shirleya williams

Growing up, recycling was heavily enforced in my household. I was always told to recycle, but I never really knew why. When I first left home for college, I began neglecting to recycle, especially because no one else did. However, becoming an environmental science major changed my perspective completely. Though I still never took recycling too seriously, mostly due to my lack of single plastic use, recently I have started to rekindle my childhood relationships recycling. The more I recycle, I am made more aware of the plastic products I often use. Recycling is an easy task, but one that can also be made really difficult. However, if more people recycled worldwide, it would help minimize pollution. Also, if recycling were to become a more standard practice, it would reduce the world’s carbon footprint. I think recycling is definitely something that I want to improve in my daily life. It can have such a positive impact on the environment and takes minimal effort. I look forward to incorporating better recycling practices into my life and better understanding the proper ways to recycle in general.

Being a student with a STEM major usually comes with a lot of stress. One way I like to relieve stress is to spend time in nature. Spending time in nature can be good for clearing your mind and improving your mood. A study conducted by the University of Michigan found that there are many health benefits that come with taking walks in nature, especially group walks. There were also mental health benefits found with this study. Going outside and being in nature has been proven to be beneficial in many aspects of life, especially health. Despite having allergies, I have always enjoyed being in nature. It has always been a way to brighten my mood and relieve stress. I have found that I enjoy walking through gardens more than anything, so I have made an effort to go to more gardens, especially on campus. Recently I visited one of the gardens at Sunset Rec. Not only is it a nice walk to get there, you can also see and learn about all of the plants that are currently growing. I have also been spending a lot of time at the Botanical Garden as well. To me being in nature is very therapeutic and has always been a great mood booster. I would encourage everyone to try visiting a green space at least once to experience the positive effects it can have.

Walking can be seen as one of those tasks that no one really pays attention to or something that people try to avoid, oftentimes it can even feel like a chore. Being a college student, especially a college student at UCLA there is a lot of walking involved. However those walks are usually accompanied by music, phone calls, or some other form of distraction. These walks are also usually goal oriented, typically just getting to and from class. For this challenge I decided that I wanted to take time, excluding the walks to and from class, to go on more walks throughout the week. The intention behind these walks are to get more exercise and spend more time outside, while limiting the amount of usual distractions. During this past weekend, I’ve been going for more walks even during the light rain. For these walks I chose to not use my phone or listen to music. Not only did I have the time to be more mindful, I had the opportunity to use and reflect on all of my senses. For example, I could hear the sound of the rain hitting my umbrella, I was able to watch the rain as it hit the ground, and I could enjoy the smell of the rain. I was also able to pay more attention to my surroundings and the people around me. It was interesting to see how other people were enjoying (or not enjoying) the rain.