Does guilt weigh you when you stay awake late or have a feast? Does it feel hard to go to a sweaty workout to the gym? Many people work hard to implement recommendations for good sleep, healthy nutrition and adequate exercise in the name of well-being. Yet many appear increasingly unwell, depressed and alienated, regardless of physical condition.
It seems that more aspects than just maintaining physical health should be added to the components of well-being. One additional factor might be nature and the interaction between nature and humans.
Several research results indicate nature's role in well-being: time spent with nature seems to reduce allergies, lower blood pressure and strengthen mental well-being.
How, then, can someone who has become estranged from nature due to pressure from work or busy family life, or because of living in an urban environment, increase their interaction with nature so that nature does not become just another encumbering duty to perform?
A piece of nature for every day
Jarno Metso, from Hyvinkää, Finland, guides individuals and work communities to interact with nature and within themselves in his organization KiDo – Way of Natural Relationship, which is a path that he has founded. Metso's understanding of the interaction between nature and man is based on his background in Oriental martial arts, as well as his practice of meditation.
According to Metso, it is important to find respect for nature. It is equally important to realize that interaction with nature does not need to be performed, explained or verbalized. In nature, one can only be.
When one calms down and gives nature space, it starts to come out and happen in itself. One gradually learns to just be in nature, and this leads to clarity of mind, Metso says. It is possible to experience events in nature purely, without evaluating or classifying things into better and worse, significant and insignificant. One's mind calms down when unnecessary attitudes and ways of grading things are left out.
To rekindle the relationship with nature, you don't have to go hiking in the fells hundreds of miles away. There is also local nature available. In nearby nature areas, everyone can experience nature on a daily basis without pressure to perform something. One can start by enjoying the atmosphere of parks, seeing the shapes of trees and shrubs, paying attention to yards, plantations and banks of streams with swirling reeds, by opening one's eyes to waterways, birds, hedgehogs, squirrels, rabbits and insects with all their chores, by seeing the sky and its clouds, as well as by observing natural phenomena like listening to the wind and feeling it on one's skin... Nature is everywhere.
If you experience performance pressures and feel busy all the time, when you are alienated from your feelings or depressed, or if you feel that consumption and the pursuit of status and success do not fulfill your own needs, Metso recommends spending more time in nature. Nature does not judge or demand, so an accepting attitude toward oneself is strengthened. In nature, it is possible to get more in touch with oneself when unnecessary fuss is reduced. A sense of what is enough for you can become clear in your mind.
Loneliness relieved
You can't experience nature on social media or learn nature skills on the internet. Up until a few decades ago, camping, tree climbing, fishing, as well as water and yard play were an inherent part of children's growth, as was knowledge of dressing for different weather conditions. Metso would like to see modern children also spend more time outside, instead of hanging out with smart devices. Still, he finds a use for a smartphone related to nature: the phone could remind about a scheduled, daily moment in nature.
Spending time in nature could be part of the solution to the problem of loneliness in urban areas. While in the wild, you do not experience loneliness, Metso says. Indoors, people are easily isolated, but in nature you are in the midst of natural events, a living part of your environment.
Metso points out that there is often fear behind isolation and loneliness. Even brief encounters with different people can help a lonely person. In the city of Helsinki, for example, when the weather permits, parks and beaches are filled with people hanging out, which allows for encounters.
You can also find out whether you can manage urban farming or gardening in your own housing company or in your own yard. Even on hiking trails with wilder nature, people meet naturally without attributes. On the other hand, Metso reminds us that if you need to slow down on hikes, you should avoid the busiest routes and times.
A clear mind
When people are taking their lives as a series of performances or duties, in the hustle and bustle, they do not always have time to connect with their true feelings, Jarno Metso says. In addition, people tend to think that to become a better person you continuously have to develop yourself physically and mentally. Oriental thinking is more about stripping away all things unnecessary: beliefs and attitudes.
It takes time to slow down and free the mind from unnecessary attitudes and patterns of thought. Recreation in nature facilitates the calming process, and it purifies thoughts and the mind. At first, it takes time to find out what you are truly feeling, and later on, encountering your own feelings and inner experiences may even be scary. Gradually, the mind can be sensed clear in the background. In the clarity of the mind you begin to see your environment as such and feel your emotions purely.
The more time you spend in nature, the more you realize how useless it is to compare yourself to others in terms of performance, appearance, possessions or status. Nature can help people find their own place in the world and live their own lives. At this point, we go back to where we started: when you spend time in nature, it becomes meaningful to you. And meaningful nature creates respect.
Photos by K8 and Miikka Luotio
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