Your Limbo receives messages from your senses—sight, sound, smell and taste—and it is highly influenced by them. In particular, you Limbo loves bright natural light. The take away message is that there is something truly great about the Great Outdoors and so “Blue and green should often be seen”. Immerse yourself in an uplifting physical environment!

To learn the simple science, you can choose to WATCH, LISTEN, or READ by clicking on the links below (or do all three!). Note that the LISTEN and READ sections dive deeper into the content.

The further you get from nature, the less happy you are.
–  George Adams  –

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside.
–  Anne Frank  –

Christmas Day 1977, when I was a tender 7 years old, was very memorable for me. Not in a good way.

Like Christmas days should, it started well. I woke up to find a bright green bike under the Christmas tree with my name on it! I could hardly contain my excitement and desperately wanted to take my new machine for a spin, but alas it was raining heavily outside. I waited, and waited, but by midday it was obvious that the rain had set in and so, encouraged by my mum, I decided the maiden voyage would have to be a lap of the hallway in our house.

Before proceeding with the story, I need to set the scene by adding that I was (only) wearing the new superman underwear that I had also received as a gift that unforgettable Christmas—trust me, it is an important detail of the story.

As I was poised with one bare foot on the peddle, about to push off, something completely unexpected and alarming happened. From the ceiling above me fell the biggest and hairiest spider I have ever seen. In Australia we call them “huntsmen” spiders, and while they are purportedly harmless, I maintain that their name implies otherwise.

The hairy, scary monstrosity landed on my bare knee and I freaked out—my Superman undies did nothing for my courage, but they certainly electrified my leap as I jumped from my new bike. The spider fell to the floor and made a dash for my foot, causing me to start convulsing like a madman until I was could escape from the scene of the crime.

The reason I remember that experience so well is because it was emotionally charged, and as we have already learnt, that is how your Limbo is wired to work—strong feelings equal strong memories. The point of this story is that what we see can trigger instantaneous emotional responses because of the way they affect the Limbo.

Even though the Limbo sits in a comfy cranium away from the world “outside,” it still knows what is happening “out there” because it receives messages from the surrounding environment. Your Limbo is constantly tuning in to, and picking up cues—sights, sounds and smells—from the environment around you. Consequentially, the physical environment you are immersed in has a profound effect upon your Limbo, and hence your emotional state. You are about to learn how your Limbo is wired to your senses and how you can deliberately send it uplifting messages so that you can feel more upbeat.

Sight

The eye is a truly marvellous creation and, for most people, the source of their dominant sense. However, when your optic nerves send messages from your retinas to your brain so that you can “see,” the messages first go to the Limbo and then secondly to the Leader. Hence, our emotional reaction to a sight or image precedes our thinking response. For example, if a so-called friend places a plastic spider on your shoulder, notice the order of your reactions: first comes an emotional “Ahhhh!” as your Limbo “sees” the spider, followed a moment later by “Ohhhh” as your Leader (your thinking brain) receives the signal and realises it is a fake. Indeed, your Limbo is heavily influenced by sights, and because of the way it is wired (as shown below) its reaction to sights can be almost instantaneous.

Studies show that your Limbo really likes the sight of natural environments. Functional MRI studies have shown that scenes of natural landscapes light up parts of the Limbo associated with positivity, even when the scenes are flashed up in front of someone for just 1/100^th of a second. That is so fast you probably wouldn’t consciously notice it. This goes to show how profoundly perceptive our Limbo is of the world about it. In contrast, city scenes increase activity in the part of the Limbo associated with threat and stress. As our Limbo is also our motivation centre, it is not unexpected that views of natural environments are linked to better performance in the workplace and enhanced academic performance in schools.

One critical aspect of the images that enter your eyes in terms of how they affect your Limbo is the colour of the image. Sometimes when I run or ride around the bush trails near my home I will see a red-belly black snake. They are black on top but when they get agitated they rear up to show their red underbelly. When I see that red I know it is a good time to clear out and my Limbo moves me to do just that! Certainly, the colour red is associated with danger and so our emotional response to red is anger and fear—essentially it commands a fight or flight response. It is not surprising that we associate anger with “seeing red” given that studies have shown that red tends to make people more vigilant, less likely to take risks and more motivated to avoid things. Other colours can produce different emotional responses. For example, the colour blue tends to make people more open, peaceful and creative. Colours can affect our mood and behaviours in ways that we are not consciously aware of.

What do you think is the most cheerful, mood-lifting colour? To test this, researchers invited individuals to paint a wall in a white bedroom a colour that would make them feel more positive. Overwhelmingly, the participants in the study opted for bright hues of yellow and orange. You are probably not surprised by this as the colour yellow is commonly associated with being happy, but the reason for this goes deeper than you might realise. Essentially, your Limbo loves bright light.

In countries of high latitude where there are extended periods of low lighting during the winter months, it is common for people to experience a condition referred to as Seasonal Affective Disorder, or “SAD” for short, in which they become depressed and even suicidal. On the flip side, exposing your eyes to bright light is used as a treatment for depression. In fact, a recent study found that “light therapy” was more effective for relieving depression than antidepressant medications. Importantly, light therapy doesn’t mean burning out your retinas by staring into the sun. So don’t do that! All that is needed, is for your eyes to be exposed to a well-lit environment.

However, the sun does seem to be the best source to light up your Limbo. Consider the following, indoor light, like in an office environment, is typically less than 500 LUX—LUX is simply a measurement of the intensity of light. By contrast, natural sunlight can beam up to 100,000 LUX. Even on an overcast day the light outside is a minimum of 1,000 LUX, which is at least twice as bright as most indoor spaces. In the shade on a bright sunny day you can be immersed in up to 25,000 LUX, which is roughly 50 times brighter that most indoor spaces. You might not notice it but your Limbo does.

Researchers from the University of Colorado monitored how much light individuals were exposed to on a typical day as they lived their modern lifestyle, which involved spending a lot of time indoors in artificially lit spaces, and compared it to when they went camping for a week in winter. The researchers discovered that during waking hours, the participants were on average exposed to light levels 13 times higher (that is more than 10,000 LUX) than when back home in the artificially lit environment (which was only 750 LUX).

So why all this talk about LUX? It seems that we need about 10,000 LUX for 30 minutes each day—or longer periods of exposure if the light intensity is lower—to give our Limbo a lift and feel emotionally upbeat. Researchers have also discovered that morning light seems to be especially good as it has a blue tinge because its wavelength is shorter. Again, we don’t notice it at a conscious level but our Limbo notices. It equates blue-tinged light with morning time and kicks us in to “rise and shine” mode making us feel more awake and alert.

The take away message is that the sights you are exposed to—the images, colours and especially the brightness—have a pronounced effect on our Limbo and subsequently, on how we feel, even without us being aware of it.

Sound

Your Limbo is wired for sound. This is because, just like your optic nerve, your auditory nerve sends messages to the Limbo. Hence, sounds can evoke all kinds of emotions—hearing a scream evokes fear, listening to running water can make you feel relaxed, and the sound of a dripping tap can drive you mad!

We can all attest to the ability of music—sounds strung together—to move us emotionally. This has been recognised since biblical times where it is documented that David would play music for King Saul to help him “feel better.” Certainly, arousing music can make us feel more emotionally upbeat. A 2013 study found that the composition titled “Rodeo” by Copland is especially good for this. If you don’t already use music to help give yourself a lift or to relax when needed, you should.

Music has such an impact upon your Limbo that it is not just our emotions that are affected; all its other functions are enhanced as well. Recall that the Limbo has three functions in addition to being your emotional hub—it also plays a key role in memory, motivation and many automatic bodily processes.

Consider the ability of music to enhance your memory. How many songs can you sing along to as they are randomly played on the radio? Hundreds? Possibly thousands? That is a lot of lyrics to remember! So how and why do you do it? It is common to forget things like your wedding anniversary or phone number, but you can fluently recite the Sesame Street song? The reason this happens is that when your Limbo comes across a tune it likes, all its functions, including memory, are heightened. It is not surprising then that music can be used to enhance learning.

Music also has the ability to make you feel more motivated, if the beat is right. That is why gyms always have upbeat music playing to help people get in the mood. Athletes often listen to upbeat music to help them get “psyched” for an event. On the other hand, certain music can make you feel calm and relaxed, once again, if the beat is right. A 2009 study showed that listening to relaxing music before surgery actually reduced patients’ anxiety levels better than medications.

Finally, music has also been shown to alter automatic bodily processes. It is perhaps not surprising that the right kind of music can lower our heart rate and blood pressure, but what is intriguing is that music composed by Mozart has even been shown to boost the immune system and reduce allergic reactions. This has been referred to as the “Mozart effect” because the same immune boost doesn’t seem to occur when listening to other classical composers—not even Beethoven! Given its influence on our automatic bodily processes it is understandable that for thousands of years music has been used as medicine.

All this evidence reinforces the fact that your Limbo responds to, and is highly influenced by, sounds. But there is another sense that can have a surprisingly potent effect on our Limbo: smell.

Smell (and taste)

While the emotional responses to sight and sound are obvious, your sense of smell is often underplayed. Indeed, smell can profoundly stimulate your Limbo because your olfactory nerve, responsible for this sense, leads from the back of your nose directly to your Limbo. In fact, there was a time when the Limbo was referred to as the “rhinencephalon,” which quite literally means “smell brain” because the olfactory nerve is such a massive input to the Limbo.

This explains several interesting phenomena. For example, have you ever noticed that the slightest whiff of a particular scent can instantly bring memories flooding back and transport you back in time? Your Limbo is so finely tuned in to your sense of smell that it picks up on the scent and thinks, I know that smell, and proceeds to replay any associated memories. More so, it can make you feel like you did back then—that is, it dredges up the associated emotions. You can even experience the same automatic bodily responses you had at the time the memory was made.

For me, the smell of coconut oil reminds me of the beach in summer when I was a teenager because that was the scent of the most popular sunscreen lotion at the time. Whenever I encounter that smell, a flood of memories return and I feel carefree. I can even feel the warmth of the sun on my skin. This is a great example of the Limbo being stimulated by smell and then linking its various functions: memory, emotion and automatic bodily processes. Similarly, I have a friend who says that every time he smells burnt toast it reminds him of sitting at his Grandma’s kitchen table when he was a kid. Obviously Grandma wasn’t such a great cook!

Smell has a sister sense: taste. You may have noticed that when your nose is blocked and you can’t smell, you can’t taste anything either. This explains why our emotional state can have such a strong impact upon our eating habits. When your Limbo latches on to a smell or taste that it finds appealing, it keeps you coming back for more—in other words you are highly motivated. Have you ever been to an “all-you-can-eat” restaurant and been determined to really get your money’s worth? As you sit at the table, absolutely full to the point of pain, you make a commitment that you will never again indulge like this and before you know it your hand is reaching out for another spoonful of dessert. Why would we do such a thing to ourselves? The answer is your Limbo likes the hit it gets from your olfactory nerve and it drives you back for more. The two-year-old Limbo often gets its way, regardless of what the Leader might say!

Or do you notice that when you are feeling down you tend to repetitively open the refrigerator door or the cookie jar and devour what lies inside? It is called comfort eating and it is a result of your Limbo seeking a pleasurable lift in the most powerful and instantaneous way it knows—from the olfactory nerve. Boredom, which is lack of emotional stimulation, can have a similar effect. When your two-year-old Limbo starts screaming, “I’m bored, I’m bored” it drives you to eat some pleasant-tasting food for stimulation. You may find yourself absent-mindedly standing in front of the open pantry wondering, “What was I doing again?” Indeed, any change to your emotional state—including depression, stress or boredom—can affect your feeding behaviours because of the way your Limbo is linked to your sense of smell and taste.

Through their impact on your Limbo, sights, sounds and smells (and tastes) can affect your mood in profound ways. Now that you are armed with these insights, let’s piece it all together to explore how you can use this understanding to be more emotionally up.

The Great Outdoors are Great

I love to hang glide. 

My personal height record is 13,000 feet. To get that high you launch off the side of a cliff and then go hunting for an invisible pocket of rising, hot air called a “thermal.” Thermals are released from the ground when it gets hot in much the same way that a bubble is released from the bottom of a boiling pot. When you fly into a thermal you certainly know about it because its turbulence can toss you around like a leaf in the wind. Once you have located the thermal you then need to pluck up the courage to start turning circles inside it while hanging on tight as you climb toward the heavens. The day I attained my personal height record, I watched the ground fall away as I circled up in it at over one thousand feet per minute.

When the thermal got high enough and cold enough it began to condense and form a cumulous cloud. As I approached 13,000 feet the air around me began to grow misty as and I was immersed in a new creation as the sky welcomed another fluffy decoration. For several minutes I flew around the edge of the forming cloud just soaking it all in. The view was absolutely breathtaking, whichever way I looked. I was surrounded by bright blue and below me was a mat of green that extended far into the horizon. All my senses were alert, captivated and attuned to everything around me. And it wasn’t just the sights. There was also a loud silence and the moist cool air had the smell and texture of new rain. I felt energised and truly alive—full of awe, wonder and joy—and I felt that way for days after. The experience will always stay with me.

Natural environments can lift us emotionally, in rich and profound ways. Surely you have already experienced it for yourself: the view from a mountain-peak; gazing out over the vast ocean as the sun sets; the sound of running waters from a mountain stream; the crisp smell of an Alpine forest in the early morning or a field laden with wildflowers in spring. Our Limbo comes alive in these places because of the way it is wired to our senses of sight, sound and smell. Thousands of years ago Aristotle proposed the idea that we are designed to inhabit such places and that doing so is good for our happiness—it provides us with a “love of life” more recently referred to as biophilia. More than 30 studies have examined the impact of exposure to natural environments on how people feel—the consensus is that exposure to natural environments do indeed make people feel more positive and less negative.

Alarmingly, many people today live in artificial environments such as the concrete jungles of the city (“grey spaces”) and are starved of the natural world (“blue and green spaces”) that make our Limbo come alive. A new term has even been coined: Nature Deficit Disorder (NDD). Children suffering NDD, that is those who don’t get to regularly surround themselves with the great outdoors, are more prone to anxiety, depression and attention deficit disorder.

However, you don’t have to live in the city to be separated from nature. Despite having it in their own backyard many people living in rural environments are missing the benefits of their natural landscapes. The reason for this is we are increasingly living our lives indoors. One hundred years ago Sir John Thompson warned that increasing modernisation would disconnect us from natural environments and that we would suffer for it. He couldn’t have been more correct. As our work, socialisation and recreation has become increasingly screen-based, we have become disconnected from nature. Unsurprisingly, a large study conducted in the United States in 2014 found a significant connection between depression and media use.

It is time to reverse this trend and go au naturel—by which I mean return to natural environments, clothed of course. Dr Stephen Kaplan from the University of Michigan explains that modern living makes high demands of our information processing skills—we have computers, traffic, mobile phones, so many things bombarding our brains, causing them unnatural mental strain. On the other hand, natural stimuli, such as landscapes and animals, effortlessly engage our attention and hence lead to less mental fatigue.

The great outdoors can do you great good emotionally and there is good evidence for this. Hospital patients who just have a view of a natural landscape tend to consume less painkilling medication and have shorter hospital stays. Exposure to ‘green’ areas has been associated with less aggression, even just a window view of nature is significantly correlated to lower levels of domestic violence. In 2013, a New Zealand study showed that every 1% increase in the amount of green space within 3 km (2 miles) of an individual’s home was associated with a 4% lower prevalence of anxiety and mood disorders. This would suggest that doubling your access to green spaces could result in a 400% reduction in mood disorders.

Scientists are only beginning to learn why the great outdoors is so great for us and there are some intriguing theories are emerging. I have already discussed the importance of bright light and natural colours, but a more novel theory relates to “earthing.” Your body and brain constantly have electrical impulses running through them—they are measured all the time in medicine—but it has been suggested that to function optimally you need to be “earthed.” The easiest way to do that is to kick off your shoes and get around barefooted, garden and spend time in “ion” rich air such as that which is found near running water—like rivers and the ocean—or very green spaces—such as rainforests. There is some evidence that “earthing” can reduce chronic pain, improve blood sugar control and even boost immunity.

Another interesting theory relates to air quality. In the 1800s, health authorities in London believed that bad-smelling air—referred to as “miasma”—caused cholera breakouts. While the miasma theory was debunked, there is now growing interest—and concern—regarding the impact of air quality on people’s health and wellbeing. Clearly, poor air quality can trigger respiratory problems, but scientists are discovering that the air we breathe might have other startling effects too. For example, a 2013 study found that people living less than 500 metres above sea level were five times more likely to be obese than those living 3000 metres above. The reason why “thin air” might be “thinning” is that it causes biochemical changes that cause the Limbo to suppress appetite.

There is more to air than just how thin it is. Other researchers are suggesting that rising carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere might be contributing to the obesity epidemic as they too can cause biochemical changes in the Limbo resulting in increased appetite. Over the past 50 years atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased by about 40 per cent, while obesity has doubled. So if you now have a sudden interest in breathing less carbon dioxide, you will be interested to learn that the carbon dioxide levels in the air inside sealed rooms can be 20 to 100 times higher than outside!

Regardless of the mechanisms, studies consistently show that people who are more connected to nature suffer less anxiety and anger, and enjoy more vitality and happiness. Blue and green should often be seen—and touched and breathed and smelled.

Putting it into practice

Here are the challenges I will be offering in the “Experience” section that follows this “Learn” section of the lesson. Remember, the more you put in the more you will get out!

1. Go and play outside!

Make an effort to get outside while the sun is shining for at least 30 minutes each day. As explained earlier, don’t stare into the sun to get your bright light therapy but immerse yourself in naturally lit environments. Note you can buy light boxes that are used as a therapy for depression, but if you have access to the sun, why not make use of it.

While you are outside, perform some moderate-intensity physical activity at the same time so you get a double happiness hit by moving dynamically while immersing in an uplifting natural environment! A study in the United Kingdom found that people who are physically active in natural environments, such as woods and forests, have about half the risk of suffering from poor mental health than those who aren’t.

2. See a sunrise.

Find a natural environment in which to see a sunrise. Don’t stare at it directly, but be there when it happens. Enjoy it. Test and see if the morning light gives you a lift and starts your day right.

Recap

Your Limbo is highly impressed by sights, sounds and smells and it simply loves those that come from natural environments. Take it to its happy place and it can help you to be happy too!