Deaths are piling up exponentially throughout the globe. Most of the country is on lockdown. And many of us are experiencing extreme claustrophobia and high anxiety. But a cohort of mentally ill Americans are doin’ just fine.
Pop culture is your friend during this pandemic. Escapism is important.
While opioids like OxyContin remain the biggest threat to public health in the realm of prescription drugs, anti-anxiety medications — or benzodiazapines, also known as “benzos” — are a close second.
Subjects in the study were randomly assigned to go on a 90-minute walk through nature in a quiet, leafy area of the Stanford campus. Or on the flipside, next to a noisy highway in Palo Alto, California. The nature walkers experienced lower levels of rumination and showed reduced activity in an area of the brain linked to risk for mental illness.
