Mental Health Awareness Week- Nature

Something that we all have taken for granted pre COVID and something that has brought many of us sanctuary during these last 14 months.

Taken from the Latin word 'Natura' and similar to the Greek word 'Phusis' meaning natural growth, spending time in nature is a mini escape to improving calmness, peaceful and reducing the troubles going on inside your mind and is there for anyone and everyone whether you're just wanting to get out the house, meeting friends in an outdoor area or walking either yours or a friends dog. One other benefit is that nature is there throughout all four seasons of the year.

Spending time in nature have shown to brought many benefit to both physical and mental health whether you're trekking up countryside hills surrounding a lake taking in the scenery before you, taking walks around your local park admiring the lakes or green spaces or even just laying on a beach domestically or internationally looking out into the turquoise ocean and maybe some mountains on the horizon.

The great thing about nature is that it is not just for adults, kids especially need to spend time in nature as well whether its playing outside in the garden, being taken to the park with their parents riding on their bikes/having fun in the playground area or even hanging out with their friends in their own designed club or treehouse.

One thing I am always pleased to see when it happens is people doing meditation practices in nature where they just sit silently in a field embracing the the sound of wind, leaves rustling, birds chirping and branches moving or cracking and breathing in that fresh clean air as well as the soil on the ground. It is still great to do meditation indoors and picturing you're in a forest or on a hilltop but being in that outdoor space brings that extra bit of reality to the practice.

One thing I particular enjoy about being in nature is sky gazing whether that's during the day staring up in the surrounding blue or even during night-time star gazing seeing the lights of other houses and the city shine throughout the darkness. Doing both of these always brings me a calm state of mind even when experiencing a rubbish down day.

If this pandemic has taught us anything, its that its the small things in life that we have for granted a lot especially where nature is concerned. As we slowly get back to normality, I hope that being in nature/green spaces continues to grow and that parks and other sentential green space areas don't become extinct.

Happy Mental Health Awareness Week guys/girls, hope you enjoy and embrace this truly great week 💙💙💙