outdoor activities | Live Healthy Live Well

Up Your Vitamin N(Nature) Dosage this Spring

March 18 2025April 21, 2025

On Thursday, March 20, 2025, the vernal equinox will mark the astronomical first day of spring in Ohio. The change in season is the perfect time to get outside and commit to increasing your daily dose of Vitamin N(Nature). Why should you go outside? The health and wellness benefits of being outdoors are numerous across the lifespan and are nicely summarized in this 2-minute video, What Happens When You Spend Just 5 Minutes in Nature? . The video was created by Florence Williams, who also authored The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative.

If you need ideas of things to do to increase your Vitamin N this spring, we have five activities for you to try:

1. Search for spring wildflowers, also referred to as spring ephemerals. These early bloomers start blooming before the leaves return to the trees and are a welcome sight year after year. If you want to learn more. visit the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Wildflower website to find the Spring Wildflowers of Ohio field guide, weekly wildflower bloom reports, videos, a wildflower checklist, and featured locations throughout our state.

2. Watch the stars, planets, and moon. Visit What’s Up: Skywatching Tips from NASA, an educational website with monthly highlights, daily skywatching guides, night sky news, and other educational resources about our galactic neighborhood. Have you ever seen the International Space Station in the night sky? You can enter your location on NASA’s Spot the Station website and get a calendar of sighting opportunities in your community.

Male Ruby-throated hummingbird at a feeder

3. Look and listen for migrating birds to return to your yard and community. Have you noticed the return of the chatty Red-winged Blackbirds? They are often one of the first migrants of the season. BirdCast is a website that allows you to enter your city and state to get real time bird migration alerts. If you are fond of hummingbirds, Hummingbird Central tracks their journey back to Ohio so you know when to put out your feeder. One more reminder: limit the amount of light pollution around your home as often as possible, but especially during migration season.

4. Walk, stroll, or ride on the 1,523 miles of bike trails in the Buckeye State. To learn about the different trails and find a trail near you, visit the Ohio Bikeways website hosted by the Ohio Department of Transportation. This site features trail safety tips, a bikeways brochure, and a downloadable map.

Green seedlings sprouting in a cardboard egg carton

5. If you or someone you love has a difficult time getting outside, consider bringing nature indoors. Sowing seeds indoors is a fun and educational spring activity. Using a cardboard egg carton is an easy, economical, and environmentally friendly way to plant your seeds.

Every day is an opportunity to get outside and get a healthy dose of Vitamin N. As Florence Williams says, “Go outside. Go often. Bring friends. Breathe.”

Written by: Laura M. Stanton, Family and Consumer Sciences Educator, Ohio State University Extension, Warren County. Email: stanton.60.osu.edu

Reviewed by: Susan Zies, Assistant Professor and Family and Consumer Sciences Educator, Ohio State University Extension, Wood County. Email: zies.1@osu.edu

Photos from Adobe Express.

“Fall” into Mindfulness

October 3 2024

If you have been following for a few months now, you know I enjoy discussing topics on mental wellbeing, and today is no different. Fall weather is often very crisp, and it is sometimes accompanied by warm beams of sunshine. Take advantage of these days and make some time to go outdoors by foot, by bike, on the water, or on a quiet park bench nearby. Southeast Ohio is gorgeous in the fall and has many trails and attractions like Dillon State Park and The Wilds, which are both housed here in Muskingum County. When you go outdoors, embrace simplicity and notice the changing of the season by using your senses to observe the sights, smells and sounds that are around you.

Did you know that food heavily influences our emotions? When we “eat our emotions” we tend to find foods that comfort us and bring pleasant memories. Holidays are great examples of food feeding our brains in more ways than one. Mindfulness is a way that we can engage our bodies to be fully aware. A great way to do that is by engaging the five senses in taste, smell, sight, feel, and sound. Fall foods such as soups, pies, and turkey dinners bring multiple senses together to create mindful moments. Appreciate the smells, tastes, and textures of your favorite foods. Sit outside on a crisp fall evening and feel the warm food against the cool air and all the things you are grateful for or looking forward to.

Other fall mindfulness activities could include journaling, drawing, birdwatching, and photo walking. These experiences may allow you to see new places and try an activity you would not ordinarily choose to relieve stress and bring back balance to your life. So, this season, take time to have mindful moments wherever you are, and look forward to the changes that lie ahead!

Written by: Alexus Masterson, MPH, Family and Consumer Sciences Educator, OSU Extension Muskingum County

Reviewed by: Jenny Lobb, MPH, Family and Consumer Sciences Educator, OSU Extension Franklin County

Sources

Levin, V. (2019, October 9). Five Fall Mindfulness Exercises. Ardent Grove Foundation. https://ardentgrove.org/therapy-services/f/five-fall-mindfulness-exercises

Ontario Parks. (2023, October, 10). 5 ways to practice fall mindfulness. https://www.ontarioparks.ca/parksblog/fall-mindfulness/

Load Up on Vitamin N(Nature) this Spring

March 24 2023June 12, 2025

Sharp-lobed Hepatica blooming, a spring wildflower

Monday, March 20th marked the first official day of Spring. Now is the perfect time to get outside and commit to increasing your daily dose of Vitamin N(Nature). Why should you go outside? The health and wellness benefits of being outdoors are numerous. If you want to dive deep into these benefits, read Florence William’s book, The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative. For now, you might want to watch her short video, What Happens When You Spend 5 minutes in Nature? Her advice: “Go outside. Go often. Bring friends. Breathe.”

Need ideas of things to do to increase your Vitamin N? Here are four activities to try outside this spring:

1. Search for spring wildflowers, also referred to as spring ephemerals. These early bloomers have been blooming for weeks and are a welcome sight year after year. Want to learn more about wildflowers? Visit the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Wildflower website to find the Spring Wildflowers of Ohio field guide, weekly wildflower bloom reports, videos, a wildflower checklist, and featured locations throughout the state.

3. Look and listen for migrating birds to return to your yard and community. Have you noticed the return of the chatty Red-winged Blackbirds? They are often one of the first migrants of the season. The male birds, with their black body and yellow and red shoulder patches, returns to their nesting grounds before the dark brown, streaked females. Be on the lookout for migrating waterfowl, hummingbirds, and warblers. To learn about birds, visit All About Birds and eBird, two websites maintained by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. These websites provide enormous amounts of information about different bird species, their migration patterns, their songs and calls, their behavior, and identification information.

If you or someone you love has limited mobility or a difficult time getting outside, consider bringing nature indoors. Sowing seeds indoors is a fun and educational Spring activity. Using a cardboard egg carton is an easy, economical, and environmentally friendly way to plant your seeds.

Every day is an opportunity to get outside and get a healthy dose of Vitamin N. Even better, get outdoors and bring others with you. Be sure to get out and enjoy all that nature has to offer this Spring!

Written by: Laura M. Stanton, Family and Consumer Sciences Educator, Ohio State University Extension, Warren County. Email: stanton.60.osu.edu

Reviewed by: Shari Gallup, Assistant Professor and Family and Consumer Sciences Educator, Ohio State University Extension, Licking County. Email: gallup.1@osu.edu

Sources:

Louv, R. (2016). Vitamin N: The essential guide to a nature-rich life. Algonquin Books.

Stanton, L. M. (n.d.) Nature matters. OSU Extension, Warren County. go.osu.edu/nature-matters

Stanton, L. M. (2021, April 19). Get out! Celebrate nature on Earth Day and every day. Live Healthy Live Well. https://livehealthyosu.com/2021/04/19/get-out-celebrate-nature-on-earth-day-and-every-day

Stanton, L. M. (2022, May 2). How’s your environmental wellness? Live Healthy Live Well. https://livehealthyosu.com/2022/05/02/hows-your-environmental-wellness

Tedrow, S. (2022, March 8). Selecting and starting seeds. OSU Extension, Wayne County. https://wayne.osu.edu/news/selecting-and-starting-seeds

Williams, F. (2018). The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative. W.W. Norton.

Williams, F. (n.d.). The Nature Fix: What Happens When You Spend Just 5 Minutes in Nature? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwQkTuhId-o

Photo Credit: All photos from AdobeStock.