To mark Mental Health Awareness Week 2021, the Mental Health Foundation are focussing on nature and its beneficial impact on our wellbeing, physical and emotional.
The Mental Health Foundation provides various resources on their webpage, including a nature journal, which may be of personal interest, or of use to your colleagues / clients.
The Foundation are pulling together evidence:
- About nature’s unique ability to not only bring consolation in times of stress, but also increase our creativity, empathy and a sense of wonder
- It turns out that it is not just about being in nature but how we open ourselves up and interact with nature that counts.
- Even small contacts with nature can reduce feelings of isolation and be effective in protecting our mental health and preventing distress
It can often feel like information overwhelm, so please only take what you need from this email. An invitation to take a brief moment out – through the window, on a walk – to open up, apparently, it’s quality not quantity!
Below we’ve included a few resources for reference:
First up – an example of the ever-growing nature-based interventions (often in the form of social prescribing) that are getting the green light / funding:
- Mental Health Through Blue Prescriptions – connecting to ‘watery’ nature @ London Wetlands Centre
- Short BBC film on the benefits of forest bathing (and how to) – Shinrin Yoku
- A short article about being a counselling client outdoors by the sea
- A great article written by a coach, about nature-based work
It seems that the consensus is to get fully immersed – open up to nature’s invitations.
Lighthouse South Devon 