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It can be particularly restorative for cancer survivors.<br>A recent review of the evidence found that exposure to nature has many benefits for cancer survivors. It can enhance the quality of life for breast cancer survivors, increase the ability of survivors to concentrate their attention (attentional fatigue is common in this group), provide a source of self-esteem and belonging for children and adolescent cancer survivors, and reduce state-anxiety (with the “state” being “recent survivor of cancer”). Although the review wasn’t centered specifically on camping, camping is the most user-friendly way to immerse oneself in nature for an extended period of time and the results should apply here.<br><br>It’s a short-cut to mindfulness.<br>If you’re anything like me, formal meditation doesn’t work. I can sometimes do guided meditations, but even then sitting still gets tough. And quite often I’ll just fall asleep, which is fine but not the point. Many people find that “forced” meditation works far better than free meditation, where instead of sitting and paying attention to breath or a mantra or whatever, you do something that necessitates mindfulness. To me and millions of others, camping is one such thing. When you camp, you have to be there. I already mentioned the lack of connectivity to social media and the phone. That’s a big reason it helps center the awareness. But there’s also the stillness of the outdoors. You’re not contending with car horns or alarms and that couple fighting next door and cat fights at night and the din of traffic and general urbanity. You’re hearing the buzz of insects, the song of a bird, the crackle of the fire. These are qualitatively different sounds. Rather than interrupt, they raise awareness. They don’t intrude, they enrapture. They bring attention to the present moment. And when night falls and you all sit around that circle, the campfire becomes your entire world.<br><br>It enforces a healthy bed time.<br>How many of you stay up late despite reading all the studies and all the posts that stress the utter importance of a good night’s sleep? Heck, I write the things and I still stay up too late sometimes. Camping takes care of that for you by resetting your circadian rhythm.<br><br>It’s going back home.<br>Leaving concrete and cell phone towers and suburbs and traffic-choked roads and jobs behind to hang out in the woods for a few days isn’t just eliminating a source of stress; it’s returning to our ancestral ecosystem. And once you get over the bugs and the dust, and you get your tent set up and figure out a way to live with the mosquitoes, it really does feel like home.
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