Heroes Not Zombies

I took this photo in a tea house when visiting Japan a number of years ago. That tea house was one of the most peaceful places I’ve ever been, and I think part of what made it feel such a positive, healing place, was that they slid back the paper screens over the windows to reveal a terrace with an awning, and then all you could see were trees, bushes, and grass.

I was very fortunate to spend almost half my career working in Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital, which became the NHS Centre for Integrative Care once it moved into new, purpose built premises. Although the location of the new build was at the back of a major hospital site, just next to the railway station, the architect designed the L-shaped building around a garden. All the patient care rooms and spaces faced into the enclosed garden, which could be accessed by stepping out onto decking once you’d slid aside the French windows. Everybody commented on it. Patients and staff. We all felt the peace, the calm, the comfort, and the security which seemed to come from such closeness to green nature.

There’s pretty famous research into that phenomenon in the world of architecture. We know that patients recover more quickly, with less complications and less need for painkillers post-op if their hospital room has a view of green nature (as opposed to having no window, or a view of a wall).

We know, too that there are social as well as health benefits from the “greening” of cities.

But the other thing which occurred to me when I was remembering my trip to the tea room, was that those moments of peace which we all need, don’t have to involve learning any special techniques. There’s no doubt that various forms of meditation, and of cognitive behavioural exercises can be helpful, but there’s something powerful, even necessary, about just taking a pause.

Maybe not even just pausing by sitting and looking, which I’ve recommended before, but sitting with a cup of tea, or coffee, or some other favourite beverage, sipping, gazing, and contemplating freely.

I think it add to the quality of life. It’s a way of slowing down.