I just spent a few days in New York City and it made me realize how necessary nature is to my soul. I love to be outside, but it really struck me that being outside in nature is different than just being outside.

On Monday it was raining, so my plan to take my son to one of the fabulous playgrounds in Central Park needed to be changed. I decided to take him to the Museum of Natural History, as he loves dinosaurs and whales.

I tried to convince my son that a ride in a taxi or on a bus would be fun. He wasn’t buying it. When we visited the city last year he was excited to ride in a taxi cab—until I picked him up and put us in the back of one. He started flailing and crying so we got back out and stood on the sidewalk in the rain.

“What’s going on?” I asked him.

“I don’t want that guy to drive!”

In all our conversations about the yellow cabs of New York City, I never mentioned that I wouldn’t be driving the taxi.

Anyway, I didn’t want to have a repeat of that experience, and it wasn’t raining hard, so I dressed us up for the weather and put my son in his stroller. We headed up 6^th Avenue to  Central Park. As soon as we got into the park, it was a different world. It was quiet—no cars drove in the park at that time of day and the rain kept most pedestrians and runners away; it was green—the trees and lawns were spectacular, even on such a dark day. Then there were the flowers. Everywhere we looked, there was something else to see that made me smile.

When we got to 72^nd Street we exited the park and re-entered the city with it’s rumbling buses, honking horns, and crowds of talking people. The noise assaulted my ears after the peaceful quiet of the park.

It made me remember when I lived in Manhattan, many years ago. I went to Central Park almost every day. And during the years I lived in Brooklyn, it was a very rare day that I didn’t at least walk or Rollerblade through Prospect Park.

Studies show that hospitalized patients get better faster when they have a window with a view of green trees.

When people take drugs without the advice of a doctor, we say they are “self-medicating.”

I think I self-medicate with nature.

Even if you don’t consider yourself someone who is a nature-lover, the studies show you, too, will benefit from time spent in nature. Not just outdoors, because technically, Times Square is outdoors. While it has its own charm, I don’t feel especially peaceful there.

Central Park, my backyard, the ocean—these places feed my soul with birdsong or the sound of the waves, with flowers, trees, rocks, or frothing waves.

I feel peaceful just thinking about them.

How about you?