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When you are depressed--as Isabel knows from her own experience--you feel that "now everything is about you." You become trapped in your own story and your own thoughts, and they rattle around in your head with a dull, bitter insistence. Becoming depressed or anxious is a process of becoming a prisoner of your ego, where no air from the outside can get in. But a range of scientists have shown that a common reaction15 to being out in the natural world is the precise opposite of this sensation--a feeling of awe. Faced with a natural landscape, you have a sense that you and your concerns are very small, and the world is very big--and that sensation can shrink the ego down to a manageable size. "It's something larger than yourself," Isabel said, looking around her. "There's something very deeply, animally healthy in that sensation.