Time in Nature is fundamental to the Naturalshift programme. If you sign up to Naturalshift, your deep immersion time in nature may be close to your home or work.
Alternatively your experience may be a small group retreat in a magical natural place known only to Naturalshift.
We will look at a mixture of quiet solo time, listening to and learning from nature, movement in nature, embodiment and coaching exercises and facilitated group work. There won’t be any flip charts and pens!
It’s about letting go in Nature. Getting away from the stresses and strains of working life and allowing yourself space to see more clearly, think more deeply and open up your heart.
We are Nature
Native Americans recognise that they are a part of nature not a ruler of it. Plants and animals are companions, healers, teachers, spirit messengers, and even younger siblings needing protection at times. If business could make a shift to this way of thinking, to respect, to honouring, to loving nature, what a difference we would see in this world.
The Cherokee women, when picking ginseng, to leave the first three plants untouched and to say a prayer before digging up the fourth leaving a bead as a gift to the plant’s spirit. By performing such honouring and appreciation, the Earth spirits are encouraged to continue their gifts of food, guidance and even protection.
Among native people, everything that comes from the Earth must be honoured, when it is the gifts become more sacred and the communications more clear and powerful.
Shinrin Yoku
Shinrin Yoku (forest bathing) is immersing yourself in the forest for your health, happiness and a sense of peace. Traditionally a Japanese practise, it allows you to reconnect with nature, simply through the woods or your local park.
Clare has studied Shinrin Yoku with www.natureandtherapy.co.uk and is a Level 1 Practitioner.
Positive Effects of Nature
According to proponents of environmental psychology, spending time in nature rather than human-made environments has three positive effects:
- Reduced stress
- Improved mood
- Improved cognitive performance
There are two mainstream psychology theories that attempt to explain these outcomes:
Explanation 1: Psychoevolutionary Theory
Psychoevolutionary Theory (PET) asserts that the positive reaction that humans experience in nature is programmed evolutionarily. Nature was the first place that humans learned to survive by gathering the resources around us, just as our evolutionary ancestors did.
It’s easy to lose sight of in a world so full of pre-packaged food and bottled water, but the beauty we see in rivers and plant and animal life stems from a place of survival. The food and water that exists all around us has always helped humanity to survive, so it is adaptive to perceive these things as beautiful and enjoy being around them.
Because of the demands of evolution, which mostly include survival and reproduction, humans have positive built-in reactions to natural environments. PET explains how being in nature can reduce stress and improve your mood, but doesn’t fully explain how being in nature improves cognitive performance. Can nature make you smarter?
Explanation 2: Attention Restoration Theory
Attention Restoration Theory (ART) states that a natural environment offers a setting where you can restore your ‘directed attention’. Directed attention is the conscious attention you need for cognitive tasks, and this cognitive focus can become fatigued after prolonged mental activity. Most people live out a relatively hectic lifestyle in a human-made environment, filled with social and professional demands.
Nature offers a completely different setting, which gently distracts you from the stresses of civilized life. This is when ‘undirected attention’ (or the subconscious) can take over. This means that nature recharges your mental batteries! ART focuses on explaining how nature improves cognitive performance, but only indirectly explains how nature reduces stress and improves mood.
