Mental Health Awareness Week – a chance to #ConnectWithNature

This year, the theme for the UK’s Mental Health Awareness Week is ‘Nature’. During the long months of the pandemic, millions of us have connected, or re-connected with nature. Recent research undertaken by The Mental Health Foundation on the mental health impacts of the pandemic, showed that going for walks outside was one of our top coping strategies and 45% of us reported that being in green spaces had been vital for our wellbeing and mental health. Websites which showed footage from webcams of wildlife saw hits increase by over 2000%. Wider studies also found that during lockdowns, people not only spent more time in nature but were noticing it more. It was as if we were re-discovering, at our moment of real need, a fundamental human need to connect with nature.

I read somewhere recently, that one of the most powerful tools that we can use to bring about awareness and change, is to share our own stories. So I am seeing this blog as chance to share with you all, some of my experiences – and I would like to invite and encourage all of you to reflect and share the ways you feel nature has been important to you over recent months.

Back in March and April 2020, I remember sitting in my garden, feeling actually very thankful that I’d been lazy and disorganised with my gardening activities and let parts of it get rather overgrown and wild looking. Flowers were plentiful, insects were everywhere, there was plenty of shade, and bird song was a pretty constant backdrop – and under pandemic lockdown, this all seemed much more interesting, and much more soothing to me than before. I spent time outside far more than usual. I even watched the Norwich High School Inspiring Females: Wellbeing Day online from my garden – feeling very glad of the connection to the school community, and also very glad of the connection to nature. Fresh air, warmth, a breeze, peaceful surroundings, flowers, plants and trees to look at, wildlife to watch for. For me, those simplest of experiences most certainly played a part in maintaining a sense of wellness and calm.

One way that I know for sure that nature and being in the natural world has become more important to me, is that I now actively seek it, and then I photograph it. We deliberately plan and book outings, to ensure a full fix of weather and green space each weekend. We are making full use of our memberships of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, and the National Trust (yes, we’ve reached that age.)

Most often, we walk early in the morning, when there’s still dew on the ground and people are still sleeping. There’s something about the peace and quiet that the early mornings offer. The deserted landscapes stretching away to the horizon with no interruptions. I feel that I can sit and stare, at everything and nothing, soaking it in, without feeling weird or conspicuous as you might if there were people in your line of vision.

The photography can take on a life of it’s own, I will admit. If I do manage to wrestle any of my grown up children out of their beds for an early morning amble (it’s rare!), it’s “hang on, Mum’s taking another photo of a leaf/pebble/her own feet.”

I’ve also begun bringing the outside, in. I discovered a local small business, selling interesting and unusual houseplants. I now have thirteen and the collection is still growing. The therapeutic, calming effect of having plants inside seems multi-layered. They look lovely and visually enhance my living spaces, I can colour co-ordinate the fancy pots, I can take pleasure from nurturing and caring for them, they clean the air inside my house – and the eye-roll value from the teenage sons is tremendous. “Mum! More plants? Where will they even go?” Joking aside, though – I have worked with a young person, for whom plants, and gardening took on an immensely important role in her recovery from a traumatic experience. The sense of purpose that they brought, taking on the responsibility of keeping seedlings alive, having living things to nurture and watch grow seemed to bring with it the capacity for that young person to permit themselves to grow and move forwards too. Powerful change, from tiny beginnings.

So, to return to the aim of this blog – encouraging more of us to consider our connection to nature, and perhaps to build on it, it is worth explicitly acknowledging the hardship and difficulties faced by us all, in our own ways through the pandemic. We have each had our own struggles – some small, and some overwhelmingly huge. We have each found, and are still finding, our own ways forwards through the changes, the worry, and the losses that have come with this pandemic. Nature’s unique ability is not only to 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 being in nature but how we open ourselves up and interact with nature that counts. Even small contacts with nature can reduce feelings of social isolation and be highly effective in protecting our mental health, and preventing distress.

Lastly, if I can offer up one suggestion or tip, it would be to convince your parents or guardians (sorry, grownups) to get up super early, and drive out to the coast to watch a Norfolk sunrise.

Thank you so much for reading this blog. I hope that it encourages you to think about how to get out and be in nature, and perhaps reflect on the things that you already do to connect with the natural world. To find out more about nature’s effect on mental health, and about Mental Health Awareness Week, follow this link: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness-week