Thank you for joining us for episode 373 of Live Happy Now.

It's summertime, and if you're listening to this indoors, it's going to make you want to step outside.

I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and this week I'm talking with Laura Allen and Courtney Crimm about the power of connecting with nature.

Laura is a professor, and Courtney is an associate professor at Trinity University in San Antonio,

Texas. Together, they developed a course called the Natural Environment and Well-Being,

and they're here today to talk about why it's so important to get outside every day

and what nature is doing for your mind,

body, and spirit. Laura and Courtney, welcome to Live Happy Now.

Hi, thanks for having us. Yes, thank you. Glad to be here.

This is such an excellent topic, and that's something that I had really wanted to address.

You know, we've talked about this before, a little bit about nature and the

power of getting out in it, but it's rare for us to be able to talk to people who are such experts

in nature and getting outside. And so before we really jump into what that does for us, can you tell

me what made you decide to start studying both the power and the benefits of the natural

environment? Well, we both teach child development and we've noticed over the years the changes

in the levels of stress, anxiety, depression, suicide, all things that are concerning in our

students. So the ages of emerging adulthood, which is a new stage that most

people in Western cultures go through, it's defined as ages 18 through 25. We also know that

is a key window for the onset of mental disorders, such as anxiety and depression and

psychosis and substance abuse. So the combination of those things

concerned us. Plus, Courtney and I both have children who are emerging adults. So we saw some parallels

there. And then we connected with some research. We found the book, I think it was 2017-ish,

...