Healing Among the Trees: How Nature, Humor, and Hope Support Cancer Coping

Hey there lifter-uppers. I'm Deb Krier, the co-host of Cancer and Comedy, where our mission is to heal cancer impacted people through hope and humor, something we like to call turning the grim into a grin. Well, I am very excited about our topic. Today, we're going to be talking about how walking among the trees can help us cope with cancer. So here's the host of Cancer and Comedy, Dr Brad Miller!

Hey, Deb, always say just a joy and a privilege to be with you here on cancer and comedy, where we look to offer just a touch of hope and humor to people who are impacted by cancer or other bad things in their life. And we'd like to do that by telling stories and by doing little research and things sometimes called therapeutic humor. Of the other ways that people can do to deal with cancer and other bad things in their life, and some healthy ways that may go, that go kind of beyond the medical treatments and to be helpful in that way, in that way, we'd like to tell this turning the grim of cancer, the grim to the grin of a fulfilled and celebrating life. And we are looking to develop just a community of people helping one another facing cancer to cope with hope. We hope people will get connected with our community by checking us out at cancerandcomedy.com/follow So Deb, hey, just recently, I got back from an extended summer vacation, and it got me thinking about vacation kind of jokes. Are you ready for a couple of summer vacation sort of jokes? Well, I have missed your jokes. Oh, man, where do sheep go on a summer vacation weekend. I don't know. They have a Baja, Baja barbecue.

Cute, cute.

Oh boy, this one's not any better. Why are mountains the funniest place to go for summer vacation?

I don't know. Why are mountains the funniest place?

Because mountains are hilarious, “Hill-larious.”

Cute, cute. And I know you hit some of those hills, and I'm sure you were.

Yeah, we do.

Oh my gosh. Well, following our conversation today about trees, you're going to want to stick around for Dr Brad's Bad Joke of the Day. Yep, folks, we've got another one. But then, of course, we have our very important faith It or Break It segment. Well, as mentioned, we would love for you to be part of our cancer and comedy community, where together we crush cancer with a message of how to cope with hope and humor. Please follow Cancer and Comedy at cancerandcomedy.com/follow.

But Deb, as I mentioned a little bit ago, I was just my wife, Debbie, and I were able to take a extended vacation this summer. We drove all the way from our home in Indiana to Portland, Oregon, where we have a son who lives there. We drove across the whole country and got to see the country, and got to see do lots of things and spend some time with him. Got to see the Pacific Ocean and this really beautiful place to be. Did something special about the crashing of the waves and all that is really awesome. And we enjoyed that a lot. We got to see San Francisco and Denver and some other places out west, some of the bigger cities, and enjoy some of that time there as well. But what Debbie and I really enjoyed about as much as anything was some of the times we went to some of the great trees in our world, and we went to the redwoods and to the sequoias in California and the national parks there. And we've been there before. We've been to the redwoods several times, and first time or two Sequoia National Park. But, you know, it was just an awesome experience. And there's not too many things I like to say that people, just about everybody needs to experience in their life. But I think the redwoods is one of those places, and I really do where people just need to see that really, what, what nature can do, what God can do, and how you can just kind of get a sense of the awesomeness of it, and how that can help put things in perspective and be a bit of a healing moment. In fact, one of the things I noticed in one of the long walks we did among the redwoods is they have these various places where, basically they just have a cut out log or a bench or something, and just mainly for people just to go and sit and reflect and just to kind of take it in, breathe it in, the majesty of the trees and we did some of that. And it's, it's, you know, it's, and I think it's good when you do that. And maybe not worry about taking pictures so much, and maybe not worried about, you know, anything else, just try to take a deep breath and soak it up, so soak it in. And that was important to do. And, and I kind of that, you know, and I do my wife and I take hikes quite regularly, but being among the redwoods was just really, really awesome. It got me to thinking about, you know, there's got to be a connection. Here between we talk about cancer and how cancer is not only the physical disease, but it's also things that can eat you alive, kind of mentally and emotionally, and how there's got to be a place for the role of nature and even trees, specifically to help with this, and did a little research on it and found it. This really is a lot of good, good things about that. But before I went into some of those, Oh, little bit of the research, some of the details, but just give me your experience about trees. You know, you, you grew up out in the mountains, didn't you?

I did. I grew up in Colorado, very high up a little over 8000 feet in elevation. And you know now, we were in a kind of a valley, but completely surrounded by forest, by natural forests. And, you know, it just always, there were times where you just always, kind of need to go and sit and be with nature, exactly what you were talking about, you know. And it really, to me, is a way to recharge our souls, our little batteries, to maybe ignore what's going on in the world, whether it's with your cancer or what else is going on in the world, just to sit and be one with the trees, which sounds kind of funny, right? But those of us who do it know just how beneficial it is. And listen to the birds and look at the bugs and, you know, all of those things. And just kind of, you know, I think, more than anything, it makes us remember what the important things are in life. And it's, you know, to me, that's, that's kind of why it helps me recharge my batteries,

yeah, and for me as well, and I found that there's actually this moment when people kind of go to the woods and kind of just drink it in, and of absorb it and take a moment of quiet to reflect a little bit and let the kind of the healing sense of that there is actually a name for that. And I didn't really know until I did a little bit of research on this. I know I didn't. Yeah, some people call this forest bathing. And I gotta admit, the forest bathing thing, I thought, Wait, is this kind of like that? Remember that? Remember that Cialis commercial where the two people are bathtubs? And yeah, I thought,

That's what I thought, yeah, we.

Are we skinny dipping?

Skinny dipping out in the rural forest or whatever? But it's really just more this, this thing of just what we just kind of described here, of allowing the sense of nature to kind of fill you up and to cover you up and to inhale, inhale it and sense it totally, you know, like, you know, like taking a bath, you know, do you just really just cover yourself with it? And it turns out that this is actually this sense of allowing yourself to be just enveloped in nature. There is therapy, therapeutic aspects to that about answer research says shows they increase. This is increases natural killer cell activity, which kind of kills cancer cell, type of things, and increases the number of positive cells proteins. I'm not going to get into all the technical names for it, but some positive things happen to us, and I was frankly pleased to hear that, not in some ways, not surprised, but just it was enlightened by this, that our immune systems are actually improved and their cancer fighting ability is improved by being in the forest or people doing studies about set walking seven days in a row and things like This. What do you what do you make about that? Do you think, does that make sense to you?

Oh, it definitely does, you know, and, and it's funny, because I think we notice when we don't do it, you know, and we're kind of, you know, caught up in being stuck in the in, in the homes, the buildings where we're sealed in, right? We go, and we get in our car that's in the garage. We drive to a garage, you know, and we don't get fresh air, you know, one of the things when I was in the hospital for almost two months, they the doctor literally told me, he said, You have got to get outside. You need sunshine, you need fresh air, you need to get outside. And, you know, and I had had a, truly a room with a view. I mean, you know, I had this huge window, which helped a little bit, right? You know, at least I knew when it was sunlight and, you know, when it was raining and things like that. But to just bring, you know, as you said, kind of breathe in that fresh air, feel that sunshine. But there is something about the trees that really does just kind of help us. And of course, you know, when you saw the redwoods, and I've been there several times, they are so incredible that you can't help but be moved by them, you know. And I think that was but you know, your little tree on your back deck or a plane. It, you know, it's just as good.

Well, I felt myself appreciated. You've mentioned tree in the back deck I got. The home I live in has a very large back deck, and it is basically more or less covered by a pretty good sized sycamore tree. It's a big tree, especially for my suburban neighborhood, and that's one of my favorite things, is to go sit under the tree, either on the deck or actually go underneath the tree and just and it's grown to a point where the limbs are almost touching the ground. So you can, in a way, get enveloped in that tree. And I, I've done that since I've been home, and sometimes I have a fire pit out there, and sometimes I enjoy that as well. And that's a very centering time for me. And one things I found out, though, is, is also that there is a kind of a actual physiological process that takes place when you're among the trees. And I'm going to say it wrong, but the process is called phytoncides, and it's basically where the something about the nature of the trees, which we literally breathe in when we're exposed to these compounds from the trees, it actually causes a physiological impact, where the positive proteins are going up and the negative proteins are Going down. And it just, you know, there's been research that showed just one hour in the woods can cause this physiological impact of this, of where your levels go the right direction. And that was encouraging to me, in that sense of, this isn't, I believe, you know, the emotional, the spiritual and all that kind of thing as well. But this is a thing which is a real thing. It's a real thing for people who suffer from cancer or other diseases. And what's your what's your take on that?

Well, the one thing that I'm sad for people who live in areas where there aren't trees, whether you're in a city, now there's usually a park, you can go find a park, you know, but obviously we have a lot of desert areas, and so it does, you know. Kind of makes you wonder if there's a correlation between some of this. But I think you know it. There have been studies done, as you said, that have shown that being a tree hugger is an okay thing, you know. And, and, yeah, I think it is something that is, you know. And any you know, anytime you're getting outside, whether you know, even if you don't have trees, I think nature is, is very healing, you know. And, and so, but, but, yeah, there is just something very special about trees.

And there's we got, there's something we said for green space as well. I know when I, I was a pastor in an urban area, pretty concrete jungle area for pretty several years, and one of the things we kind of had to fight for in our little church, actually, was a chunk of green space that we had for a little play area for the kids and so on. Not very big at all, really, but it became very but it became very important for us to have that as a space for kids to play and for to be there. So sometimes you got to fight for green and, know, in the urban area, sometimes you got to fight for parks and for other green space and to keep it clean and keep it safe and so on like that. They why, you know, because we need that kind of spaces for everybody to maintain great health. Because it's not this physiological part of is a part of it. But I think it's pretty evident that the emotional well being, it's a thing, it's right, it's a thing. It does deal with anxiety. It deals with the negative impact the world that we need to turn off and be quiet sometimes. And one things that irritates me when we go for walks in our local parks around here is when somebody, you know, and it happens, but somebody's blurring music on the trail.

Right, and or, or they're having the speaker phone conversation.

That's right, that's having the phone I go, why are you here, taking this walk, you know? And I listen to music sometimes on my headphones, that kind of stuff. But I'm saying, okay, you know, this is, there's a time and place for us, and your moods get better when you have this, your mental well being, your optimism, they all go up. Nature is effective for self esteem, connectedness and things of that, nature and right the also, I believe also, that there are some more therapeutic approaches that even clinics are taking to this, or, you know, like you mentioned about having spaces around hospitals or clinics and things like this, where there's some greenery or some trees or something, or they can even a part of the therapeutic process. You know, my doctor told me, Hey, get out, get some vitamin D, you know, get on the side, you know, that kind of thing. And. Well. And I think there's something to be said for that, because you can go stir crazy. You said about being in the hospital for a couple months, yeah, yeah, that's not good. That's not good.

Well you know when we're when, when things are, you know happening, so you're enjoying nature, all of those things. I think one of the big things is that your blood pressure is going to decrease, which is always a good thing. And then you pointed me in the direction of someone who was talking about the sugar in your body changes, so your insulin levels are going to change. And you know, there are so many studies that show that cancer feeds on sugar. So if we're decreasing the sugar levels in our bodies by being out in nature, then that's going to be a good thing too.

Yeah. I think it's uh yes, yeah, to all this kind of thing. And, and, of course, you want to do this, and you want to do this a part of your everyday kind of health, physical and mental health program. So if you do end up with some debilitating disease like cancer, you've got something to work with and then you can also it could be preventative, is what I'm trying to get at here. And to do this kind of thing, there is a we reference. There was a study I saw about 16 cancer patients in Korea showed positive effects on depression, stress, cortisol, by something called forest therapy, and it was used in spiritual care of cancer patients. And they found that it also improved sleep quality and also their gastrointestinal processes, just their overall health improved. And I think this is an important coping strategy that we can use here in cancer and comedy and things of this nature, because we talk about cancer comedy, about therapeutic humor, it's about things that bring us delight and right and put joy, put a little smile on her face. And that doesn't always have to be some stupid dad joke or something. We see some funny thing, some sitcom on TV, or whatever it is. It can be just something that brings us contentment, and I believe.

Brings a smile.

Yeah, yeah. And I was also interested to see that, apparently this is catching on in the sense of there are actual universities and medical places which are doing integrating forest medicine into their healthcare plans. And why not? Why not, right? So, right. You have any thoughts about how we might encourage this, maybe implement this in some way, in terms of an ongoing healing process for people?

Yeah, I think it's just simply to say, Get out. Get outside. You know, even if you're just on your back deck, you know, take a little walk. You might have to take a drive right to get to where there are trees, depending on where you live and you know, if you are totally in a an urban community, you can do your own nature. Escape inside your home, inside your apartment, you know, with greenery you there's so many programs now that are going to play nature sounds, you know. But then I was also thinking, what if we combine all of this with and we had this as a guest on before, with laughter yoga, right? You know, if we combined all of that, that'd be great fun.

No, that would, that would be, I think it's been kind of like, you talk about it quite a bit here. Be intentional about this. Be intentional about getting green into your life, whether it's a walk in the woods or maybe even a house plant or something like that. I know I just in the neighborhood I live in. I have a brand new neighbor lived moving in across the street and she is, is from chin, person from the from my Amar originally. We have a pretty sizable Burmese or Myanmar community here in our in our area, anyhow, long story short, but she has made a point of really greening up her lawn. Am I being large plants that seemed, you know, that are distinctive, distinctive plants, and many of them just around her yard. And it was a nice yard anyhow, in the first place, but it's really greened up and kind of brightened up because some of them are flowers as well the place, and it's something I look forward to seeing. And just walk around the neighborhood, and she's out there working a lot on those, and I always get a kick out of her without I'll just say what her name is, but because I think it's fun. But her, her, her first name is par Her last name is Tay, so her name is party.

So she's having a party at her house.

That's right, but we just have a lot of fun with that, yeah, but it's just greened up the neighborhood, and so we can do whatever we can to clean up the neighborhood, you know, on our lives as well, with knowing that our health care take responsibility here and get out and take a walk in the woods. I. Think that's as important thing to do. So what's, what's your current What's your encouragement to people?

Deb, you know, again, just get out, take a walk, you know, breathe in that fresh air, soak up that vitamin D, you know. And even if it's just 10, 15 minutes, it will help. And more importantly, if you're feeling stressed, you know, which we all do. You know, whatever it is, take that pause. Go outside, breathe in. You know, even you know, if you're at work, take a walk at lunch. You know, don't just sit at your desk. Get outside.

Yeah. Let me give you the opposite side of it here, just for a second. Then I want you to finish us off here. And that is my wife and I took this long road trip out to Cal we so we saw the redwoods and sequoias and that, but we also saw Death Valley. We went to death yes, no trees, no trees. And that was just the opposite and there's a reason why it's called Death Valley. And the place we went, the actual Visitor Center for Death Valley National Park is called furnace. That's the name of it is furnace. And it really is. It's called the furnace Visitor Center. And anyway, that the temperature that day was 119 degrees, oh, and, and not it, and not a tree in sight. And, and the hike we want to I'll say a hike. We went up to a little walkway, because we weren't going to go a very long hike where you can look over, literally the death, Death Valley itself and see nothing for a long time. Now, there's a certain beauty, the starkness to this, which is certainly there, but it's certainly for Deb. Now we said, this is not for us. We got it. We got to have some trees. And also we got to have more like 75 degrees than 119

I know, I know .

It's so.

Yeah, but it was a dry heat, right?

That's what they say. But my, but my point is, there's a reason why that's called Death Valley. No trees, nothing, hot, dry, that kind of thing. And where the redwoods and other places are lush and green and life. And you know, even in the community where I live here, you know the lots of rain and sunshine recently. So the grass is growing here, with all the everything's growing like crazy. And there's something to be said for that. And so I believe what we're doing here at cancer comedy, it's about life, you know, it's about living a life fullest for the rest of your life, and to put a smile on your face during it. So that's what I want to share. Do you have any kind of closing comments for us here?

You know? Yeah, always look for that, that beauty, you know. And sometimes it might be hard to find, sometimes it might really be a struggle for you, but look for that beauty, you know. And maybe it's a butterfly, maybe it's, you know, we've got hummingbirds right now. Whatever it is, find that, you know, and you might have to manufacture it, like we said, you know, put on, put your own nature scape. But look for that beauty, because you will benefit from it

Absolutely. Thank you.

Well, speaking of humor, you know, we have to have humor. So I know you have another one of your bad dad jokes of the day.