The Healing Power of Outdoors

I'm AJ Hogue, the author of Effortless English. Learn to speak English like a native. That means speak effortlessly. Effortlessly. Where does the word effortless English come from?

It means that speaking English feels effortless. The words come out. You're just communicating. You're just focusing on the ideas. You're focusing on communication.

You're not thinking about grammar rules. You're not thinking about vocabulary. It's all very effortless, relaxed, and natural. Fluent, which is true fluency.

True fluency. That's what effortless English gives you. And you're doing a good thing by listening to this podcast. Because this natural English input, listening to English like this, again and again and again, as much as you can every day, is the foundation.

This is what you missed in school, most likely. Because in school, you may have listened to the teacher talk about English a lot. describing the grammar, describing the sentence structures, describing patterns, but you probably didn't listen to a lot of just natural English, talking, chatting, conversations, audiobooks, you know, videos, etc.

But that's what you need. That is the foundation of There are some other things that can also be helpful. That's why I have my mini story lessons, my point of view story lessons, which teach you grammar, but grammar in a natural way, an intuitive way.

So you don't have to think about the grammar. The grammar is automatic. You use correct grammar automatically. This is what you need for that effortless English, that fluent, natural language.

speaking and understanding too, that instant effortless understanding. Now that's not actually today's topic. The topic I want to talk about today is outdoors. A bit connected to the topic about, you know, people who are going through a very hard, tough time

I mentioned that terrible story about the girl who killed herself, live-streamed her suicide. Horrible. There are just a lot of people that suffer depression and whatever other names you want to give it.

Lots and lots and lots and lots of people suffering. and going through tough times. Now, sometimes, you know, there's certain things that are so extreme, you know, it's hard for me to give you advice. I mean, if you're living in the middle of a war zone, I don't know what to tell you.

You know, that's obviously extreme, and it's beyond your control. If you can get out, get out. But the vast majority of people in the world who, you know, who...

either commit suicide or just fall into deep depression or just get stuck year after year after year after year being very unhappy and unsatisfied. And most of all, the feeling of having no purpose, no meaning in your life.

There are people who have gone through tremendous pain difficulty and suffering. But if they had a strong feeling that the suffering was for a purpose, that it had meaning, they got through it. They could get through it.

And you can read about this. You can read their stories. Many people go through terrible things, write books, and you'll see this is a common thing that they will talk about.

They had something that gave that suffering... or just gave their life in general, meaning and purpose. Now today I'd like to give you something very, very, very simple. If you're in a dark time and very depressed, or, you know, if you're just like a nothing so extreme.

It could just be where you just feel kind of low energy. You just feel like, oh yeah, maybe the last few months. Maybe if you're in the northern hemisphere, it's been winter and you just kind of, you feel kind of blah, low energy, maybe a little down, a little unmotivated.

That's common. We all go through times like that. And the simplest magic... remedy, magic solution I can give you, the simplest of all, there's nothing simpler I can think of, okay?

And that is this. Get outside for many hours every day, several hours, as many hours as you can every single day, outdoors, outdoors, Not in your apartment. Not in your house.

Not in an office. Not inside a restaurant. Not inside a shop or a mall. Outside, in the air, under the sun. Whatever the weather. This is a magical...

super healing I don't know what you want to call it magic bullet it's a phrase in English magic bullet something that solves a problem one thing one simple thing that completely solves a problem I won't say it completely will solve your problems if you have real deep problems in life but this will change your mood and it will usually lift you out of depression and

bring up your mental, physical, emotional, and even spiritual energy. Spend several hours every day outdoors. The more, the better. The more you can spend outside, the better you're going to feel.

And that's it. It is some kind of amazing superpower. Now, you know, I've Read various opinions and so-called scientific ideas or theories about all the different reasons why being outdoors does cause.

heal depression, heal low energy, energize you, motivate you, improves mood, all of these things. One thing is natural light. The artificial light, the various light bulbs, the kinds of light we have indoors, they're not natural. In fact, our brains need that natural sunlight and that

our bodies and our brains and our biology, our physical chemistry in our body, reacts to natural sunlight in very positive ways. And there's really kind of two specific kinds of natural, or two times, I should say, for natural sunlight that seem to be powerful according to, you know, the various studies and research.

Are they true or not? I don't know about the research, but I can just tell you from experience, it's powerful and it will help you. Number one is sunrise and sunset, that kind of orange-red kind of light that you get in the early morning or in the evening as the sun's going down, tends to have a relaxing, a positive, relaxing effect on us, especially when you do it every day.

It actually lowers your stress, the stress levels in your body, the stress hormones like cortisol in your body when you watch the sunrise and the sunset. And, you know, I noticed this effect when we were living in Hawaii because when we were in Hawaii, we would almost every evening, we would go to the beach and watch the sunset and

Just kind of a thing people do in Hawaii. It's entertainment, I guess. But it's really nice, right? So you go to the beach, and Hawaii always has perfect weather.

And you're getting negative ions from the ocean breeze. That's another benefit. Take your shoes off. You're connected to the ground, right? That has various positive effects, too.

Just being barefoot on the ground. And then watching that sunset, you know, so just watching it go down and the light kind of turning to orange and then more and more and more red and then going down and, you know, often very beautiful colors and, you know, always felt so relaxed and peaceful, low stress doing that.

So I try to do it here. We try to do it. We don't do it all the time. We get busy with the kids, but we try to go out and watch the sunset. at least a few times a week.

You can do some things inside your house where you want to get a little bit more, most artificial lights, especially those tube lights, those fluorescent lights that are really unhealthy for us. That kind of light is so unnatural, like the kind that you'll see in offices and hospitals, schools, that it, Some people, it can cause them headaches. Just the frequency and the kind of light from those industrial artificial lights is actually unhealthy and can contribute to being in a bad mood, feeling low energy, and feeling stressed.

And some people are more sensitive than others. Some people can be quite sensitive to this. So this is one of the reasons, one of the many reasons of being outdoors, you know, a lot each day, getting that natural sunlight. Because the second kind of sunlight that is good for you is that bright, bright sun that you get during the middle of the day.

And that is the light that stimulates your brain to wake up and be active and be energized. Right? but in a positive way, not with stress, but just that kind of calm, energized feeling.

And when you get a lot of that in your eyes, you don't look at the sun directly, but it's going to get in your eyes and you're just outdoors a lot. This also triggers all kinds of and causes all kinds of changes in your brain chemistry, positive changes.

And the effect is you feel happier. You feel less stressed. You feel less depressed, more calm, more relaxed, more happy, more energized. There are also, of course, positive effects from just breathing in.

You know, the... Yeah. The oxygen level in the house actually goes down. We're breathing the oxygen, but the room or the building is so sealed up that the air's not moving through enough.

So we're not getting enough fresh air, and this can also put us into that low-energy feeling. I know if I'm indoors most of the day, because occasionally there'll be days where I'll just be indoors a lot, especially in the winter,

I can just feel. I just feel less energetic. Right? And of course, we tend to be sitting on our butts a lot, too, when we're inside. This is another issue.

It can be another problem. But I think the air quality is a big issue, too. And so just being outdoors, even when you're in a city, and maybe it's a little bit polluted, but there's still a higher level of oxygen when you're outdoors in the open air that is also energizing and

leads to a better mood. The ultimate version of this for me, where I experienced this the most powerfully two times, were when I did two pilgrimages. One was the Shikoku 88 pilgrimage, which is a Buddhist...

Pilgrimage in Japan. It's a little over a month of walking every day. And you walk on the island of Shikoku. It's one of the Japanese islands. One of the big ones.

One of the four main ones. And you start at Temple No. 1, and there are 88 temples. That's why it's called Shikoku 88. You start at Temple 1, and then you basically walk around the...

It's a big, big island. You walk around Shikoku... clockwise and you each the temples are numbered and you go from temple one and then when you're at the you know 40 days later or however long it takes you you finally reach temple number 88 and then the other walking pilgrimage I've done was the Camino de Santiago which many of you probably know about and I mean really the

the Camino de Santiago can start in many different places, but the most popular one is called the Camino Francaise, Francaise meaning French, and, uh, starts just over the border, just on the border, inside France, in a little town called Saint-Jean-de-Pied, I believe it is, Pied, and, uh, And then you walk up and over the Pyrenees Mountains and you cross into Spain on the first day. And then the rest of the time you're walking across northern Spain to the town of Santiago.

This is a very old pilgrimage. Both of these are quite old. The Chicoco 88, I can't remember the date, but it's very, very old. You know, centuries and centuries and centuries.

And so is the Camino de Santiago. And everyone I've known, every single person I met personally, who did either of those pilgrimages, have said that it healed them mentally, emotionally, oftentimes physically, and even spiritually.

That they may have started off maybe with some serious pain problems or not feeling very good or maybe you know quite depressed but by the end of it a month later nobody's depressed the only reason they're depressed they're just sad because it's over and they don't they don't want it to end so it has this these pilgrimages have these reputations deserved reputations for healing for healing people And I believe, of course, there are spiritual elements to this too, but I believe the number one thing, because people do these for all different reasons.

Some people walk, for example, the Camino de Santiago because they are devout Catholics and they are doing it for purely religious reasons to visit the churches along the way and to get to Santiago, which has the relics of St. James.

And it's a very, very, very specifically religious experience. But that is, I'd say, the minority nowadays. Of course, that used to be, that was in the past, the reason almost everybody did it. But nowadays, you know, the people I met when we did it, I would say most were not doing it for that reason.

Most were not Catholic. Many, many, many, not even Christian Christians. certainly not devout Christians. So people did it for all kinds of different reasons.

But there was always an element, I think, of healing or rejuvenation. Maybe they're just struggling with things in their life and they just want the time to think about their life.

No, no, it's different for everybody. But I think just being outdoors, because the thing these two pilgrimages share is that you are outdoors, walking outdoors, all day, every day, for over a month.

You know, the average day is probably, it's hard to say, some people go slower, some people faster, but I... Almost everyone I met did at least, at least six hours a day of walking. At least six.

And so six hours of walking and then another, maybe after that, maybe another, you know, hour or two of breaks in between. So six plus, you know, very common to do eight hours a day walking each day during breakfast.

these pilgrimages. So, you know, you get up early and put on your backpack and then you're outdoors. You're outside and it does not matter what the weather is.

If it's raining, well, you get an umbrella or put on your rain gear and you walk in the rain and you're outdoors in the rain. If it's cold, well, you dress more warmly. If it's hot, well...

You should do your best to deal with the heat, but you're outdoors in the fresh air, under the sun, most of the day. And many times, especially the Camino, especially for the Camino, the one in France, I mean, the one in Spain, they have a lot of little cafes that you can stop at for lunch or

Or for snacks. And they have outdoor seating. So even when you're stopping to get lunch or to grab a coffee or a little snack or something, there's often...

There are often tables on the sidewalk or outdoors. So even when you're eating, you're sitting outside. So you're spending most of the day, most of the sunlight, daylight...

part of the day outdoors and this just has I know for me it did it's the thing I love the most there are many other things I love about these pilgrimages there are great social things about it because you meet a lot of interesting people and they're also sharing this experience with you and so it's quite both these pilgrimages are quite enjoyable socially my friend Joe

that I did the Camino de Santiago with. He loved that. He's such a social guy. He loved, loved, loved that part of it. Especially, I liked it too, but he particularly loved the social parts.

There's a spiritual element. They're both religious elements. So if you have any kind of spiritual or religious life or beliefs, then often you'll find spiritual benefits to doing these kind of pilgrimages.

So lots of benefits. But I think the most basic one, the one that I felt just... had such a strong effect on me. And the one I miss the most is just walking outdoors all day, every day.

I mean, it's wonderful. Wonderful. It's almost impossible to be depressed doing that. It's very difficult. I guess if you walk, some people walked a little too fast or they carried their backpacks were too heavy.

And then, you know, I mean, they got blisters, you know, so they're physically suffering. I guess some people struggled with those kind of issues. But as long as they slowed down and took care of their feet, you know, everyone I know talked about how they love that.

And one of the most depressing things is then to go back to finish it and then to go back to being indoors, especially people who have office jobs. I've always, always, always despised, hated with a passion office jobs.

Hate them. As a very young man, like, you know, 19 years old, I had an office job as an intern during the summer at IBM, the computer company. Oh, my God, it's one of the jobs I hate the most, that I have the worst memories. And it's just being stuck in that office with those fluorescent lights.

Just, you know, no windows. It was like a prison cell. I hated it. There's such great power being outdoors. Now, of course, if you can get in a natural environment outdoors, if you live out in the countryside with lots of trees and wildlife and animals and it's beautiful, well, that's great.

That's awesome. But even if you're in the city, it can still be very therapeutic. Therapeutic meaning like healing. Like if you're... It will boost your mood.

And if you combine it with walking, walking is such a great, great exercise that nearly anybody can do. Even if you have a wheelchair, you can wheel around in your wheelchair. So I guess there are a few people who can't do this, but most people can walk. And so you combine walking with outdoors and you get this tremendous benefit.

And especially the more you do it. And this is where, you know, you want to do hours, ideally, especially if you're struggling, if you're having a hard time in your life for some reason, or if you're just not feeling that good, if you're a little bit sick physically, if you're just mentally not feeling great, emotionally not feeling great, if you're going through a breakup or some crisis in your life, if you need, you know, if it's If it's hard not to worry about it, if it's hard not to think about it, well, at least go outside and walk and think about it. Don't sit in your house with your doors and windows closed and thinking about it and thinking about it and thinking about the terrible situation because that's going to make you feel horrible.

Go outdoors and Go outside and go for long, long, long, long walks for several hours. And, you know, go ahead. It's hard not to. If you're worrying about something, if you're thinking about something, if you're sad about something, go ahead and be sad about it.

Think about it. Worry about it. But do it outside. Do it outside while you're walking. And in this way, you will find, try it, I think you'll find, that it's healing.

It will help you heal yourself. It will help you get through the crisis with less stress or get past it and heal and move on much more easily. As I said, so many people do these pilgrimages, the Kamino or Shikoku or something like that, for that exact reason, as a way of healing people.

And people, too, with physical problems have been healed from quite serious physical problems, even in some cases, and diseases and things. And just that process of being outdoors all day. And, of course, walking is great because you get more oxygen in your body. Your blood's moving.

It's great for your body. It's a great gentle but powerful form of exercise. So you combine the two, and now you've got a superpower. And of course, learning English, this is why I always say, get outside, go for a walk, and then put on your headphones and listen to effortless English.

It will improve your learning. You'll learn faster. You'll improve faster. You'll get more benefit and faster benefit from my lessons, from my courses, when you do them in this way.

You can't fall asleep when you're walking outdoors, right? I know some people, they try to sit at a desk, sit at a table, sit at a couch, and then listen to the English lessons. And then, oh, I get tired, I get sleepy. Well, yeah, you're sitting on your butt inside.

Of course you will. Put the lessons on your iPod or phone or whatever. Put on some headphones and then get outdoors. Go outside and walk for a very long walk.

And while you're walking, listen to my lessons. And then you can do two hours a day, three hours a day of listening to English and also be walking and also be outdoors. You're stimulating your brain.

You're energizing your body. It's fantastic. And you can do this in a city. I used to do this in a city. So even if you're not doing the Camino de Santiago, you can do it in a city.

I lived in Bangkok when I lived in Bangkok. I used to go for long, long, long, long walks just exploring the city. And I would not take a taxi sometimes. I would just walk from where...

I was living in an area called Tongbri, which is across the big river. I'd walk across the bridge and I'd walk all the way into downtown, which would take me, you know, an hour, hour and a half, two hours sometimes.

And then if I was tired, maybe I would take a bus or a taxi back home or sometimes I would walk all the way back. And I would do this in Osaka too when we were living in Osaka. We lived on the kind of more outer edge of Osaka and I would walk into downtown an hour or more and then walk back.

It always felt great. And then, you know, actually cities are very nice for doing this because you can just walk for hours and hours and explore a city. It's quite fun, quite enjoyable. Explore your city.

And then if you get tired or you get hungry, you can always stop at a coffee shop, stop at a grocery or convenience store, stop off at a park, take a break.

So get outside. Get outdoors. Get outdoors. Don't spend most of your time indoors. And especially if you have a job. If you have a job where you have to work inside, then when you come home, don't just sit inside again.

Oh, my God. So you sit indoors all day, eight, nine hours a day, and then come home and then just sit inside your house? Oh, you're not getting any natural sunlight. You're not getting any air.

You're like a... It's a feeling almost of claustrophobia. If you get used to it, maybe you don't notice it, but I promise. Start getting yourself outdoors, outside, every day, every day, for a long time, several hours.

And you'll find that your mood and your energy and everything increases. And just find ways to do it. Even sitting in a chair in your backyard, if you have to, if you have a backyard, or a little balcony or something, that's still better than being indoors all the time.

You know, ideally, I know it's hard, it depends on your life, but ideally, ideally, we should be outdoors more than we're indoors. And I'm not counting sleep time. But when we're awake...

ideally for me i try to do this i try to spend more time outside than inside and i don't always do it but i notice a difference like today i was outdoors most of the day today and i just feel better i feel happier my mood's better i had a you know a much better mood today my energy level was better everything i just feel better i just felt like i had a good day like a

and I was outside doing stuff in the garden, and I was outside playing with the kids, and I was outside just walking around a little bit, and I didn't spend too much time inside, and I'm outside right now talking to you, doing this little walk and talk, and I feel great. Now, the other day, was it yesterday or the day before, I was in, I kind of spent most of the day indoors, and

It was a little chilly and just, I don't know, I ended up getting stuck and it was inside. And when I'm inside, that's when it's easier to get on your phone and check social media. Or for me, I'll check business website stuff or just, you know, even just being stuck inside no matter what. I know it's just like I feel my energy level is lower when I'm indoors most of the day.

And therefore, my concentration is lower and my mood is not quite as good. I'm not in a bad mood every time I'm inside. But still, I'm in a better mood when I'm outdoors more.

And I think this is true for most people because it's just, it's powerful. And we live such artificial lives now, you know, so much of our lives are unnatural, disconnected, not connected to nature in any way.

You know, it's so easy now to, you know, of course, we sleep inside, closed up, and then to be indoors all morning and then, you know, get inside a car or a bus or a train. Once again, inside an artificial, unnatural environment, and then go work inside a building.

and then come home in a car bus or train or whatever, and then sit inside our house for the rest of the evening and then go to bed and spend only like a few minutes outside maybe. We're going from the house to the car or the station, the train station to the office, right? It's almost nothing.

Of course, if you can, try to get a job where you can work outdoors, even if you could. As I've said, too, I'll sometimes, you know, I work on the computer a lot, but I'll try to do it outdoors. I'll get a chair that's kind of like a plastic chair, and I'll just take it outside. And if the weather's not too bad, I'll just, you know, sit out in front of our cabin or house and just sit in the yard and do the work.

Instead of being inside. It makes a big difference. So one of the reasons I like doing these walk and talks. You'll notice even now I'm doing my YouTube videos.

A lot of times I'll be outside. It's a little tricky with the wind and the microphones and stuff. And sometimes the weather's bad. But I try to do it as much as I can now.

Mostly for me. I just feel better. I'm more energetic. I think I do a better job. when I'm outside, compared to if I'm inside trying to record or inside trying to work.

So that's a long talk about a very simple topic, but it is very powerful. Sometimes things that are so simple can really have a big, big effect, and we kind of don't think about it, right?

People maybe mention this, but I promise... The nice thing about doing this is that it doesn't require you. You don't need to try to change your thoughts. You don't need to try to change any other habits or do anything.

It will just have a very positive effect on your mind and your emotions without really trying to do anything else. Sometimes in life, when we're struggling and our energy is low, our motivation might be low,

We're just having a tough time for whatever reason, not feeling good. We need things that don't require a lot of willpower. So just getting outside, that's easy to do because there's many ways you can do it.

Right? I mean, if you're just going to sit indoors and look at your phone, well, it's better if you sit outside and look at your phone. Go to the nearest park and do it.

Looking at your phone for a long time, still not great, but it's better if you do it outside. I promise you'll notice a difference. You'll notice. And then you might actually not want to look at the phone as much because you might start feeling better and you're now out in a nice environment, a nicer environment, a more interesting environment.

and naturally your eyes are going to start looking around more. You're going to hear other sounds. This is also true in cities even, because you can people watch, you can look at all the different people going by, and there's more things to see as well outside compared to inside.

And even for the extreme example, someone who's almost suicidal, like super, super, super depressed, Do this. Be depressed, but do it outside. Be depressed, but do it outside.

For lots of hours every day. Be sad, be depressed, but not inside. That's the only change you got to make. That's the only little thing you got to make yourself do is, okay, I'm going to feel fine.

I'm going to feel bad. You don't have to do anything else. Don't have to change the way you eat. Don't have to change anything else in your life. You're just going to do it outside.

And this can shift you in a more positive direction. Start to improve your mood a little bit. Start to improve your energy a little bit. And then when you get a little more energy and a little better mood, then you're going to want to do other things too.

Then you might want to start walking more. That's the next thing you could do. Combine walking and outside. And then you get those two things going and you're going to start feeling better, start feeling more energized, and then you can start making other changes in your life.

Whether it's letting go of something that happened or making some new decisions in your life. And if you really want something to... that's big and powerful, you could do something dramatic, like go walk the Camino de Santiago.

I highly recommend it. I recommend it to everybody, even if you're not Christian or Catholic. I think that it's, because I'm not, and I had a wonderful time and got great benefits from the Camino de Santiago, so I think it's a wonderful experience. So if you can do it,

That's a great one. And if you've really been going through a hard time, maybe for a year or two or more, and you feel like, ah, I need something big. I need something that's going to make a significant change in my life. I need a break from what I'm dealing with every day.

Do it. Because the great thing about doing something like that, like doing the Camino, is that you'll start to get the benefits before you even go. Because if you're smart...

If you're smart, if you're going to do the Camino and you're smart, you'll train for it. You'll actually practice for it. Because if you're not used to walking six hours a day, seven hours a day, eight hours a day with a backpack with weight, well, you're probably going to need to get used to that.

You'll probably need three, four, five, six months at least to train and practice and get your body used to walking that much. And you say you'll be doing lots of walking in your hometown. That's what I did. I was living in Kyoto at the time before I did the Camino.

And I actually started doing running. I did a lot of running for my training for the Camino. But I did long, long runs. Longer than a marathon several times.

So I would go on long runs and long walks all over Kyoto. Really got to know Kyoto well. And I got a great benefit. I probably got just as much benefit during the six months of training.

Because it just got me outdoors, outdoors, even in the winter. A lot of times in the winter, you know, you kind of want to hide inside. But because I was trying to get ready for the Camino, we did the Camino in the spring. Like, oh, well, I got to keep training in the winter.

I can't do nothing. So I went on. I remember a couple long runs, like three-hour runs, something like that, that I did in Kyoto in the snow. And actually, really great experiences.

It's so beautiful. The snow coming down. And then once I got to downtown Kyoto area, you could see the mountains to the north. So all the snow is coming down.

I'm kind of running through the snow a bit. And I'm next to the river, the Kamo River. And then the mountains started peering up to the north of me. And I ran all the way to the north of the city.

And then turned around and came back again. Right. Really just beautiful, wonderful experience of it's a very beautiful city. And then running in the snow was kind of made it extra magical.

So the training for the event was also great because it got me outdoors a lot, even in the winter. And if you don't want to do the Camino de Santiago or the Chicoco 88, you could even do something like decide to do a half marathon or some hike. Maybe there's some trail or something you could do that's closer to you.

that you could do that would still require you to do some training because the training forces you to get outside, get outside. There's so many of them. You know, I know all through Europe, there's a lot of them. There's one I'd like to do called the, I think it's called the coast to coast, England coast to coast.

It's in the northern England, like the lake country. And you go across England, west to east, I think is what most people do. I don't think it's only like one week of hiking a week, maybe a little more.

But again, in a very beautiful area. So something like that would be great. And especially if you live in Europe, where it would be fairly easy to get to. You could do that.

I know Italy has a bunch of trails. I think Switzerland does. I'm sure Austria, all these, all through Europe, United States. We have a lot of more wilderness trails where you might need to do some camping, but there's some great ones.

And There's a few gigantic, epic, epic. I don't know if I'll ever do them. I kind of always had it in my mind. I wanted to do one of these trails. There's the Appalachian Trail, and there's the Pacific Coast Trail, and then there's one called the Continental Divide Trail.

And these are three trails that go south to north or north to south, basically across the entire United States. So these are big, major hikes. So I think the Appalachian Trail is the one that's the most popular, probably the easiest.

Still not easy, but it's the one that's the oldest, the most well-known. You start in Georgia, and you go all the way up to Maine, which is next to Canada.

And it takes people, depending how fast they are, four, five, six months to do that. And they're camping in tents the whole way. You've got to carry everything. Carry your food, carry your water, everything.

And it's through the Appalachian Mountains, which is why it's called the Appalachian Trail. And of course, there are a lot. You can do a little section of the Appalachian Trail I have. When I used to live in Georgia, I would hike little pieces of the Appalachian Trail.

So maybe just three, four, five days. So you can find things like this. And same in Japan, you know, there are smaller trails and all over. In Nepal, if you want to do some really amazing hiking, you can hike in the Himalayas, either in the foothills, the beginnings of the Himalayas, or you can get up there really high.

You could do something crazy like hike all the way to the base of Mount Everest or something. So the point being, when you choose an event like this, some kind of special thing, number one, that event can... gets you outdoors, gets you walking, and gives you a lot of great benefits.

But number two, just getting ready for the event will also give you tremendous benefits. There's the physical benefits of physically training. You'll be outdoors walking a lot just to get ready for the event.

And there's also a kind of an excitement that builds up. This is also good for your mood, especially if you're struggling and having a hard time and depressed or sad or getting over some tough thing that happened to you.

It's kind of nice to have something positive to look forward to. Ah, okay, I'm not so happy right now, but hey, you know, in six months, I'm going to go hike in Nepal. In six months, I'm going to do this trail in England. In six months, whatever it is, whatever it is.

It could be just in your country. And that gives you something to look forward to, right? Something positive, like you can read about it. You can get excited about it, right?

Gets you outside. Gives you a reason to get outside. Another reason. Another positive reason. You know, it's one of the fun, positive things to do. It builds up.

It's called anticipation in English. Anticipation is that thinking about something good in the future. Right? And feeling that feeling of excitement and happiness about something that's coming in the future.

Anticipation. Kids have this before Christmas. They anticipate. They're thinking. They're excited. They're thinking about getting presents. They're thinking about Christmas Day.

So there's all that anticipation. But that can be a great remedy, a great solution to depression or grief or low motivation as well. Right? I mean, again, using the extreme example of suicide, when you really think about why do people commit suicide, of course, they're suffering greatly in the moment.

But I think what you hear again and again and again from them in their letters or if they survive, they talk about it afterwards, is is that the feeling that it would never end, right? There's no anticipation for anything better. In fact, quite the opposite, no hope.

And so that anticipation for something positive, looking forward to something positive, it doesn't have to be, you know, something huge and giant and spiritual. That's great. But even something small like, oh, I've got this cool trip coming in six months.

that I'm going to go, you know, walk the Camino de Santiago or I'm going to go do whatever it is, whatever it is. You know, that little bit of positive anticipation can keep you going through very dark times and start the process, start lifting you out of it, moving you towards the light again, right?

And if you're not in deep depression, if you're just struggling a little bit, or just kind of, maybe you're just bored, you know, just kind of low energy, whatever, then something like that can be very, very, very positive. So I highly recommend, as well, in addition to just get outside, get outside, get outside every day, walk when you can, listen to effortless English lessons while you're walking outdoors every day, do it for two hours, three hours, or more if you can do it, if you have the time,

Even just sit outdoors a lot. In addition to that, plan some cool outdoor trip. It doesn't have to be tough physically, okay? It can be something that's physically fairly easy.

You can just find an easy trail that's kind of flat. It doesn't have to be anything. It doesn't have to be like a marathon, okay? But the key point is that it should be something outdoors, outdoors, outdoors, and something...

that for you is exciting, that gives you that anticipation. And if you're doing great and you're already doing all of this stuff, maybe you already do all this stuff yourself, but maybe you know somebody else in your life who's having a hard time.

And sometimes we don't know what to do to help somebody. And it's like, I don't know what to say. This is one way you can help them is just... I mean, of course, you could just give them advice and say, oh, get outdoors more, get outdoors more.

But that's just something you could do for them. Hey, come in there. I'm going to go for a walk. Let's go for a walk. Just get them out of their house.

Get them out of their house. If you know somebody who's depressed, who's struggling, just get them outdoors, okay? Just take them out somewhere. Take them to a park.

Take them to a restaurant where you can sit outside and eat. Not inside. Outside. Outside. Or if you really think they need help, like, you know, get them to agree to go on a trip with you.

Say, let's do the Camino de Santiago. Let's do England coast to coast. Let's do it. I found this cool trip. Let's do it. I mean, that's how I did the Camino.

My friend Joe just was talking to him on the phone. I wasn't depressed, but he just said, hey, let's do the Camino, right? Because he had researched about it.

And I just immediately said, all right, let's do it. I'm in. Let's do it. Boom. Instant decision. Let's do it. When do you want to go? Okay. So I think it's a great thing you could do for somebody who's depressed and struggling.

Instead of trying to give them therapy. And sometimes people aren't open to any of that. But if you could just get them outside... as much as possible that can be helpful in the short term and then maybe you do plan like a cool trip with them like that give them something exciting or you know a little bit of positive anticipation all right so outdoors outdoors outdoors it really is healing the sunlight's healing the air's healing the stimulation of all the things to see

Nature is healing. But even cities can be healing. As long as you're outside more. So get outdoors. Help other people get outdoors. And listen to my lessons outdoors whenever you can.

Walk and listen to my lessons. It's so much better than sitting on your butt inside. Listen to Power English outside. Listen to my VIP program outside.

Lots of love to you. I wish you great happiness. And I'll see you next time. Bye for now.