Mental Self-Care, Key #2: Nature

[excerpted from, 9 Keys to Mental Self-Care: Health Psychology ?2023]

Ah, nature. Our natural home.

The effects of time spent in nature on the wellbeing of the mind cannot be overstated. Many nature-based interventions have been developed, programs and therapies designed to engage in and with nature for the benefit of our mental health.

Similarly, humanity’s disconnection from the natural world is widely considered an imbalance and cause for mental distress – and perhaps even mental illness.

Each week I board a ferry and traverse the Marmara Sea, to arrive an hour later at a small island in an archipelago of Istanbul, where I live. Once on the island, I head immediately for its small, forested peak (in truth, a mere 200m elevation) where, typically absent of any other humans, I meditate – and feed peanuts to a flock of hooded crows. Trekking on through forest and along coastline, noticing each newly flowering plant along the way with its butterflies and bees, encountering an occasional horse, cow, chicken, or lizard (and a plethora of cats, for which this city is famous), I notice as much as possible, I sense, and I listen. I’m deeply listening, not only to songbirds but to the land ancestors, to the voice of the natural world, to the whispering wind. It’s my therapy, and my religion, and I’m home.

Nature-based counseling, in which outdoor programs and therapies are combined, was found to have a beneficial effect on mental health and wellbeing in a review of studies by Lewis et al. (2022); a majority of such programs included adventure and/or wilderness experience, and as the contribution of counseling versus nature exposure was not always clear, additional research will be beneficial. In a review of 50 studies by Coventry et al. (2021), nature-oriented interventions for community-dwelling adults were found to decrease depression and anxiety and increase positive mood. Most effective were programs of 8-12 weeks in duration and for 20-90 minutes at a time; examples included gardening, green exercise, and nature-based therapy.

Nature-based interventions have also shown to be beneficial even in the face of chronic illness. In a review of 13 studies, Taylor et al. (2022) found strong evidence for nature’s positive impact on psychological wellbeing despite the presence of long-term health concerns. Tr?strup et al. (2019) also found in their review that nature exposure had a positive benefit on the mental health of those with chronic somatic conditions. In a review of 12 studies totaling 2,786 participants who were cancer survivors, Timko Olson et al. (2023) found that nature-based programs were associated with improvements in depression and anxiety, sleep, stress, fatigue, pain, and overall sense of connectedness versus isolation; a majority of participants cited nature as their single most important resource for coping with cancer.

Nature is restorative and stress-reducing, while a deep connectedness to nature has been found to promote emotion regulation – that is, we can better understand and facilitate our emotions, aka, emotional intelligence, the more time we spend in nature and sense our connectedness to the natural world (Bakir-Demir et al., 2021). Forest environments in particular have been well studied for their benefits to mental health and wellbeing, both promoting positive and reducing negative effects (Clark et al., 2023). Nature connectedness has been demonstrated to promote not only hedonic or pleasure-inducing effects but also eudaimonic wellbeing, or presence of meaning in one’s life, including personal growth (Pritchard et al., 2020).

In fact, nature is a direct source of spiritual connection for many, something that all of our distant ancestors would have known in our early animistic societies. Spirituality can be interpreted similar to religion but also to nontheistic forms of meaning, purpose, philosophy, morality, and ethics. In a study of nature-based spirituality for wellbeing, Naor and Mayseless (2020) demonstrated that for many, nature is the physical embodiment of their spirituality with significant therapeutic effects. The researchers found that nature’s immensity can translate into an expansive perspective or worldview, that experiencing interconnectedness with the natural world creates or strengthens one’s sense of belonging not only to a particular social system but to the ‘web of all life’, and that nature as a setting of unconditional acceptance contributes to one’s sense of authenticity – whoever you are, you’re perfectly okay. Nature doesn’t judge.

This relationship with the natural world has also been described as just that: relationship, like any other we may have in the social sense, with very similar or even identical emotional content, as delineated by Petersen et al. (2019). These researchers further suggest that in order to better understand how people feel connected to nature we might look at various forms of relationships among humans, especially at the emotional bonding that occurs – including love itself. (We might also look at the deeply emotional relationship between humans and their dogs, cats, or other creature companions – our most immediate connections to the natural world.)

For improving and supporting our mental health, we need to immerse ourselves in the natural world itself, breathe the air, listen to the birds, and feel the soil, communing and being at one with the genuine environment. Nature documentaries can help to reinforce such experiences but not replace them, in a similar way that looking at photographs of joyful experiences we’ve had can once again boost our happiness and subjective wellbeing. Nature-based virtual reality experiences may one day produce human response similar to that of nature itself, and research in this area is underway, but thus far, VR/AR don’t compare to actual nature immersion.

We, creatures of nature, need to consciously foster our connectedness to the natural world. The evidence is clear: immerse yourself in nature on a regular basis, for improved mental wellbeing.

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Exercises:

Immerse yourself weekly in the natural world. Choose a favorite place and go there regularly. Focus on nature connectedness, on building relationship, on familiarity. Get to know this place, notice as things change, notice as much as possible. Bring food offerings for creatures there. Find a favorite spot and meditate in nature.

Meditating on nature, when at home, is also useful. It’s never a substitute for the real experience – but it can be a helpful supplement that also contributes to your mental wellbeing.

Similarly, when not in nature, spend time reminiscing about your experiences in the natural world. Research tells us that reminiscing brings the health benefits a second time; looking at photographs we took on our last nature hike, recalling in our mind’s eye that mountaintop experience or that view, remembering how the air smelled and the sea breeze on our face, all of these go beyond memory – and boost your mental wellbeing just a bit more.

Cultivate a garden. Or a flower bed. Or a window box. Or a houseplant. Grow and nurture something green.

Keep a nature journal. Jot down your experiences there, dry a flower or two, sketch that old tree, explore your feelings – and this relationship with nature. Similarly, you might want to explore what it means to you to be a creature of nature, to claim the natural world as your true home.

Consider a nature shrine in your home. A shelf will do. Bring objects home from your nature explorations, add them to your collection, and spend a few minutes gazing at this shrine daily. This is your at-home bridge to the natural world. Cherish it.

Nature videos, documentaries, photographs, even VR/AR can all help to develop your nature connectedness. While they don’t have the same effects on health as the genuine experience, they can in fact add to your sense of relationship with the natural world. The more we know, the closer we feel.

Explore the nature around you. If you live in a house, determine your favorite tree and cultivate that relationship. If in an urban apartment as I am, you’re still likely to have street trees outside, and ivy climbing the building walls, and birds, and maybe even bees. Look for nature everywhere.

9 Keys to Mental Self-Care, by Anne Hilty, ?2023

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References:

Bakir-Demir T, Berument SK, and Akkaya S (2021). Nature connectedness boosts the bright side of emotion regulation, which in turn reduces stress. Journal of Environmental Psychology 76:101642. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2021.101642

Clark H, Vanclay J, and Brymer E (2023). Forest features and mental health and wellbeing: A scoping review. Journal of Environmental Psychology 102040. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2023.102040

Coventry PA, Brown JE, Pervin J et al. (2021). Nature-based outdoor activities for mental and physical health: Systematic review and meta-analysis. SSM - Population Health 16:100934. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100934

Lewis O, Ohrt J, Toomey TM et al. (2022). A Systematic Review of Nature-Based Counseling Interventions to Promote Mental Health and Wellness. Journal of Mental Health Counseling 44:3, 191-208. https://doi.org/10.17744/mehc.44.3.01

Naor L and Mayseless O (2020). The therapeutic value of experiencing spirituality in nature. Spirituality in Clinical Practice 7:2, 114-133. https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000204

Petersen E, Fiske AP, and Schubert TW (2019). The Role of Social Relational Emotions for Human-Nature Connectedness. Frontiers in Psychology 10:2759. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02759

Pritchard A, Richardson M, Sheffield D et al. (2020). The Relationship Between Nature Connectedness and Eudaimonic Well-Being: A Meta-analysis. Journal of Happiness Studies 21, 1145-1167. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-019-00118-6

Taylor EM, Robertson N, Lightfoot CJ et al. (2022). Nature-based interventions for psychological wellbeing in long-term conditions: A systematic review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19:6, 3214. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19063214

Timko Olson ER, Olson AA, Driscoll M et al. (2023). Nature-Based Interventions and Exposure among Cancer Survivors: A Scoping Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 20:3, 2376. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032376

Tr?strup CH, Christiansen AB, St?len KS et al. (2019). The effect of nature exposure on the mental health of patients: a systematic review. Quality of Life Research 28, 1695-1703. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-019-02125-9