This is Your Brain On Nature with Dr. David Strayer

About this episode

Dr. David Strayer discusses the neuroscience of nature connection and its effects on attention and cognition.

When I first delved into nature research, it wasn’t long before I came across the name, Dr. David Strayer, our guest today on the latest episode of Nature Junkie Radio. What stood out to me was that his curiosity to understand the neuroscience of nature connection was informed by his direct experiences while river rafting, deeply immersed in nature. He felt what Edward Abbey felt in Desert Solitaire , but then he took it to the next level to help us understand the science of our brains on nature. Dr. Strayer is a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Utah and part of a group of scientists in the emerging field of environmental neuroscience. He’s published numerous papers on how nature affects our attention, cognition, and creativity, but he doesn’t take the typical approach. Many of Dr. Strayer’s studies are actually conducted in the wild, which is much harder than you think.  Dr. Strayer joined me from a place near the water in Port Townsend Washington while I was at home in San Diego. We talked about the white water rafting experiences that drove his scientific curiosity about nature, overcoming the challenges of the early days of doing research in the wild…

People in this episode

Host: Jeff Johnson

Guest: Dr. David Strayer

Topics covered

• neuroscience
• nature connection
• cognitive science
• environmental neuroscience
• Attention Restoration Theory
• Stress Recovery Theory
• forest bathing

Keywords

• nature research
• cognitive neuroscience
• river rafting
• 3-day effect
• virtual reality nature
• fractal patterns
• wild research

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Utah

Places: Port Townsend Washington, San Diego

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