Spending Time in Nature Boosts Calmness and Mental Wellness
Spending time in nature improves mental wellnessMost people around you in modern societies live in a constantly connected digital world and stay in the urbanized areas. The result of this is alienation from nature, and our own origin of inner calmness is the rise of stress, anxiety, and mental exhaustion.
In turn, stress leads to burnout, depression, and more serious mental health issues; anxiety, on the other hand, limits our freedom and leads to anxiety disorders.
A Free Soul is relaxed and lives a life where there is no pre-determination. In nature, life flows in the present moment. Do you experience that your life flows freely and you always have the freedom to make conscious choices?
I do. The Game of Life unfolds, but freedom is to be fully present and use your awareness, sensing, and power to be fully present in your physical body for conscious response. No inner reactions or subconscious tensions, just total inner freedom and the never-ending experience of the Joy of Life. That is my kinda fun!
As it is summer, I wrote this blog post to remind you that one of the most powerful, accessible remedies for health has existed for millions of years: the serenity of wild nature.
Spending time in forests, mountains, coasts, or other natural wilderness areas offers profound benefits for mental wellness, particularly by fostering a deep sense of inner calmness.
The Science of Nature’s Calming Effect
Multiple studies confirm that exposure to wild nature triggers measurable physiological and psychological changes that reduce stress and enhance mental health.
A Scoping Review Minimum Time Dose in Nature to Positively Impact the Mental Health of College-Aged Students, and How to Measure It, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in January 2020, found that even 10 minutes spent sitting or walking in natural settings significantly lowers stress markers.
Participants showed decreased heart rate, reduced cortisol levels (the primary stress hormone), lower blood pressure, and increased parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) nervous system activity compared to those in urban environments. Psychologically, people reported feeling calmer, more refreshed, and less anxious.
In Japan, forest bathing, which they call Shinrin-Yoku, is even recommended by doctors.
Shinrin-Yoku is a healing process of therapeutic relaxation where one spends time in a forest or natural atmosphere, focusing on sensory engagement to connect with nature. This practice aims to integrate and harmonise humans with the serenity of nature. It can also be explained as a mindful immersion in forest environments.
Shinrin-Yoku has been extensively researched, and one of those studies is a 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. This study concluded that forest bathing significantly reduces symptoms of anxiety, depression, and anger, with particularly strong effects on anxiety.
The participants in the study experienced improved mood, greater vitality, and enhanced overall wellbeing after sessions as short as 15 minutes for at least 9 days in a row. However, spending longer quiet time in the natural forest or wetland areas, in our team’s experience, boosts vitality and calms the mind more efficiently.
There are many articles and comprehensive reviews that have highlighted that nature exposure not only lowers negative affect (such as rumination and worry) but also increases positive emotions, life satisfaction, and a sense of meaning and purpose.
One thing in those studies is common: People with greater lifetime exposure to natural green spaces show substantially lower risk of mental illness.
Why Wild Nature Is Especially Powerful For Mental Wellness?
Wild, unstructured nature appears to deliver stronger restorative effects than manicured parks for mental wellness.
The background of wild natural areas is quiet and calm. Essentially, nature is conscious.
In the modern wolrd we still understand little about the information networks that trees and wild animals have in nature. We used to be part of the nature networks, but busy lives in the artificial environments have changed this for most of us.
When you go to nature and leave your headphones and screens behind. Music in your headphones and screens will limit your direct contact with the calming energy of nature, as your attention is nailed to listening to human-made sounds and viewing information flows on the screens.
Indeed, in nature, there can also be stressful situations. However, animals and birds shake off their stress once the situation is resolved.
Nature is always present. Plants, animals, and birds never worry about the past or the future. They don’t think about the past events or imagine what happens next.
Only when your mind is calm and silent, and you come in contact with a wild deer, it looks you in the eye, and when the animal doesn’t meet any worry, fear, or anxiety, it just moves. However, all wild birds and animals notice the stress in humans. They feel the negative energy of worry and spot fear. Those are just so different vibrations from the calm, natural flow otherwise present in the wild nature.
Being immersed in nature allows you to engage your senses more fully. The profound calm and silence can be intimidating if you are used to constant noise. However, sooner or later, you calm down, your breathing and walking start to be in harmony with the place you are in, and then inner calm becomes natural again. In fact, such inner calmness should be with you 24/7; even in all work situations, you should remain calm.
The scent of earth and foliage, the visual complexity of natural patterns, and the slow pace allow you to notice the beauty of your surroundings and feel more present. This allows you to be fully alive and maybe even awe over the grandeur of nature.
Natural environments allow your otherwise tense and directed awareness to become more spatial. What most people are unaware of is that your awareness or consciousness in itself has no tension.
It is the fast jumping of directed subconscious attention on the autopilot mode (inner reactivity) that causes tension in your awareness. Letting go of this tension, becoming fully grounded and present in your physical body, reduces your stress and fatigue.
Physiologically, time in wild nature lowers sympathetic nervous system activity (fight-or-flight) while activating the parasympathetic system, creating a state of deep calmness. This shift reduces chronic cortisol elevation, which is linked to anxiety, depression, burnout, and impaired immune function.
Mental Wellness Benefits of Being in Nature
Spending a longer time in wild nature is associated with:
- Reduced symptoms of anxiety;
- Lower overall stress and subconscious inner reactivity that, in turn, reduces burnout and depression risks or lowers their impact when you already have them;
- Improved mood, self-esteem, and improved conscious mental and emotional regulation;
- Better sleep quality and appetite afterwards;
- Muscular and mental relaxation;
- Enhanced cognitive function and improved access to intuition and creativity, as those demand inner calmness to be accessible;
- A greater sense of connection and purpose might also appear.
Usually, these mental wellness benefits of being in nature compound over time.
Daily or weekly regular time in nature tends to prevent the slow build-up of chronic stress that leads to burnout and depression. Once you get rid of your fears, it also lowers your anxiety.
We recommend that you take regular weekly forest or beach walks with a duration of at least 120 minutes (see the reason in this blog). During such a calm walk without headphones and screens, your sensory immersion happens; this is the main reason doctors prescribe forest bathing practices in Japan.
The key to those benefits from being in nature arrives from your full presence. For the benefit of nature to kick in, you need to become fully engaged with the natural environment. If you desire to take pictures, use a real camera or put your phone on flight mode, and then only use it as a camera.
Our life in the modern world is often extremely overstimulated, and wild nature can offer us a rare free sanctuary.
Due to constant overstimulation, 9 out of 10 workers feel stressed. Most of us aren't fully present and grounded, thus people experience inner reactivity that keeps their minds in constant turmoil.
Do you know your stress situation? Test it for free below!
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Unfortunately, most people around us have totally forgotten to switch off and take a silent time. So, it is no wonder that most people feel stressed, anxious, and worried. When we add lies and war-related or other negative news, the social background often causes us to forget who we are.
Being in Wild Nature Allows You to Reconnect with Your True Self
When in nature, you can calm down. When you arrive in nature, take a calm and peaceful walk and just observe nature around you. Stop if needed and just look around for 10 minutes, and establish the connection with the calm surroundings.
When you become calmer by doing so, you may notice that you get out of your subconscious reactive mode. It is no longer a fight, but a calm presence slowly appears.
Being fully present, observing, and noticing the beauty of nature’s variety is relaxing.
Your thoughts, imagination, and emotions slow down, and then even a silent inner pause may appear. This thoughtless, imaginationless, emotionless, calm state that appears is your natural state of being.
Your True Self is a calm and silent inner state (see the graph above).
You aren’t your thoughts, imaginations, emotions, desires, fears, or anxiety. You aren't your physical body.
Only when your mind is calm and relaxed, and you become fully aware of where you are at the present moment with your physical body, are you able to sense what is going on.
It is your calm mind that allows you to notice that thoughts, imagination, emotions, and physical body are your tools. They should work for you, not run you on a subconscious fast-paced autopilot mode.
As with all tools, they should be used consciously with a purpose when needed and put in a rest mode when not needed. You don’t need to think constantly or constantly use emotions.
As True Self, you have three properties:
- You Are.
- You know that You Are
- There is a certain flow of energy that keeps you alive (in India, this energy has a name, Ananda, but you can call it blissfulness, love, or Joy of Life).
Those three aspects are your true essence. Being in nature allows this natural being to reappear from under your daily busyness and false identities, like your position, social status, income level, etc.
A Human Being is what you are in essence. The English language is correct here and gets the substance of those three qualities correctly. However, too often people are in a subconsciously reactive doing mode. Too much action, too little calmness. Remember, you don't say that you are a Human Doing, you are a Human Being! Re-learning to be and relax is what you need, especially as summer is the holiday season.
Inner Reactivity is the Real Problem
Your constant inner reactivity is the source of your stress. Not stressors, but how you react to stressors and challenges. That is why training your mind, while you are well, matters.
Inner reactivity is the main source of stress as you lose your ability to respond, which equals making calm conscious choices.
Your wish to know what happens next is what causes anxiety. As a Free Soul who lives as Your True Self, you don't know what happens next.
You know that the Game of Life is, and whatever happens, you have the inner power to make conscious choices. That is where your freedom is.
Your fears, stress, and anxiousness hinder and limit you and keep your physical body and mind tense.
When you come in contact with the calmness of peaceful summer nature, your main aim should be to relax and let go of all the tensions and become fully present.
Finding the path back to your True Self and inner calmness is possible. It is what allows you to live consciously and use sensing and awareness as your main tools. Besides the fully digital trainings that we offer, I am available for one-on-one sessions to restore your inner calm.
Don't wait; restoring mental wellness is harder and more expensive than keeping it. That is why this website is about the proactive mental wellbeing approach and inner calmness above all.
You can ask for the e-training or one-on-one session offer here.
When you feel tense in nature, take a swim or shake your body.
Personally, I love longer walks. I recommend that you try to walk until your mind becomes blank. Stopping the noisy train of thoughts and emotional turmoil is what allows you to relax; the following video explains your inner noise problem.
Relaxation, in turn, allows your physical body to restore itself. Relaxation is what allows your mind to become naturally calm. Remember: the natural state of the mind is calm. If you are not calm, your inner domain is already in error.
That is why on this website, we often state that inner calmness is a superpower.
Being calm allows you to be peacefully aware, notice, and make conscious decisions in every situation; this is what makes challenges easier to solve.
Remember, your busy mind blocks being present. You lag behind reality when your thoughts keep you occupied. The brain researcher David Eagleman from the Baylor College of Medicine has stated, "When you think an event occurs, it has already happened," as a thinking and busy mind lags about 80 milliseconds behind actual events.
When you add subconscious inner reactivity to thinking and experiencing emotions, your freedom is gone, and inner turmoil is almost constantly on.
So, use this summer holiday to be in nature and become more present and calmer. Then, when you return to the city and your work situation, remember this natural inner calmness and establish yourself in it regardless of what is going on around you.
Conclusion
Spending time in wild nature and without your constantly connected hand-held devices reminds you that life is something beautiful and larger. It can have the power to quiet your constant mental noise and restore a profound sense of inner peace.
You can always contact us; we help you to restore inner peace and train your mind so that it becomes calm.
Knowing how to always keep inner calm in practice is what allows you to use your 4 main tools most efficiently. Those 4 tools for you as a Free Soul and Human Being are: thoughts, imagination, emotions, and physical body. We all have those, but often those tools are not in our conscious use and use us instead.
As it is summer, make sure you have some time off and go to the wild nature. Your mind, your physical body, and improved overall wellbeing will thank you.
This blog post, pictures, and videos are provided by Kaur Lass