Jogging In The Forest (Twice As Good As A Trip To The Gym In Most Forests When The Aliens And Satanists Aren't About)

 

Exercising in a natural environment like a park or forest is far better for mental health than the gym, researchers have found Photo: ALAMY

A jog through a forest can cut the risk of suffering from mental health problems and is twice as good for you as working out in the gym, according to a survey.

By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent, The Telegraph

12:27PM BST 20 Jun 2012

Researchers found that anything from a stroll in the park to a run through woodland can have a positive effect on people suffering from depression and anxiety.

The study also showed that the positive effect on people's mental health was 50 per cent more than they might expect from going to the gym.

The researchers at Glasgow University looked at natural and non-natural environments for physical activity, including walking, running and cycling, and found that being around trees and grass lowered brain stress levels.

The study, led by Prof Richard Mitchell, polled nearly 2000 physically active people in the 2008 Scottish Health Survey.

Only activities carried out in a natural environment outdoors were found to be associated with a lower risk of poor mental health. 

Prof Mitchell said he was "surprised" by the scale of the results, adding: "There was around a 50 per cent improvement in people’s mental health if they were physically active in the natural environment, compared to those who weren't.

"These aren't serious mental health issues, more struggles in general life, things like mild depression, not being able to sleep, high stress levels or just feelings of not being able to cope. 

"It seems that woodland and forest seem to have the biggest effect on helping to lower mental health problems.

"That makes sense with what we thought we knew. That is, the brain likes to be in the natural environment and it reacts to being there by turning down our stress response. 

"Being in areas that have lots of trees and grassy areas help to calm us down, and obviously a forest has this. 

"I wasn't surprised by the findings that exercise in natural environments is good for your mental health, but I was surprised by just how much better it is for your mental health to exercise in a green place like a forest, than in other places like the gym.

"The message to doctors, planners and policy makers is that these places need protecting and promoting."

He added that taking a decision to exercise in a natural environment once a week could be enough to gain some benefit, and any additional use could have a bigger effect. 

  

The study revealed that local streets were most commonly used for physical activity, followed by the home or garden. 

Previous experimental studies have shown that exercise in natural environments has a positive effect on "biomarkers", which indicate general health, and on an individual's view of his or her levels of stress or fatigue.

Around 50 per cent of the sampled group exercised in a natural environment at least once in the previous month. 

 

NOTE:  The findings detailed in Scottish Correspondent Auslan Cramb’s June 20 Telegraph article do not surprise me in the least, but I would hasten to add that, as any casual movie-goer or X-Files fan knows, care must be exercised while journeying through forests.  To borrow the phrase that titled one of my daughter’s early-learning videos, one should always "Stay On the Safe Side.”   


Know where you’re going;  Return home well before dark;  Don't make trouble for others.  If you run into Mulder and Scully, you're clearly in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.

One specific note to the girl in the topmost photo: Take off your damn headphones.  The whole point of running outside is to experience the sights, fragrances and sounds of nature.

Prof  Mitchell’s final advice to “policy makers” could, I think, profitably be supplemented by a further recommendation that all of these individuals be removed forthwith from their city sanctuaries and banished to the deep forests for their and our mutual benefit.  As is the rule at my daughter’s summer camp, No Electronics Allowed.   Silence is golden.

 

The Tremeloes: Silence Is Golden (Link)

Sittin' On My Sofa (Happy Birthday Ray Davies)

All alone, sitting on my sofa,
Oh, oh, oh, sitting on my sofa,
Sipping at my soda,
Sitting on my sofa.

You got all your friends,
I got a TV set.
You got your cars,
And this boy's never had anything.

Now I'm stuck here, sitting on my sofa,
Oh, oh, oh, sitting on my sofa,
Sipping at my soda,
Sitting on my sofa.


The Kinks:  Sittin' On My Sofa (Link)

Song/recording details: Recorded December 29-30, 1965 at Pye Studios (No. 2), London; 3-track mixed to mono; Writers:  R. Davies/D. Davies; Personnel:  Ray Davies (lead vocal, acoustic guitar); Dave Davies (electric guitar, backing vocal); Pete Quaife (bass guitar); Mick Avory (drums); Nicky Hopkins (piano); Shel Talmy (producer); Alan MacKenzie (engineer).

 


Note:  From the very first time I heard it a very long time ago, I've loved Sittin' On My Sofa.

It's just a great, great Kinks song featuring the original band, plus the extraordinary Nicky Hopkins on piano, in top form.

Happy birthday, Ray.  Phone Dave.

Ray Davies backstage somewhere in 1965 or 1966 pictured with members of The Liverbirds (Mary McGlory, bass player, far left and Pamela Birch, guitarist-vocalist, blonde bouffant and mascara, center). Dave Davies is in the background on the right.  Photo: Bernd Owsnicki.

READY FOR SUMMER: RED CURRANT WATER (FROM JANE GRIGSON'S FRUIT BOOK)

 

Red Currant Water

A refreshing drink on a hot day.  Processor liquidize ½ kg (1 lb) red currants with ½ litre of water, adding 2 good tablespoons (3 tbs) of sugar.  Put through a sieve, pressing on the pulp but not putting too much through.  Taste and add extra sugar if you like:  the flavour should be strong.   Store in the refrigerator.  Serve with ice cubes and soda water, adding gin or vodka if you like, as a cooling long drink.


    Why we do not make more of these waters in the summer I do not know:  cherry water and raspberry water do very well, especially if you add red currants to the fruit to sharpen it.  The thing is to drink them fresh, within a couple of days.  They can be stored in the freezer for longer periods , of course, but they take up quite a lot of room – if you have this in mind, reduce the quantity of water in the recipe.


From Jane Grigson's Fruit Book.  London, Penguin, 1982.  

Just for the record, this is ACravan Blogpost # 1,000!  Happy First Day Of Summer!

Why I Choose Red -- Hugh MacDiarmid

I fight in red for the same reasons
That Garibaldi chose the red shirt

      -- Because a few men in a field wearing red

Look like many men  -- if there are ten you will think
There are a hundred; if a hundred
You will believe them a thousand.
And the colour of red dances in the enemy's rifle sights
And his aim will be bad – But, best reason of all,
A man in a red shirt can neither hide nor retreat.

Astonishing

“The day following (26 November) was the day of days, the most wonderful I have ever lived through, and certainly one whose like I can never hope to see again.  Throughout the morning the work of clearing continued, slowly perforce, on account of the delicate objects that were mixed with the filling.  Then, in the middle of the afternoon, thirty feet down from the outer door, we came upon a second sealed doorway, almost an exact replica of the first.  The seal impressions in this case were less distinct, but still recognizable as those of Tutankhamen and of the royal necropolis.  Here again the signs of opening and re-closing were clearly marked upon the plaster.  We were firmly convinced by this time that it was a cache that we were about to open, and not a tomb.  The arrangement of stairway, entrance passage and doors reminded us very forcibly of the cache of Akhenaten and Tyi material found in the very near vicinity of the present excavation by Davis, and the fact that Tutankhamen’s seals occurred there likewise seemed almost certain proof that we were right in our conjecture.  We were soon to know.  There lay the sealed doorway, and behind it was the answer to our question.

    Slowly, desperately slowly it seemed to us as we watched, the remains of passage debris that encumbered the lower part of the doorway was removed, until at last we had the whole door clear before us.  The decisive moment had arrived.  With trembling hands I made a tiny breach in the upper left-hand corner.  Darkness and blank space, as far as an iron testing-rod could reach, showed us whatever lay beyond was empty, and not filled like the passage we had just cleared.  Candle tests were applied as a caution against possible foul gases, and then, widening the hole a little, I inserted a candle and peered in,  Lord Carnavon, Lady Evelyn and Callender standing anxiously beside me to hear the verdict.  At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold – everywhere the glint of gold.  For the moment – an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by – I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnavon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, “Can you see anything?” it was all I could do to get out the words, “Yes, wonderful things.”  Then, widening the hole a little further, so that we both could see, we inserted an electric torch.”


Howard Carter, The Tomb of Tutankhamen.  New York, E.P. Dutton, 1972.

 

NOTE:  


Pretty amazing, isn’t it?  


My interest in Howard Carter’s 1922 discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb was rekindled by Jane’s recent history project concerning the changes in ancient Egyptian religion that occurred during the reigns of Tutankhamen and his predecessor pharaoh, Akhenaten. Sliding Carter’s papyrus from its assigned shelf locus (we follow the Library of Alexandria system here) after 20 years' dust-gathering revealed this word-and-picture treasure.

Re-reading Carter also revived dormant childhood memories of visiting a crypt-like space in the Metropolitan Museum’s Egypt gallery and watching a scratchy black-and-white film with a muffled soundtrack detailing Carter’s discovery.  The room itself was supposed to simulate a crypt and contained at least a few sarcophagi whose staring empty eyes seemed fixed on you as and after you left the chamber.

Mummies and Egyptian things used to disturb me a great deal growing up.  This was largely because I was compelled by a friend's older brother to watch Karl Freund's The Mummy featuring Boris Karloff on television one evening when our respective parents were having dinner at a local restaurant.  He was a tall, scary kid who literally shut his sister and me in a crypt-like den and refused to let us leave. The experience terrified and horrified me and left a scar.  In today’s world, I expect we would have reported him to the police. 

A lthough I’m doing better today, I still would not watch The Mummy again if my life depended on it.  Karloff’s sad creature returns to haunt me in waking dreams all the time, but my actual night dreams are much more acutely adult and painful.  Last night in one of them my car (the old sports car that’s been costing us so much money, causing arguments) was stolen in a Manhattan neighborhood I didn’t recognize and struggled hopelessly to identify.  My dream devastation and breakdown preceded  a cinema “dissolve” cueing an extended forlorn city-wandering sequence.  It reminded me of Edvard Munch’s The Scream, silent and terrifying.

Eventually, in art history graduate school, I reconciled to Egypt. My discipline, Islamic Art, shared a library and study space with the school’s Egyptologists, a pleasant and hermetic group of bearded men who were only interested in their field and nothing else. Browsing through their enormous, heavy hieroglyphic dictionaries was an exceptional way to pass the time.  My car is doing fine, by the way.  It's in the garage where it’s meant to be.   I just checked.

Greek Election Day Special: Kolyva On The Menu

Standing nervously on top of a tall ladder yesterday and worrying even more than I usually do, I doubled down (as they say all the time on the news these days) on fear and thought about today’s elections in Greece, which seem to affect so much and so many.  


I mean, it’s really serious business and, although all the media coverage in the world can’t seem to pull any logical thread through the events there, which have been unfolding for so long now, the Repertory Theater of the Unsound Mind that is CNBC (standing in here for all of the media business news outlets) seems continually to be revolving through cycles of Greek Tragedy and Greek Comedy, adding only occasionally some Greek History to the mix. 

Seeking safer harbor and anchorage in the birthplace of Western Civilization, from my ladder perch (I was changing light bulbs in a crystal chandelier) I pondered for several minutes the significance of Kolyva, Greece’s “cycle of life” dessert that is traditionally served at funerals and at Lent.

In her Fruit Book, in the chapter on Pomegranates, Jane Grigson writes memorably about her first encounter with Kolyva in Cyprus:


“We had gone one day to the easternmost tip and promontory of the island to stand on the high site of Aphrodite’s shrine, and look across to Syria, where she had come from.  The road went through a monastery courtyard.  In the morning it was empty.  In the late afternoon, it was full of families, spending the day in little cells. People rushed about, women carried their best bowls carefully and we saw they were full of wheat, decorated with silver bits and pieces and pomegranate seeds.   

Later on, I discovered this special dish is called Kolyva, and its ingredients have a special meaning.  It is made for funerals, and I think that the Sunday we were there was the Greek Orthodox Easter, when the hopelessness of Lent turns to joy, the darkness of Good Friday becomes the Resurrection.  In this dish, said to be a pre-Christian ceremonial dish, wheat stands for everlasting life, raisins and nuts for joy and sweetness, pomegranate seeds for plenty and fertility.  The day ended in another church, with candles, everyone giving us candles, everyone lighting their candles from their neighbors’.  As we drove home in the twilight, we passed other churches with their doors open and more candles burning inside. A greeting for Persephone on her return?”

Here is Jane Grigson’s recipe for Kolyva, an ancient dish connoting austerity, darkness-before-the-light and, one sincerely hopes, rebirth:

½ kg (1 lb) whole wheat, soaked overnight
½ teaspoon salt
300 g (10 oz/2 ½ cups) white flour
125 g ( 4 ½ oz/ 2/3 cup) sultanas
1 tablespoon (2tbs) cumin seeds
1 tablespoon (2 tbs) ground cinnamon
60-75 g (2-3 oz/1/4 – 1/3 cup) sugar
250 g (8 oz/2 cups) walnuts, finely chopped
1 tablespooon (2tbs) chopped parsley (optional)
icing sugar
blanched almonds
silver dragees and balls
seeds from one or two pomegranates

Drain the wheat, then put in a pan and cover generously with water.  Simmer until wheat is soft, about two hours, add the salt and simmer for another minute or two.  Spread on a cloth to dry.  Brown the flour carefully and slowly in a heavy pan over a low heat until it is golden.  Take care not to burn it. Mix half the flour with the wheat, add sultanas, spices and sugar.  Spread into a large shallow bowl, making the top flat.  Mix walnuts and parsley and spread evenly over the top, then cover with the remaining flour.

     Sift icing sugar over the top, pressing it down with a spatula or waxed paper.  Decorate with almonds, silver dragees and balls, and the pomegranate seeds.  At a funeral, there would be a silver cross in the centre, the initials in almonds on either side, and decorative borders of pomegranate seeds and the almonds and silver things.

See you (for ouzo on Mykonos) after the election.

NEVER SORRY

BEIJING (AP).- Artist Ai Weiwei has again criticized China's leaders as lacking vision and refusing to permit dissenting voices, saying the government's mantra of maintaining stability is merely a ruse to protect illicit benefits and special interests. The country's best known international artist said he would continue to fight for human rights and freedom of expression in a videotaped message posted Monday on YouTube, which is blocked in China. He said that the form of limited house arrest under which he has lived for months is punishment for his activism. "Freedom of expression is a very essential condition for me to make any art. Also, it is an essential value for my life. I have to protect this right and also to fight for the possibility," Ai said in the message that was shown at an event in Basel, Switzerland, late Sunday. The event was organized by Germany-based Cinema for Peace Foundation and also saw the screening of Alison Klayman's documentary "Ai Weiwei Never Sorry." 

Chinese authorities view Ai as a troublemaker. They detained him for three months last year and his design company was ordered to pay 15 million yuan ($2.4 million) in back taxes and fines. He is appealing. Since then, he has been refused permission to travel and is under constant surveillance, although he still frequently criticizes the government on Twitter, another website that is blocked in China but accessible to tech-savvy citizens. 

Ai said self-interest is China's only political ideology and the "people in office just try to maintain so-called stability to protect their own profit, or their own interest. They have to crush other voices. There's no real communication or discussion." The Internet can help boost transparency, while art can stir critical thinking, he said. "I think art is a very important weapon to achieve human freedom," Ai said. Ai's detention has only burnished his fame and his handmade porcelain "Sunflower Seeds" sold at auction last month for $782,500, a record for the artist.  

NOTE:  Although I remain of two minds about Ai Weiwei's art, which sometimes seems derivative, decorative (not necessarily a bad thing; not necessarily a good thing) and overly decorous, reading his words in defense of art and and artistic and human freedom is uplifting and makes me admire the man enormously.  I believe I'm beginning to warm to the "Sunflower Seeds,” although I'm not usually inspired by allegory or one-note explanation-key symbolism.  

Still, Ralph Shikes' The Indignant Eye, The Artist As Social Critic In Prints And Drawings From The Fifteenth Century To Picasso, has always been a touchstone for me and I think Ai Weiwei's work would deserve to be included what would be a long-overdue new edition of that classic study of political and socially conscious art.   

I hope I have an opportunity to see Alison Klayman's documentary "Ai Weiwei Never Sorry" very soon and that Ai Weiwei's words and art-actions have a salutary effect on China and the rest of the world.