Reaching out my hand and touching the tree’s bark, I tried to look at it with fresh eyes. I ran my hand along it, taking in its rough, bumpy nature. I spotted a small bee buzzing around the tree’s base and an ant crawling up it. I looked up into its leafy canopy through which bits of sunshine filtered through. The leaves were still green, not yet starting to shade to their fall yellow. Closing my eyes, I envisioned the vast system of fungi that links its roots to those of other trees.

Then I heard what sounded like a wolf’s howl. But it wasn’t a wolf – it was the leader of the forest therapy session I was engaging in at a Climate Grief and Hope Retreat at ThorpeWood, a center devoted to using nature to support mental health and social-emotional learning. 

We were doing an exercise called “Meet a Being” – which could be a tree or any other type of being. Coming out of the activity, I felt calmer, more at peace and looking with more wonder at everything around me. As I had gone into the retreat on the verge of burnout (again), this shift was sorely needed. Later in the retreat, we participated in an exercise that linked the principles of permaculture – an approach to sustainability based on Indigenous principles that is about working with nature rather than against it – to our own mental health.

From this experience and my own life, I’ve found some ways to use nature to improve mental and emotional health. Without these, I would have suffered burnout much earlier and more severely. These days, with the stress of everything going on, we can all use some healing and relief. (I actually wrote this sentence pre-Election Day. Little did I know. Ugh.)

Get outside

Humans have such a need for natural spaces and views that social scientists have a name for it: biophilia. Hospital patients exposed to natural views heal faster. Kids who live in subsidized housing do better in school when there are trees in their housing complexes. Kids who have ADHD focus better when they take walks in natural spacesrather than largely human dominated spaces. In general, being in nature just makes us feel and function better, no matter what we do. (This is not universal, but it’s pretty close.) While some outside space is “human dominated,”  all inside space is. So the first step is to get outside!

Find nature no matter where you are

People often think “getting out in nature” requires you visit a national park or a remote location. But humans are part of nature. There are non-human organisms and features all around us even in urban and suburban areas. Walking around cities, you can often find street trees along roads, dandelions and other hardy plants in the sidewalks, and clouds up overhead. At night, the moon shines bright almost everywhere. Finding nature everywhere means that you can access the stress relief it offers no matter where you are.

Get up close and personal

Part of the stress relief of nature comes from finding wonder and awe. Vast mountain views and waterfalls evoke awe, but so can colorful leaves and sun-dappled grass if you look at them the right way. Getting up close to nature – looking at the pedals of a dandelion or the veins of a leaf – can inspire a sense of wonder. Natural systems are staggeringly complex. Just imagining the vastness of all of the systems packed into a tree – the photosynthesis of leaves, the fungal mycelium between roots – can be breathtaking. Getting up close also allows us to focus on a single being without getting distracted by everything around us.

Tap into all of your senses

Sight is the most obvious sense with which to experience nature, bu there’s so much more. In the forest therapy session, the guide had us lie in the grass and close our eyes. You don’t have to lie down, but sit or stand and close your eyes. Listen to the birds or insects. Feel the sun or wind or cold on your face. Smell a flower or what is on the wind. If there’s something you can taste, do so. I especially like drinking my tea out onto the deck of my house. Opening up your senses and allowing all of that input flow in can calm swirling thoughts.

Make art

I’m not an arts and crafts person, but I really enjoyed the art-based activities we did in the forest therapy and permaculture sessions. In the forest therapy session, we each found one or two items from nature and brought them together to make a temporary nature collage. Seeing all of the different items we had found and put them together was beautiful. In the permaculture session, we made nature mandalas that represented some of our feelings about climate change. Searching out pieces that symbolically made sense together was such a different way of expressing myself (especially because I’m not inherently a visual thinker) that I found great joy in it. For inspiration, you can check out artist Andy Goldsworthy’s work, especially his giant spirals.

Use nature metaphors

I love a good metaphor and often use them to work through my own feelings. In the nature mandala exercise, I chose brown leaves, acorn tops, and acorns. The brown leaves symbolized the grief for the things we have lost or will lose. The acorns symbolized the hope of replanting and new beginnings. Thinking of feelings in terms of nature metaphors gave me tools to process feelings that I may otherwise have had difficulty working through.

Feel the ground under you

At the end of my yoga class the other day, during savasana (final relaxation), the teacher said “Let the ground support you.” I thought that was such an evocative way of describing how we can relax into the ground and trusting that it will be there to hold us. When you’re outside, notice how the ground is firm under your feet when you’re standing or under your bottom when sitting. Allow the Earth to support you.

If you want more resources on the connections between mental health that and nature, check out my friend Sandi Schwartz’s book, Finding Ecohappiness!