How nature therapy helps with anxiety and depression…..
Nature therapy is a gentle way of ….. bringing you back to your SELF!
If things are overwhelming and you just don’t know how to cope, taking time out in nature could re-balance you. Connecting with nature can be a way back to centering yourself.
Little surprises are everywhere….
how can being in nature help my anxiety?
The below is an extract from an article that I found from The Harvard Medical School…
Research in a growing scientific field called eco-therapy has shown a strong connection between time spent in nature and reduced stress, anxiety, and depression.
"When people are depressed or under high levels of stress, this part of the brain malfunctions, and people experience a continuous loop of negative thoughts," says Dr. Strauss.
Digging a bit deeper, it appears that interacting with natural spaces offers other therapeutic benefits. For instance, calming nature sounds and even outdoor silence can lower blood pressure and levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which calms the body's fight-or-flight response.
Read more about Sour mood getting you down, get back to Nature HERE
Research and Links
Boost Immune Functioning - Stress hormones can compromise immune defense; in particular, the activities of frontline defenders, such as antiviral natural killer cells (NK), are suppressed by stress hormones. Since forest bathing can lower stress hormone production and elevate mood states, it’s not surprising that it also influences markers of immune system strength.
Phytoncides: How the Trees Heal - This is an interesting finding in the context of the century-old reports on the success of the so-called forest cure in tuberculosis treatment. In the mid- to late 1800s, physicians set up sanatoriums in Germany’s pine forests. Reported the benefit of the forest air; indeed, contrary to expectations, the results seemed to be magnified when the forest air trapped moisture.
There was speculation among the physicians of the time that pine trees secreted a healing balm into the air, and in yet another twist of the shinrin-yoku studies, the existence of an unseen airborne healer is being revealed. Read more about HERE.
Some ways to alleviate stress in today’s overwhelming world:
Walking in the forest
Stepping away from our devices
Creating your own “Sit Spot” (see blog)
Connect with the plants in your garden
We don’t realise how disconnected we are until we re-connect with Nature. then it can be an “oh my god, is this really how I should be feeling and living realisation”
Interesting articles on how Nature Helped Heal: How the Natural World Helped
Another interesting article on: The Rise of Nature-Based Therapy
The world Soul - Anima Mundi
Have you ever heard of the principle of the anima mundi? I am only just learning all about this myself and I am finding it fascinating. Here is a part of an article called Invoking The World Soul by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee.
With rationalism we forgot our place in the world. We forgot that our soul, this spark within us, has a direct relationship to the soul of the world. And I think, out of that, came a lot of the impoverishment -- soul impoverishment -- that we have today.
Because once we lose that relationship to the divine within matter, within creation, once we say the divine is only in heaven or can only be found in deep meditation we’ve lost something fundamental. And we’ve lost it both for ourselves and also for the anima mundi, for the soul of the world.
So humanity became more and more separated, or veiled itself more and more, from the soul of creation. Now as many of you know, if you separate yourself from the light of your own soul your life becomes darker and darker. It becomes more and more meaningless.
And people would say that is one of the many reasons there is so much addiction in our Western culture, because we have lost anything that nourishes us. We get addicted to drugs, or sex, or consumerism, shopping … whatever it is because there is nothing that nourishes us. We have lost this relationship to what is present within the soul of creation. Read more HERE.
