What's the Price we Pay for Windowless Offices?
Back in my Microsoft days, I longed for an office with a window. In most high-tech companies—and I imagine in most companies around the world—there is a specific protocol for office/cubicle space. At RealNetworks, I started in a cubicle and slowly moved my way up to an office. In Microsoft, there were no cubicles for full-time employees, so the hierarchy went from interior office to window office.
I didn't really know why I wanted the window office. It wasn't for the seniority—though that was definitely a perk. Beyond the "natural light" thing, I had this inner feeling that I would be more productive if I could see the outdoors while I worked. Microsoft has a beautiful campus, and in my years there, I was in buildings buried deep in wooded areas, so my view would be of trees, shrubs, and the bunny rabbits that roamed free.
When I eventually left Microsoft and created a home office, I positioned my desk right in front of a bay window that overlooked the front of the house. In the garden was a large cedar that covered part of the house and many other types of shrubs, grasses, and small plants. Whether I was typing an email or looking for inspiration, I can't tell you how many times I would sit in front of my computer and stare out that window.
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It wasn't until years later, when I first started researching the healing properties of plants, that I understood why I stared out the window so much. In 1984, in the journal Science, environmental psychologist Roger Ulrich showed that gazing at a garden can speed up healing from surgery, infections, and other ailments. "All other things being equal, patients with bedside windows looking out on leafy trees healed, on average, a day faster, needed significantly less pain medication and had fewer postsurgical complications than patients who instead saw a brick wall."
And in 2012, David Strayer and co. showed that there is a "cognitive advantage to be realized if we spend time immersed in a natural setting." In simple terms, we are more creative and healthier when we experience nature. Whether you are young or old, connection to nature enhances our creative and physical wellness, something I needed from behind my office desk.
When I lived deep in the Sacred Woods in Damanhur, I learned that most of the people in my nucleo rarely got sick. And when I started working with the Music of the Plants, the stories of plant music in healing areas started to pour in: physical therapy clinics that found their patients healed faster, children using it as study music, therapists incorporating it into sessions... I could tell you stories.
But the problem is, for right now, they are just stories. Amazing, moving, inspiring stories. We have very little data to support what we already feel is true. So tapping back into my Microsoft days, I knew it was time to assemble the team that would start to bring science into the equation.
For those of you that do scientific research, you know there is a steep learning curve. Without any research to cite, you can't get funding, but without funding, you can't get the necessary equipment for the research. Enter Gau Erba and Stefano Turini, Damanhurian medical and holistic doctor and bionanotechnology post-doc researcher, respectively. In addition to brilliant minds, both have access to medical facilities and professionals and a lab filled with equipment. And with their input, plus the research methodology background of Neftj Ragusa and the music and plants background of Zigola Pioppo, we put together our first formal research study.
Support Plant Music Research
Two Missing Pieces...
We have the knowledge and people to complete our first formal study, but in order to begin, we need to check everything off our checklist:
- Research Team
- Research Protocol
- Facilities to host the research
- Pool of research subjects
- Equipment to measure subject health
- Music of the Plants device
- Device to record the sessions
- Hard drive to save the data
- Computer to analyze the data
Help us get a computer and an external hard drive for our study data
Thanks to your generous support, we have raised 1001€ of our 1300€ goal. We have 10 days left to raise the remaining 299€. Will you help us reach our goal?!
Here is how you can help:
- Contribute directly HERE
- Share this on your favorite social network
- Email your friends and ask them to contribute
- Like and Comment on social media to increase reach!
Want to know more?
If you have any questions about this study or our research in general, you can contact me via my website, Facebook page, and if you are interested in this type of research, our Facebook group on the Effects of Plant Music on Human Health and Interspecies Music.
Feel free to share freely.
WE ARE SO CLOSE TO OUR GOAL!
All proceed go to this and future plant music research.
References and Credits:
Ulrich RS. View through a window may influence recovery from surgery. Science. 1984 Apr 27;224(4647):420-1. PubMed PMID: 6143402.
Deborah Franklin. How Hospital Gardens Help Patients Heal. Scientific America. 2012 Mar 1.
Atchley RA, Strayer DL, Atchley P (2012) Creativity in the Wild: Improving Creative Reasoning through Immersion in Natural Settings. PLOS ONE 7(12): e51474. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0051474
Badalona photo by Carquinyol from Badalona, Catalunya (Badalona - Ciutat del Bàsket) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Powerful and beautiful work you are doing. Thank you. This is yet another reason I didn't put my kids in school. They need contact with the outside world to grow properly - especially emotionally. I live in Belize and would love to hear some of these massive rainforest trees sing!
People often ask me what is one thing I discovered living in a community that I didn't expect, and my answer is always, "The need early on for a school for the children." One reason is because a school is fundamental for families to come in the first place. But also because once you start to see the world with different eyes, you don't want to send your child to a school that every day teaches them the old paradigms you are working so hard to change. At least through elementary and middle school, you want your children to grow with maximum possibilities and maximum exposure to the wonders of life, including nature. Luckily, there are more and more school programs being developed that encourage a strong connection with nature. We need to encourage and support these as much as possible. Vitamin N(ature) for all!
Yes! I love spending my days with my kids, but I'd also love for them to have a place to go that I was in alignment with. I had that for my older two children (19 and 16), but we moved, and. I don't have anything like that here. The things they teach them and the way children are treated, not to mention that they actually thwart learning. I just can't do it. In her two years in regular school, my daughter was mercilessly tormented for not being shallow and rude. So glad I took her out. Really wish I'd never put her in.
I hope you find a school or home-school program that aligns with your ideals. I never realized growing up just how important that is. I was also made fun of quite a bit until high school, but I had a very positive mother who always helped me get past it. That being said, had I had a more nurturing elementary experience, I am sure I would have blossomed earlier.
Oh, my dear! Such a great article and such a great initiative! I am finishing my article about you and Music of Plants research! I hope it can help you bring awareness to your program! And a small amount from me for such a good goal on the way! Be blessed and see you when I will come to Damanhur!
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"Love tree"spray street art by Porfirio Jimenez C.
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THANK YOU SO MUCH! So happy to connect here. Can't wait to read your article, please send me the link as soon as it is ready. I am following you and look forward to connecting on a deeper level. Will see you for sure at Damanhur!
Greetings. Just saw the great piece on the Music of plants by @sashagenji and she encouraged us/me to come pay you a visit. So here I am! Thank you so much for the post (above). Perhaps in another lifetime you were a Druid Priestess. Many blessings. Following. Resteemed.
Am I that obvious? I am connected to The Morrígan, how did you know?!
Thank you for your visit and the comment. I look forward to more exchanges. Let me know if you have any questions!
Yeah. Perhaps you are simply used to seeing yourself as just "You", but indeed the forest and meads and birds fairly burst from your image! I'm a whacky astrologer, poet, hmnnn....."sensitive" i guess would be a good word, so I sense things about people. But you were easy, don't ya know! (Oh, I saw you on the post from your friend @sashagenji) Really!? You couldn't be more obviously a Druid. Go check out the comment I made on her post about hearing the Redwoods sing. Truly did happen. It was a magical experience. Many blessings.
I went looking for the comment and couldn't find it. Can you send me a link? I would love to hear it!
And thank you for the compliment. It is beautiful to know that my writing has the ability to truly convey who I am. I have been actively connected to The Morrígan for over 12 years, a connection strengthened through two different esoteric lineages. I was shocked the first time, since I did not expect a Celtic line, but then I discovered that my ancestors come from a part of Spain that was originally Celtic in that time. Little by little, through visits and study, the connection went from a faint feeling to a full-fledged union. It is still something very much in development, and I am eagerly exploring where it will take me next.
Speaking of astrology, how do you see this Mercury in retrograde in Aries? One of my best friends is an astrologer and reader, and she recently posted an amazing video to get through all the fear and fluff. Would love to hear your thoughts.
We are up to 1111€, only 189€ to go. THANK YOU SO MUCH!
I saw it! There is more on the way, I am sure! I just posted a post I promised to support you and your fantastic project! I am contacting Steemians to get their attention to it! I belive Steemit is a heart-oriented community and we see which miracles it will bring to us! Be blessed, dear and much love from me!
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Thank you, Thank you!. Green Blessings to you!