When you look up from your screen, can you see a tree? A plant on your desk? Anything living besides other people? Can you open a window and take a long, deep breath of fresh air?
If the answer is no—if you spend most days breathing recycled air from a ventilation system and walking on concrete—you may be experiencing a kind of nature deficit. Over time, that deficit can leave life feeling more stressed, less joyful, and strangely flat.
We’re living through the largest wave of urbanization in human history. More than half of the world’s population now lives in cities, and for Americans the number is even higher. Many of us spend close to 90% of our time indoors, often in front of screens. It’s a dramatic shift from the way humans lived for most of our evolutionary history.
Author Richard Louv calls this “nature-deficit disorder.” As he puts it, we can’t expect to suddenly divorce ourselves from the natural world without repercussions.
