It is easy to feel overwhelmed when stress and loss mounts up in divorce. Going through monumental changes and downgrading one’s lifestyle can result in feeling blue. There may be financial worries and the realization hits that one will see the children only part-time. If a person is prone to depression all of this turmoil can be a trigger that pushes one down that slippery slope. One way to stop melancholy moods is with distraction. When sadness is like a DVD playing over and over in your head, substituted it with happier ones. The blues may hit expectantly like a huge wave, and that is when I mentally insert a DVD of fun times on holiday. Sometimes I can banish morose feelings when looking at our holiday photos and reminiscing about our adventures. Many people have expressed being in nature rejuvenates them. This is as simple as eating lunch outside or taking a stroll in a leafy area to lift one’s mood. There are hundreds of studies that back up the physical and mental health benefits of being out in nature. A study out of The Netherlands analysed records of 195 doctors with the focus of seeing if living near a green space was beneficial to well-being. They found that there were less “disease clusters” for those who lived within 1 kilometre of a green space. This particularly held true for those with depression and mental illness. University of Washington has on their web site a result from a study where some participants took a walk inside and the others did out in nature. 71% of the ones taking a walk outside had a decrease in their depression as opposed to 45% who were inside. Professor Jules Pretty from University of Essex and other researchers analysed data from ten studies….