Stressed - take a green walk

Insights from the leadership planet by Eve and Eli

2024 is soon coming to an end. Often a lot of things need to be finalized before Christmas (work wise as well as in our private lives). Everything needs to be done near to perfect, and the clock is ticking. It can become a very stressful period.

When we get stressed, it impacts the part of our brain called the Amygdala – one of the oldest parts of the brain which plays a big role in processing emotions, especially fear, threats and stress. Acute stress triggers and increases Amygdala activity. This enhances the brain’s ability to detect potential dangers and initiate a fight-or-flight response. This is of course very helpful in immediate survival situations, but not necessarily in our day-to-day life. Chronic stress can lead to an overactive Amygdala, making you more sensitive to perceived threats and prone to anxiety, can lead to difficulties to focus and sleep.

So how can we help to calm down the activity level in our Amygdala?

An interesting experience is taking place in a laboratory at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin, where the brain researcher Sonja Sudimac is scanning the brains of a group of 63 individuals to investigate what happens in their amygdala, the part of the brain that is supposed to warn us of dangers, when they are in different environments. One thing that is researched is what happens in our brain if we take a walk. Taking a walk is of course good - we get out and we get some exercise. But taking an hour's walk in an urban environment led to continued high activity in an already stressed amygdala. After an hour's walk in the forest, the activity in the amygdala had decreased significantly.

So, when you are stressed try to fit in a walk but make sure to use the power of the green areas. You are not always close to a forest but perhaps you have a green park nearby where you can give your brain a chance to calm down and re-charge.

Make sure to take care of yourself and your brain so that you can fully enjoy the coming Christmas break.

More to come from Insights from the Leadership Planet by Eve and Eli