In the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, I felt the need to release an episode of NORTH to help the readers of GLOBR calm their minds with a quick dose of nature. If you want, you can read the transcript below, or just listen to the full episode here.

TRANSCRIPT:

From Minneapolis, Minnesota, I’m Jackson Barlow, and you’re listening to NORTH.

Over the past few months, the Coronavirus, or COVID-19, has swept the globe in a horrible way. Many are scared, including me, of what the virus might do to our world and with that, many might also be a little stressed out over the frightening news coverage. Today on NORTH, I’ll try to help ease that stress with nature. There’s countless options out there of what you can do to help your mind calm down, but I’ll cover some that relate to the outdoors, and some that will help you ease your thoughts for the coming weeks.

For my first recommendation, I would say use an app called RainforestCx. This app is just pure genius. Basically, all you have to do is download it, open it up, and immediately you have access to a list of rainforests that you can listen to live from anywhere in the world. It’s amazing, for example, you have one in Brazil that you can listen to, and immediately you’re connected with nature from a thousand miles away or however far it takes you.

Another app that I say you should use is called Litterati. Now you may have heard about this app from the previous NORTH episode, or you may have heard of it from GLOBR, but I would still say that this will help you with any anxiety relating to the Coronavirus. And I’m serious about this because not only does it help the Earth, but it also helps you get outside more often, and I believe that getting outside is a key factor in staying healthy during the outbreak of Coronavirus.

Third of all, I would say if you have a local park district that maybe hasn’t been shut down quite yet, you should go to one of their parks. I know that around where I live we have a major park district that I like to go to a lot. They have miles and miles of hiking trails that my friends and I love to explore, my family and I would love to explore, and it would just really help if you went to one of these parks and, like I said, explore around and I believe that that might help relive your mind a little bit of some major thought relating to the Coronavirus.

Finally, I would just like to say, maybe the most important thing of all is just to get outside. I think, like I said before, getting outside is a key factor in keeping your mind healthy, and keeping your thoughts about COVID-19 away from your head, because once your outside, your basically transported into this different world of nature. Birds, the crows, the different deer, maybe some animals, and your mind just immediately transports you to, like I said an other worldly experience. So, again, I think getting outside most often is the most important thing when relieving yourself of stressful thoughts and anxiety.

Thank you so much for listening to NORTH this month. I hope that all is well, and if you are stressed about the coronavirus, please consider trying one of these options so your mind can be relieved. Even though I won’t be publishing articles fro a few weeks due to the closure of my local school district, you can always look back at the archives dating back to May of 2019. Again, thank you so much for listening to the official GLOBR podcast, and I’ll see you next month.