Eat Well, Sleep Well—and Connect with Nature

Staff at the Child Neuropsychiatry Unit in Pomezia, Italy—R. Miletto, F. Magnaguagno, and F. CipparoneRespectively: child neuropsychiatrist, educator and sports climbing instructor, environmental educator and trainer (writing in I Care, no. 4-09)—have built on Richard Louv's insights to describe a condition they call "nature deficit syndrome." In their clinical setting, it appears as a form of "poor health": not frank disease, but developmental disruptions across multiple systems. The skeletal system suffers. The metabolic system falters—obesity, appetite dysregulation, dysmetabolism of fats and sugars. The cardiovascular system weakens: reduced lung capacity, exercise tachycardia. And psychologically, children show emotional instability, poor social skills, chaotic free time, difficulty managing aggression (nail-biting, stammering), weak stress tolerance, low frustration threshold, unmoored anxiety, fragile self-esteem, and trouble concentrating.

The authors trace the problem to two core deficits:

• insufficient movement


• insufficient silence

The first seems obvious. The second less so. Our capacity for attention has limits we routinely underestimate, and it is far more selective than we realize. We may think we do not hear the ambient noise that floods our days, but our brain is constantly processing it. The staff recommend immersion in nature—deeper and sooner than most families attempt.

Two targeted projects emerged, both aiming not only to meet this goal but also to prevent conduct disorders such as bullying and the youth malaise that stems from communication breakdown.

The first, called "Natural Balance: For Children's Wellbeing in Nature," took place in a nature preserve near Rome. It began with a school camp at the start of the academic year—a way to solidify group cohesion. Then, throughout the year, brief outdoor sessions served small groups: children struggling academically or with special educational needs. Activities were framed as challenges designed to "shift habitual perceptual contexts and temporarily suspend automatic patterns. They engage participants physically, cognitively, and emotionally, under the supervision of an educational psychologist who facilitates relationships and conducts group reflection after each activity." The trails and tasks were meant to deepen environmental awareness, to stretch children toward new effort, and "to help them understand that you cannot change much without helping others and without accepting help."

The second project drew on mountain therapy and therapeutic climbing for children and young adolescents. It offered a specialized curriculum—called "North Face," invoking the hard side of a mountain, the side these young people had rarely seen in daylight or in their own self-awareness—for preadolescents and adolescents with special needs. Teens showing bullying behaviors, impulsivity, emotional instability, ADHD profiles, non-specific learning disorders, depression, identity disturbance, and difficulty forming bonds.

Both projects deserve attention chiefly because they work to prevent these conditions from hardening into clinical pathology.