Nature & Well-being

The benefits of nature

Richard Louv, the nature journalist and author, first coined the phrase “nature-deficit disorder” to highlight the human costs of alienation from nature and to serve as a rallying cry to connect children back to nature. While he explains that as a species, humans have been urbanising and moving indoors since the advent of agriculture, it’s in the past 3 or 4 decades that this disconnection from nature has taken place. He blames the disappearance of open spaces due to poor urban planning, the rise in technology, the diminished importance of nature in education and the amplification of anxiety in parents by news and entertainment media.

Louv set up the Children & Nature Network to encourage and collate research into the benefits of children spending time in nature, as part of his efforts to get children back to nature globally. Below are some of the benefits of spending time in nature for children which are based on extensive and thorough research.

Physical health benefits:

• Healthier eyes - reduces near-sightedness

• Increases vitamin D levels

• Reduces risk of obesity

• More physical activity improves strength, balance and agility

• Increases gut microbiome diversity

• Improves immune system

Mental health benefits:

• Improves relationship skills

• Soothes the nervous system

• Reduces stress, anger and aggression

• More impulse control

• Less disruptive behaviour

• Increases self-esteem

• Increases resilience

• Increases sense of belonging and connection

• Supports the development of agency and leadership

• Supports healing from trauma and adverse childhood experiences

Academic benefits:

• Supports brain development, particularly Executive Function

• Boosts performance in reading, writing, maths and science

• Enhances creativity, critical thinking and problem solving (see more on how nature does this through the Theory of Loose Parts)

• Enhances focus and attention

• Reduces ADHD symptoms

• Increases enthusiasm for learning

• Greater engagement with learning

Other benefits:

• Increases sense of spirituality

• Therapeutically supports those with special needs

• Prevents the prevalence of crime

• Increases pro-environment behaviour

• Stronger emotional connections to people and nature

How exactly does nature support us?

Stephen Harrod Buhner was a herbalist and prolific writer on nature and the power of plants. In The Secret Teachings of Plants (2004), he writes that, “All living organisms receive electromagnetic signals all the time.” These signals are what control the beating of our hearts, the regulation of the little doors in each cell that let energy in and waste out, the migration of birds orienting themselves along the magnetic lines of the Earth, the communication between pollinators and their flowers, and so much more. ​​”Life on Earth has been using the electromagnetic spectrum to send and receive signals filled with highly sophisticated information for nearly 4 billion years.” 

The heart is the organ with the largest electromagnetic field; 5000 times more powerful than the field created by the brain. And it’s the heart that most directly perceives the electromagnetic field of others and nature i.e. we actually take in information first through our hearts, before our brains. “The hidden face of Nature can only be seen with the heart.” 

“When the fluctuating electromagnetic field of our heart touches another electromagnetic field, whether from a person, rock, or plant, we feel a range of emotional impressions that is our experience of the information encoded within those organisms’ electromagnetic fields and the alterations that have occurred in our field. This is, in fact, the source of the deep feelings that come from our immersion in wild landscapes…And these externally generated feelings are an important and essential source of emotions for all human beings, for we emerged not only from our mothers’ wombs, but also from the wildness of the world. We developed nestled not only in our mothers’ electromagnetic fields, but also within the larger electromagnetic field of the Earth. We are an expression of the ecosystem, the womb, the Earth, an ecological response of the planet.” 

- Stephen Harrod Buhner 

When 2 different electromagnetic fields come into proximity, they start to synchronise or entrain as information is exchanged. And this is why when we’re in a forest, we feel our nervous systems soothed by the large trees, our heart rate slows, our breath deepens. Our human electromagnetic field entrains with the electromagnetic fields of the trees, leaves, grasses and earth. Being in nature has an actual electromagnetic effect on our internal organs. Our internal viscera start to slow down and synchronise with the natural pace of nature and Mother Earth. Louise Marra, a systems healer descended from the iwi Ngai Tuhoe indigenous people of New Zealand, calls this “co–regulating with the earth.”

And then of course, there are all the benefits that come from actually touching nature, in particular, mud. Mud play is such a vital part of Forest School, not only because of the sensory, tactile and learning benefits that it affords, but also because of the exposure to bacteria in mud. Sobko and colleagues carried out a randomised control study of children in Hong Kong in 2020. The children who had prolonged exposure to bacteria through playing in the outdoors with mud demonstrated significantly higher gut microbiota richness. The researchers also discovered that gut serotonin levels had increased. Serotonin is the hormone that modulates happiness, and they reported that these children demonstrated reduced stress and anger levels, as well as improved prosocial behaviour, as compared to the control group. Increases in gut microbiome diversity are also known to have a positive impact on the immune system. This supports the work of Stein and colleagues (2016) who studied children living on farms in the US, and found that they had more resilient immune systems and were much less prone to asthma, as a result of exposure to an environment rich in microorganisms.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, professor of environmental biology at SUNY and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, goes even further in demonstrating the benefits of engaging with mud. “Recent research has shown that the smell of humus exerts a physiological effect on humans. Breathing in the scent of Mother Earth stimulates the release of the hormone oxytocin, the same chemical that promotes bonding between mother and child, between lovers.” 

Dan Siegel is an American psychiatrist who has done a great deal of research into mindfulness and the power of connection on brain development. He explains that nature so often inspires awe and wonder - a feeling that most of us experience most frequently when in nature. In his most recent book, IntraConnected, he cites research carried out by Dacher Keltner and colleagues in 2016 which found that feelings of awe inspired by nature lead to an increased sense of belonging, connection and prosocial behaviours.

Whether it’s through electromagnetism, getting our hands dirty in mud, or feeling a sense of awe when we see a beautiful vista, nature has profound benefits on our physical, mental and spiritual health.

“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that day comes after night, and spring after the winter.”

- Rachel Carson

Perceiving and learning from nature

At Wildwood Nature School, we’re trying to preserve the very natural way that young children perceive and learn from nature. This isn’t something that needs to be taught, but rather something that gets forgotten as children progress through our education system. The Japanese natural farmer, Masanobu Fukuoka (quoted in Buhner’s The Secret Teaching of Plants) says, “The ones who see true nature are infants. They see without thinking, straight and clear. If even the names of plants are known, a mandarin orange tree of the citrus family, a pine of the pine family, nature is not seen in its true form.” It’s the Western scientific urge to name, classify and label that often takes away from true and direct perception of nature.

This is something Rachel Carson, the nature writer and environmentalist, wrote about in her book, The Sense of Wonder. She advises parents that they shouldn’t worry if they don’t know the names of the trees and animals, because that’s not what children care about. When young children are out in nature, they engage with all of their senses - seeing, listening, feeling, smelling, and often, tasting! She explains that adults have lost that sense of wonder, because they feel like they’ve seen it before, and so don’t truly perceive what’s in front of them in this present moment. But no part of nature is ever the same; it’s always changing into something new and worthy of our direct attention. It’s through the engagement of all the senses that emotions are awakened. And Carson argues that emotions are the key to deep learning.

“If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused – a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration, or love – then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate.”

Her main advice to parents of young children, and teachers too, is to join them in their wonder. Adults don’t need to be there to tell children about what they’re experiencing in nature, but only to stand or sit alongside them as they explore.

Jon Young, nature writer, mentor and tracker, explains that “learning depends on what is meaningful to each individual, not necessarily what has meaning for a mentor or parent.” He describes how so often, when in nature, adults are scanning the land for a picturesque panorama, while kids are normally on their hands and knees exploring what’s right in front of them and what interests them. It’s so common for adults to presume or assume what a child might, or should, be interested in. But learnings from Forest School show that each child will find their own point of interest when out in nature. That something might stay constant throughout the seasons, as they observe the changes, or they might be focused on a different element of nature each day. The point is that we must let children take the lead on what they choose to focus their attention on in nature and how they choose to engage with her.

Young goes on to say, “The hunter-gatherer spirit lives in everyone’s DNA. A large part of the nature-deficit disorder phenomena has to do with the modern “hands-off” approach to nature.” He advocates for a very hands-on approach to nature; the one mainly favoured by young children. 

“Through direct experience of gathering edible plants, tasting morsels and making meals and medicines from wild plants, we learn to listen to the instinctive wisdom of our bodies. We make a direct connection to plants when our instincts become engaged, so each plant can provide a learning experience…We want people to trust their own experience and their own innate, body-based wisdom.” 

Indigenous wisdom and animism

“Indigenous practices, found around the world, [which] grew in geographic isolation from one another…often share common ground in seeing humanity as woven within all of nature – not owning the landscape nor dividing it into parts, but as custodians of the living system of nature as a whole.”

- Dan Siegel

The reason that so many indigenous practices from all around the world share this wisdom that we humans are woven into nature, is because they do not see nature as separate or less than humans. In fact, many indigenous communities believe nature to be alive or, as Robin Wall Kimmerer puts it, “more-than-human.”

“For 98% of human history, 99.95% of our ancestors lived, breathed and interacted with a world that they saw and felt to be animate, imbued with life force…it was the normative way of seeing the world and our place in it…It’s the default somatic way of experiencing reality, which only fades when our relationship with our own bodies fade, when we construct thicker and thicker walls between us and moonlight, between our bare skin and morning mists…Personhood is a wider concept than just humans.”

- Joshua Schrei

The idea of animism might seem like something that only exists in the world of fantasy novels and movies, but we must ask ourselves why this trope exists so strongly, and so similarly, across cultures and mediums? The wise grandmother tree, the whispering winds,  talking animals, river nymphs and forest fairies… Maybe because, as Schrei points out, animism was actually our normative way of being in the world, and continues to be for many indigenous people. Wall Kimmerer describes how even our language reinforces the notion of an inanimate world and might explain how we’ve become so disconnected from nature.

“This is the grammar of animacy…So it is that in Potawatomi and most other indigenous languages, we use the same words to address the living world as we use for our family. Because they are our family…doesn’t this mean that speaking English, thinking in English, somehow gives us permission to disrespect nature?... The animacy of the world is something we already know, but the language of animacy teeters on extinction – not just for Native peoples, but for everyone. Our toddlers speak of plants and animals as if they were people, extending to them self and intention and compassion – until we teach them not to. We quickly retrain them and make them forget. When we tell them that the tree is not a who, but an it, we make that maple an object; we put a barrier between us, absolving ourselves of moral responsibility and opening the door to exploitation. Saying it makes a living land into “natural resources.” If a maple is an it, we can take up the chain saw. If a maple is a her, we think twice.” 

When we adults start to re-acknowledge this truth that we’ve forgotten - that “​​we live in a world of ensouled phenomena, companioned by many forms of intelligence and awareness, many of whom care enough for us to share this intimate exchange” (Stephen Buhner) - then we can allow our children to stay connected to this truth. We can maintain the understanding that trees are “the standing people” (Robin Wall Kimmerer), that animals can talk to us, and that we’re deeply connected to, and a part of, nature. We can do this in various ways: by communing with plants, by engaging in a reciprocal relationship with nature, and by practising gratitude through ceremony. We must also move away from the Western mentality of scarcity; living with nature, in reciprocity and gratitude, develops an attitude of abundance.

“The first step in learning to talk to plants is cultivating politeness, realising that the pine trees that have been here for 700 million years must have been doing something before we came on the scene a mere million years ago…The first step is to respect our elders.”

- Stephen Harrod Buhner

To describe the power of reciprocity, Robin Wall Kimmerer describes how in her culture, corn, squash and beans are always grown together and are known as “the three sisters.” They’re each such different plants, but have been commonly grown together in indigenous agriculture across the Americas because of the beautiful mutual symbiosis and reciprocity that takes place. Corn grows first, creating a tall and strong stem, so that when the bean starts to grow it can wind its way around the corn. The last to grow, the squash, spreads its leaves out over the soil, sheltering the soil at the base of the corn and bean, keeping moisture in and other plants out. Each plant grows its leaves with respect for the other 2 plants; finding the spaces between but never in competition. And all 3 plants thrive when grown together like this. 

Digital and pencil drawing by Anna Juchnowicz (2018)

“The most important thing each of us can know is our unique gift and how to use it in the world. Individuality is cherished and nurtured, because, in order for the whole to flourish, each of us has to be strong in who we are and carry our gifts with conviction, so they can be shared with others. Being among the sisters provides a visible manifestation of what a community can become when its members understand and share their gifts. In reciprocity, we fill our spirits as well as our bellies.”

- Robin Wall Kimmerer

This concept of reciprocity and mutuality is what Dan Siegel describes in his book IntraConnected. He also draws from indigenous wisdom and the teachings of nature to explain that we - humans, animals, nature - are all parts of a larger whole. So the connections between us aren’t inter-connections but are intra-connections. “Intraconnected, linked within a fabric of life – not a sense of a separate “me” that is connected to the trees, but rather a sense of connectedness within a whole.” He explains that integration is honouring our differences while cultivating strong and compassionate linkages. He calls this “natural systems intelligence” and says that integration is the way to health, resilience and thriving. And it’s this idea of community, as demonstrated by nature, that exists at Wildwood Nature School.

“Isn’t this the purpose of education, to learn the nature of your own gifts and how to use them for good in the world?” 

- Robin Wall Kimmerer

Robin Wall Kimmerer also offers more specific guidelines for how we can interact with nature reciprocally with the concept of the Honourable Harvest. 

Guidelines for the Honourable Harvest:

• Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them.

• Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life.

• Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer.

• Never take the first. Never take the last.

• Take only what you need.

• Take only that which is given.

• Never take more than half. Leave some for others.

• Harvest in a way that minimises harm.

• Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken.

• Share.

• Give thanks for what you have been given.

• Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.

• Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.

And finally, we honour and give gratitude to nature through ceremony. Indigenous communities have long practised rituals and ceremonies to honour nature. This is something that’s been lost in the West, but emerges naturally when we spend time in nature. The urge to give something back in thanks, to create art out of nature, to gather with others in this honouring, becomes a way of being in and with nature. A ceremony can be as simple as one person placing their hand on a tree that’s special to them and acknowledging the tree as special. Ceremonies don’t need to look a specific way, but come from a place of love, gratitude and connection.

“Ceremony focuses the attention so that attention becomes intention. If you stand together and profess a thing before your community, it holds you accountable. Ceremonies transcend the boundaries of the individual and resonate beyond the human realm. These acts of reverence are powerfully pragmatic. These are ceremonies that magnify life.”

- Robin Wall Kimmerer

At Wildwood Nature School, and the Forest School movement more broadly, there’s an effort to return to ways of life that more closely correspond with indigenous wisdom. The table below shows the contrasting values between indigenous and Western ways of life.

“In the indigenous view, humans are viewed as somewhat lesser beings in the democracy of species. We are referred to as the younger brothers of Creation, so like younger brothers we must learn from our elders. Plants were here first and have had a long time to figure things out. They live both above and below ground and hold the earth in place. Plants know how to make food from light and water. Not only do they feed themselves, but they make enough to sustain the lives of all the rest of us. Plants are providers for the rest of the community and exemplify the virtue of generosity, always offering food. What if Western scientists saw plants as their teachers rather than their subjects? What if they told stories with that lens?” 

- Robin Wall Kimmerer

Custodians of the earth and our natural community

Learning from nature, and creating community in its image, is the way in which we can support our children to become true custodians of this earth.

“If the natural world in which [a] person is walking is not sensed as “part of them” – if they do not feel a belonging to the forest in which they are walking – then what is to deter them from leaving trash behind and treating the natural world as a garbage bin.”

- Dan Siegel

What’s needed is “Earth-centred governance” (Dan Siegel). And what better way to ensure that our children put the earth centre stage than letting them spend their school days in nature, maintaining their connection to Mother Earth? They must be immersed in nature every day, engaging all of their senses, mud under their fingernails, understanding the importance of reciprocity - taking only what they need from nature and giving back through their care and restoration of her - so that when they grow to be adults, they always act in the earth’s best interests. 

“We are deluged by information regarding our destruction of the world and hear almost nothing about how to nurture it. It is no surprise then that environmentalism becomes synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings. Our natural inclination to do right by the world is stifled, breeding despair when it should be inspiring action. The participatory role of people in the well-being of the land has been lost, our reciprocal relations reduced to a KEEP OUT sign.” 

- Robin Wall Kimmerer

For millennia, our ancestors tended to and cared for the land. They passed on the knowledge “of how to increase the Earth’s health and vibrancy – to the next generation” (Jon Young). In many places, this passing on of knowledge stopped a long time ago and has allowed for the destruction of nature in the name of consumption to occur. But we can start to rebuild that knowledge by allowing our children to be and learn in nature, supported by a strong community, woven together and held within a web, like the mycelial networks beneath the forest floor that sustain and nurture the seemingly individual trees. 

“A lot of the time you hear people say that the best thing people can do for nature is to stay away from it and let it be. There are places where that’s absolutely true and our people respected that. But we were also given the responsibility to care for the land. What people forget is that that means participating – that the natural world relies on us to do good things. You don’t show your love and care by putting what you love behind a fence. You have to be involved. You have to contribute to the well-being of the world.” 

- Robin Wall Kimmerer

References:

Buhner, S. H. (2004) The Secret Teachings of Plants. The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature. Rochester: Bear & Company.

Carson, R. (1998) The Sense of Wonder. A Celebration of Nature for Parents and Children (2nd edition - previous edition 1965). New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

Children & Nature Network (2023). Benefits of Nature. https://www.childrenandnature.org/resources/category/benefits-of-nature/ [Accessed 26.06.23].

Cree, J. & Robb, M (2021) The Essential Guide to Forest School and Nature Pedagogy. Oxon: Routledge.

Louv, R. (2010) Last Child in the Woods. Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. London: Atlantic Books.

Marra, L. (2022) ReRoot. The nature of change through the system of trees. Colorado Springs: Empower Press.

Schrei, J. (Host). (9.05.2023) ‘Animism is normative consciousness’ (No. 77) [Audio podcast episode]. In The Emerald. https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/animism-is-normative-consciousness/id1465445746?i=1000501041858 

Siegel, D. J. (2023) IntraConnected. MWe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and Belonging. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Simard, S. (2021) Finding the Mother Tree. Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Sobko, T., Liang, S., Cheng, W. H. G., Tun, H. M., (2020). ‘Impact of outdoor nature‐related activities on gut microbiota, faecal serotonin, and perceived stress in preschool children: The Play & Grow randomised controlled trial.’ Scientific Reports, 10.

Stein, M.M., Hrusch, C.L., Gozdz, J., Igartua, C., Pivniouk, V., Murray, S.E., Ledford, J.G., Marques dos Santos, M., Anderson, R.L., Metwali, N., Neilson, J.W., Maier, R.M., Gilbert, J.A., Holbreich, M., Thorne, P.S., (2016). ‘Innate immunity and asthma risk in Amish and Hutterite farm children.’ New England Journal of Medicine, 375(5), 411-421.

Wall Kimerrer, R. (2020) Braiding Sweetgrass. Indigenous Wisdon, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (2nd edition - previous edition 2013). Penguin Random House.

Young, J., Haas, E. &  McGown, E.  (2010). Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature (2nd edition). Santa Cruz: OWLink Media.