Mark Berman

He was no longer as depressed.

And it seemed like being in that environment was also quite inspirational for his artwork.

He would purchase these large yachting canvases and he would spread them out in the barn in the backyard of his home.

And he started to do his famous, you know, paint splattering where he would spill the paint and do different things with brushstrokes that were...

more organic and matched the organic properties of nature.

And I think people think that being out in nature inspired this new art form for him.

That's right.

And, you know, we would never argue that depression or alcoholism are easy problems to solve.

But it does seem to be the case that people's interactions with nature can be very beneficial for people who are suffering from depression and anxiety or ADHD, even things like PTSD.

So while, yes, I wouldn't say that being in nature can solve all of these problems, it does seem to be the case that being and interacting with nature can help with many of these problems.

Often they have problems that involve maybe developing depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD.

Some of them have traumatic brain injury or TBI.

There's a lot of physical and mental health conditions that unfortunately a lot of these service members develop from their time in the military.

Yeah, so they actually had about 20 or so of these military veterans engage in a six-week surf therapy therapeutic session where for three or four hours in a group setting in a Southern California beach, they taught these veterans how to surf, thinking that this kind of program could actually be beneficial to them from a mental and physical health perspective.

That's a good question.

I think in part because they had some feeling that being in nature might be beneficial.

So being out in the ocean, seeing the ocean waves, being on the beach, having the sights, smells, and even the textures of the ocean could be beneficial.

It was also somewhat of a social activity because they were taking these veterans out in groups of about 20 people.

And, you know, when you're trying to catch a wave, sometimes there's a lot of sitting on your board waiting to catch your wave.

And, of course, too, there's also an exercise component to it.