Thank you! Here's your resource: Nature Therapy: An Introduction
Watch the video and click the button below to download the presentation with your complimentary nature therapy activity.
Prefer to read? You'll find the presentation content below!
Hello everyone! Thank you so much for your interest and your curiosity about Nature Therapy as a way to gain deeper insight and understanding of yourself. That openness to personal exploration is exceptional and something to celebrate. Great work — I appreciate you!
I’m June, and I created WILDKEPT to help people like you to explore and understand themselves better through art, nature and connection. I am a lifelong nature lover — from a young age I recognized that spending time in nature wasn’t just good, but essential for my own wellbeing. And as it turns out, that’s true many people, and it’s a concept backed by thousands of years of history, as well as a growing number of scientific studies, which we’ll learn more about a little later. I also come to you with a background in social good – I have worked in the nonprofit sector since 2008, and I deeply value helping people, and making the world a better place. Which is why my career has turned to working with others to support their personal growth. When we make a practice of exploring and developing ourselves, it gives us skills and tools to understand others as well and that – together – has the power to make profound positive change in the world.
Nature therapy can play a part in that. But first let’s take a moment to define it: Nature therapy includes a variety of techniques that help connect people to nature and gain positive physical, emotional, and psychological benefits that cultivate personal growth and insight.
Nature therapy encompasses a wide variety of techniques. You might’ve heard of some of these techniques and terms: Ecotherapy, forest therapy, silvo therapy, forest bathing, green therapy, green care, green exercise, Grountding, Earthing, Wilderness Therapy. Adventure therapy often involves being out in nature. Animal assisted therapy can also be part of the nature therapy umbrella.
One of the first formalized nature therapy techniques is forest bathing, which was popularized in Japan, in 1982. Forest therapy can be described as the intentional practice of surrounding oneself in nature and being mindful of each sense and the present experience. (Source)
But nature therapy is ancient and dates back to the very beginnings of humanity. Hippocrates – Greek physician and sometimes called “the father of medicine” famously said, more than 2000 years ago, “Nature itself is the best physician” and “The physician treats, but nature heals.” And scholarly work suggests Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire in 550 BCE, built gardens with the intention of improving his people’s health. (Source)
And throughout history we’ve seen poets and artists turn to nature for inspiration, peace, and healing.
There’s also a science that backs nature therapy. Clinical psychologist Susan Albers, suggests that forests have higher oxygen levels compared to urban or indoor environments and breathing in that oxygen-rich air can support proper oxygenation of your blood and subsequently benefit your brain function. And that trees and plants also release phytoncides, which are antimicrobial compounds that may benefit the immune system and contribute to stress reduction. (Source)
More than that, there are a growing number of studies about the effects of nature on people’s mental and physical health, and on nature therapy techniques specifically. A study in 2007 showed that forest therapy reduces cortisol, a stress hormone. Another study examined 14 already published studies involving college-aged adults which found that nature-rich environments unequivocally helped reduce mental distress. Just 10 minutes, either sitting or walking in a wide range of natural settings was enough to show a significant beneficial improvement on the participants mental health. (Source)
A study that specifically looked at nature therapy’s effect on people with depression found that it increased mental well-being, with self-reported symptoms of depression decreasing significantly and the severity of the diagnosis of depression also decreased. (Source)
Here are just some of the benefits of nature therapy:
- Greater sense of wellbeing
- Deeper sense of mindfulness and awareness
- Stress reduction, lower anxiety
- Enhanced Creativity
- Boosted cognitive abilities like: improved performance on working memory, cognitive flexibility, and attentional-control tasks (general increased focus and attention)
- Reduced mental fatigue and irritability
- Physical health benefits like lower blood pressure, improved cardiovascular health, lower cortisol levels, boosted immune function, increased vitamin d)
- Feeling of peace and calm, connectedness, and a deeper sense of meaning and purpose in life
So how does nature therapy work with me?
There are four components which I’ll go into detail about, but here’s the overview: First, we’ll talking about your goals and interests, then we’ll select a nature therapy activity, you’ll have the experience of connecting with nature, and then we come together for reflection on the experience.
So step one, we’ll talk about what your goals, interests and preferences are for the session. It’s okay if you don’t know! This is just an opportunity for you to share information that will help guide our session. It could be logistical things like: I don’t really have access to nature – I live in a wall-to-wall concrete city. I’m interested in exploring nature therapy I can do in my home. Or interested based things like: I really hate the ocean, can we focus on something forest oriented? Some examples for goals include: you want to destress, you’re feeling a little lost and disconnected from your sense of purpose.
Then, with those goals and interests in mind we’ll select an nature therapy activity together. Some activities, might include: Finding a quiet place in nature and sit and observe your surroundings for at least 10 minutes, using your senses to connect with nature and notice and patterns or changes. Or Taking a walk around your neighborhood and making note of the plants, animals, and other parts of nature there – and then going home to identify what they are to give you a deeper feeling of connection to the world around you.
The next step is the nature connection – doing the activity we selected. Many times this will be something you do on your own, but sometimes we’ll do the activity together virtually (for example, if the activity is something you do indoors or at home). Before your activity we’ll talk about things to keep in mind so you get the maximum benefit from it – there’s an instructional, guidance part to this. (ex, reinforcing the Nature connection mindset of Mindfulness, Embracing awe and wonder, Experiential learning)
Once you have completed the activity, we’ll have time for reflection. It may be that during the activity you gained some profound insight, but those insights also often happen during this period of reflection. You may do some self-reflection through journaling, or get deeper understanding during the conversation we have.
Afterward, you get ongoing support. I’m available to answer any questions you have, and I’ll follow-up to ask for your feedback on how it went. Ongoing journaling can often be really helpful – writing your experience down, reflecting back on the experience, and jotting down any thoughts related to your nature therapy activity – all provide space for further analysis and contemplation. To try to integrate any of those newfound insights you uncovered during your nature therapy session into your personal growth journey.
So! If you have the time now or if you’d like to return to this later – here’s an example of a pretty basic, foundational nature therapy activity.
This activity promotes mindfulness which is a cognitive skill where you are consciously aware of where your attention is, and brings that attention to your present moment experience. There’s no judgement, no comparison, no fixing – just observation of your experience in the here and now. It’s an essential skill for being fully engaged and present in our daily lives, being consciously aware of our feelings/experiences/sensations, and helps build the ability to regulate our emotions, reduce reactivity and overwhelm.
- Find a quiet and comfortable spot in nature where you can sit and focus for at least 10 minutes.
- Take a few deep breaths, inhaling through your nose, exhaling through your mouth.
- First, do a gentle scan of your body by bringing your attention to the top of your head, down your neck, following your spine, breathing in through your lungs, settling into your hips, continuing down through your legs to the tips of your toes.
- Turn your attention outward to the nature around you.
- Use your five senses to observe the natural environment. Don’t just mentally catalog your observations — sit with them and experience them.
- If your mind starts to wander during this exercise, gently bring your attention back to the nature around you.
- When you’re finished, take a few more deep breaths and observe how you feel.
If you need a prompt: Using your senses to observe nature – what do you see (light through branches, color of grass)? What do you hear (rustling leaves, chirping crickets)? What do you smell (moist earth, meadow grass and flowers)? What do you feel (rough stone underneath you, soft moss next to you)?
Do be sure to download this presentation or screenshot the exercise so you can take it with you outdoors.
Now what? You can find more info on nature therapy and other great ways to discover yourself through nature, art and connection at wildkept.com. There’s also a form where you can get in touch with me about setting up one-on-one sessions, or you can contact me directly at hello@wildkept.com. Please do enjoy the mindfulness in nature exercise and I hope to connect with you again soon!