Nature Connection Articles
Our Most Recent Articles
Pathways to Connection with Nature
Nature-connection activities should help you to feel more in tune with nature and a part of nature rather than apart from nature. It is all about appreciating the wonder and beauty in nature and the natural environment, rather than about ‘knowledge’. Nature-connection is not about wildlife or tree-identification, it involves shifting your attention and focus from learning about what something in nature is to how things in nature make you feel.
Nature-Connection and The Environment
Increased connection to nature is important on a personal level as it can improve and maintain health and wellbeing, leading to a lower incidence of ‘affective’ mental health problems including lowering depression and anxiety levels and relieving stress. However, increased connection with nature can also be beneficial to the wider natural environment, as it can lead to more pro-environmental attitudes and subsequent positive behaviours.
The Benefits of Hugging Trees
Hugging trees is an ancient practice that dates back thousands of years. It’s also one of the most effective ways to reduce stress and improve mood. A study has shown that people who hug trees have lower blood pressure and heart rates.
Nature Connection and Wellbeing
Research published in the journal Nature, shows that people who spend at least 120 minutes in nature each week are significantly more likely to report higher psychological well-being than those who don't visit nature at all during an average week. This post explores this, and suggests ways to easily and enjoyably connect with nature for two hours a week.
Forest Bathing and Mental Health
Forest bathing and related nature-connection activities can be beneficial for mental health, reducing stress and anxiety, alleviating depression, raising mood and increasing resilience.
Sharing Circles in Forest Bathing
During guided group Forest Bathing sessions, participants identify something in nature that attracts them. They then spend a few minutes contemplating how this part of nature relates to them and what they can learn from it, and the activity or invitation often ends with everyone sharing what they have learned in a ‘Sharing Circle’.
The Ariundle Oakwoods
We are located on the edge of the Ariundle Oakwoods and it is one of my favourite places to offer guided Forest Bathing. The Ariundle Oakwoods is classed as a temperate rainforest, and Forest Bathing first developed in the temperate forests of Japan so this seems quite appropriate.
The Ancient Atlantic Oakwoods
The Atlantic Oakwoods of Scotland range from Sutherland in the North to Loch Lomond in the South, but fragments remain all the way down the Atlantic Coast of the Western Highlands, South-West Scotland, Cumbria and the Lake District, the West coast of Ireland, and through Brittany in France, Galicia in Spain and the West coast of Portugal.
Is Forest Bathing about Hugging Trees?
Forest Bathing can involve actually wrapping your arms around a tree. But it can also involve simply feeling the texture of the bark, smelling the leaves or needles, and noticing the beauty of a tree from further away, as well as just mindfully taking in the environment, landscape and soundscape around the tree.
Autism and Nature-Connection
Autism is a 'neurodifference' that affects the way that people process information and how they perceive and interact with the world around them. People with autism may appear socially awkward, distant or aloof. They often experience difficulties with making and maintaining relationships and may have difficulties understanding and relating to other people and social situations and this can lead to frustration, anxiety or social isolation.
This article looks at how increased nature-connection could be beneficial for people with autism and the potential role that the hormone oxytocin could play.
Autism and Barefooting
Tyler lives in Des Moines, Iowa and has autism. He started the Barefoot Autism Challenge to encourage people, whether autistic or not, to take their shoes off and experience the pleasures of walking barefooted.
The Wood Wide Web
The Wood Wide Web is a term used to describe the underground network of fungi that connect the roots of trees and other plants in a forest ecosystem. This network of fungi, known as mycorrhiza, is important for the exchange of nutrients and other substances between plants.
Me and Nature. An autist’s connection to Nature
Autism and Nature - a connection that some have said is stronger in autistic people than in neurotypical people. Others say that it’s the sensory input imbalance that neurodivergent people often experience that makes a connection with Nature stronger and more profound once you find it. Others yet point to the many studies showing that everyone, no matter how your brain is wired, benefit from being in and close to Nature.
Silvotherapy and Forest Bathing
Whilst many people view Forest Bathing and Silvotherapy as one and the same, Silvotherapy sessions are usually shorter than Forest Bathing sessions - 30 to 40 minutes in duration - and have a greater focus on the sensations associated with touch and actual physical contact with the trees than Forest Bathing.
The Autonomic Nervous System
For 99% of human existence, we have spent most of our time in the natural environment. Most of our physiological functions have evolved in, and designed for, a natural environment. It is only in the last couple of hundred years, since the Industrial Revolution, that we have become predominantly urban dwellers. However, the human race has not adapted fast enough to keep up, and many people find that urban living puts them in a permanent state of stress.
What Are The Differences Between Shinrin Yoku And Forest Bathing
The practice of Forest Bathing has its origins in the Japanese practice of Shinrin Yoku and it is called ‘Forest Bathing’ as Shinrin Yoku translates into English as ‘Forest Bath’ (the characters even look a little like trees 森林浴). However, there are a number of key differences between the two practices.
The Theories Underpinning Forest Bathing and Nature-Connection
There are a variety of theories that underpin and support the proposals that Forest Bathing and Nature-Connection activities have beneficial effects on psychological and physical wellbeing. These theories include the Biophilia Hypothesis, Attention Restoration Theory, and Psychophysiological Stress Recovery Theory.
Forest Therapy Hub Interview
You can read the interview that I did with the Forest Therapy Hub here. I discuss social prescribing, and the benefits of Forest Bathing and Nature-Connection for mental health and also for people experiencing arthritis.
What You Should Know About Phytoncides and Terpines
Phytoncides and terpenes are antimicrobial and insecticidal compounds that are emitted by the plants and trees and protect them from bacteria, fungi and being eaten by insects and animals. They also serve as a way for trees and plants to communicate with each other, warning about danger. Terpenes have also been found to play an important role in counteracting global warming.
Natural Killer Cells and Forest Bathing
Natural Killer (NK) cells are a type of lymphocyte that serves a variety of function in the immune system, such as destroying infected and abnormal cells in the body. They can even target a viral infection inside cells, without destroying the entire cell.
Research has shown that Forest Bathing enhances NK activity in humans by increasing the number of NK cells and intracellular levels of anticancer proteins.