer al- allergies, less asthma, things like atopic dermatitis and other such ailments.
So it teaches our immune system. We now have evidence to suggest it also supports neural growth and neural development.
Rusty Keeler: Hmm.
Alex Barrable: And yeah, it’s, it’s really massively important.
Rusty Keeler: Wow. And here we were spraying ba- antibacterial, bacterial and sanitizing everything- Yeah … thinking we’re doing the right thing. We’re trying to keep everything clean, and yet, no.
In fact, that’s killing the, the important microbiomes.
Alex Barrable: Yes, exactly. Uh, it’s, it’s, you know, we- we’re killing the microbes that, that make us sick, and less than 1% of all microbes are pathogenic to humans.
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm.
Alex Barrable: But we’re also killing all the microbes that keep us healthy, and there are many, many more that keep us healthy than make us sick.
So, and I think COVID didn’t help at all, and of course the, the current hantavirus outbreak as well isn’t really helping in, in that we become quite fearful of these microbes, and we should be. I’m not saying all microbes are good. We all know, you know, there are viruses and bacteria- Mm-hmm … that are lethal- Right
and they are out there.
Rusty Keeler: Yep.
Alex Barrable: But that’s less than 1% of all of the microbes out there, and most microbes are incredibly good for us.
Rusty Keeler: Okay. All right. So if we, we were looking at nature and it’s got the beneficial effects for adults and for children, for nervous systems, for brain development, for allergy, for our attention, and maybe just to f- kind of finish things off here, what parents and teachers who are interested in this and want to, you know, we talked about even how a, a wooden table has a, an effect on you versus the metal table.
What can, what can people do, uh, for, in, for backyards or schools or- Yes … yeah, what is your, what, what is your sort of your fun advice?
Alex Barrable: So I, I would break it down into two main things. So one is nature contact, and think about, you know, either bringing nature in, taking children out into nature, bringing nature into your life.
Nature contact is really, really important from childhood onwards, and it’s gonna be good for you and good for your kids and, and, you know, go outside. Um, more systemically, if we’re thinking about, you know, greening schoolyards, I think is, is a, a non-negotiable. It’s, uh, you know, where, where they’re, they are climate adaptive as well, so we’re thinking about, you know, as we’re going into increasingly, uh, different climate conditions, making our school grounds greener we know can impact our children in a positive way.
It can impact our cities in a positive way because, you know, not every place has a park, not every neighborhood has a park, but most places have a school. So, um, thinking about microclimates, thinking about biodiversity, all of these things. So greening school grounds for me is non-negotiable. And then using those wonderful green spaces and building them into our everyday life and, uh, valuing them.
So that’s the first thing is nature contact. So I’m gonna say, you know, ensure that your child is getting hands-on, active, you know, ideally freely, non-directed.
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm.
Alex Barrable: So let your child explore and play-
Rusty Keeler: Mm-hmm …
Alex Barrable: in natural spaces with dirt, with soil, with animals or, you know, whatever you have access to.
And the second thing is Aside from nature contact, was it, which is the one thing, is our nature connection and how close we feel to the natural world. And nature connection is the extent to which we feel we belong to nature.
Rusty Keeler: Hmm.
Alex Barrable: Um, and we feel close to the natural world. And this is something, again, that nature contact alone doesn’t magically make it happen.
Okay. It takes beauty and empathy, and there are a variety of pathways to nature connection, but it has a really big impact on our psychological wellbeing, but also on our pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. So which is why I say, you know, a lot of my work is about planetary, but also, uh, uh, a personal, but also planetary wellbeing.
Rusty Keeler: Okay.
Alex Barrable: So when we realize we are part of the natural world, we want to look after it, we want to take care of it. And, you know, a lot of the time we’re thinking about, you know, what, what, what sort of planet are we leaving for our kids? But I also want us to think about what sort of children we’re leaving to our planet, and- Whoa
you know, um- Oh … can we think about- I like that. Yeah. The, the children are stewards of the earth, and we can’t expect them to look after it unless they feel close to it, unless they’ve- Yes … smelt it and touched it and, and tasted it.
Rusty Keeler: Yes.
Alex Barrable: So really, really important, nature contact through a variety of means, any way you can.
If… Is it flowers in your living room? Then it’s flowers in your living room. And nature connection and supporting that innate need of our children to come close to the natural world.
Rusty Keeler: Amen.
Alex Barrable: Yes. Preaching to the choir, I’m sorry.
Rusty Keeler: No, that’s it. That’s what we wanna hear, and that’s what, you know, so many, you know, the listeners are, believe in.
And, you know, sometimes we just need that spark or that reminder of, you know, we can have big dreams, and sure we want every school to, you know, to make giant transformations and do everything, but to know that we can step it down and, and still the little interactions matter. Exactly. All those little things, the, the flowers, the table, the, the fuzzy caterpillar and the ladybug and- Yeah
sniffing pine trees and, and the whole thing, so. Absolutely. All right. Alex, well, thank you so much. It’s fun- Thank you … great talking to you, mind expanding, heart opening, the whole deal. So yeah, my pair… W- well, no, my, uh, what, what’s my rest and digest? system. What’s, what- That’s the, not the parasym- The
Alex Barrable: parasympathetic.
Rusty Keeler: Yes, yes. I’m feeling it. Yeah. I’m feeling
Alex Barrable: it. Yeah, you’re feeling it? Yeah, yeah. Okay, just talking about it. Yeah. That’s great.
Rusty Keeler: Yeah.
Alex Barrable: If I can have that impact on people, that’s wonderful.
Rusty Keeler: There we go. All right. All right. Thank you. Well, thanks so much, and I’ll look for you in Scotland next year.
Alex Barrable: Fantastic. Okay.
See you soon.
Rusty Keeler: Yep. Bye.
All right. Thanks for listening Do you have a comment or a question? Email me at playnaturepodcast@gmail.com. You know I like talking about this stuff, and maybe we could use your question on a future podcast episode. As always, I have some free goodies for you in the show notes, including my outdoor loose parts guide.
Fun stuff in there. And so I wish you the best in your outdoor play adventures. And when it comes to adding nature to your yard, or loose parts, or saying yes to risky play, my favorite motto is, “Dream big, start small, and never stop.” Oh, yeah. Woo, woo, woo, woo. Let’s do it. All right, have fun out there
