How To Spend Time In Nature To Regain Your Sanity

Judging by my Twitter feed, the best way to have your shit together is to meditate, keep a journal, or spend time in nature. 

I only do 1 out of 3 regularly, so don’t listen to me. I am clearly not qualified to give life advice. But I do go on daily nature walks, which preserves what little of my sanity is left.  Still, all that advice about “spend time in nature” can sound like so much platitude-speak.

WTF does “spend time in nature” mean exactly?

Here are three suggestions:

1. Earthing. Spend some time walking barefoot. Lie down and watch the clouds go by. The sky and light is constantly changing. We relearn the feel of gripping the earth with our entire foot and all our toes. It connects us to both earth and sky.

2. Forest bathing (Shinrin yoku). Developed in the 80s in Japan, this practice does not involve nudity, though I suppose it could. Rather it involves deep breathing on a long walk in a forest. Scientifically proven to generate all sorts of health benefits.

3.  Overcome “green blindness”. For many of us when we look at nature we only see a wall of green. We don’t know the names of the plants, whether they are edible, native, have medicinal or other useful properties. Get to know the plants that grow around you. Download an app to ID plants. Learn from a certified forager what is edible (wild plants are more nutritionally dense). Buy Botany in a Day -- The patterns method of plant identification by Thomas J. Elpe. A wonderful  introduction to botany.

As poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil puts it,  “Maybe if you know the names of things, you’ll have less appetite for destruction.”

Photo credit: “森林浴” by J a s o n B o l d e r o is licensed under CC BY 2.0