At Home with Nature

The natural world is a wonderful muse that inspires all kinds of creativity to bubble up inside us! Experience the joy of expressing yourself by making a piece of art with nature.

Choose a natural object you have in your home, bring something in from outside, or look out on nature from a window. Reflect on your subject for a while and notice if there are any elements you’re feeling drawn to.

Then, choose your tools and let your imagination take over. You could:

• Paint a picture of your favourite houseplant
• Sketch seashells, pine cones, flowers or fruits
• Sculpt forms inspired by nature’s shapes with clay

When you’re done, step back and admire your work. It’s a huge accomplishment to have made something that didn’t exist before.

If you don’t have much time or enough space, keep a nature-themed colouring book on hand for a quick, artistic, stress-reducing activity.

If you’re able to, why not take a local foraging trip? Finding your own wild food isn’t just a huge accomplishment, it also feeds our happiness!

• Look around your neighbourhood and learn to identify fruit trees, flowers, hedgerows and plants that offer seasonal specialties.
• Pick blackberries for jam, find plums for a crumble, gather wild garlic for a punchy pasta or harvest nettles to make a delicious pesto or soup.

Use a trusted source like the Woodland Trust’s Essential Foraging Guide to help you and never eat anything you’re unfamiliar with, as some of our native plants can be very harmful. Please don’t take anything from gardens, farms, fields or allotments.

Cooking for ourselves and others is a satisfying way to get a good mental wellbeing kick. By cooking with the seasons, we can celebrate nature, too.

Next time you go shopping:

• Look for foods that are fresh and in season – pop plenty of these in your basket.
• Seek out foods that are naturally colourful and have interesting shapes – wonky veg is just as good for us as any other.
• Try different varieties of your usual buys. When we tune in to what’s available, or abundant, we notice how much can change throughout the year.
• It’s exciting to taste new fruits and vegetables you’ve never tried before – why not add some to your selection and discover a new favourite?
• If you can find foods that are grown closer to home, that’s even better. It means they’ve travelled fewer miles to get to you. There should always be some sourcing information available on the label, or in the product description if you’re shopping online.

Once you’ve got your ingredients, it’s time to cook. Don’t forget to add a dash of mindfulness into the mix!

As you go from preparing your food to serving the final dish, pay attention to the different textures, smells, sensations and flavours you’re creating. It’s a mindful way to get even more enjoyment from a daily routine like feeding ourselves.

Bringing greenery into our homes helps reduce stress and eases anxiety. Aside from being beautiful and interesting things to look at, plants can bring us a fantastic sense of calm.

• Keeping plants indoors, in our safe spaces, means we’re never too far away from nature. This is especially important in the colder months when going outside becomes a bit less appealing.
• Caring for a houseplant jungle provides joy and purpose in our daily routines. We can watch our green friends grow, get to know their watering schedules, and marvel as new leaves emerge. Keeping a houseplant thriving, particularly over winter, always feels like an accomplishment.
• Adding plants to your collection can start anywhere. You can pick up low-maintenance species at the supermarket, visit a garden centre, or ask a green-fingered colleague if they have any cuttings to share.

Nurture your new housemates every day and notice how they can affect your mood for the better. Did we mention that some plants also improve the air around us by pulling toxins out of our environment? Clever little things.

For a simple but seriously effective dose of nature, listen to some natural soundscapes. These audio recordings of the natural world are soothing to our soul and can encourage our mind, muscles and heart rate to relax. Take some quiet time for yourself and tune in.  

• Select a track that appeals to you. You can choose from wild environments like rainforests, woodlands and open seas, or surround yourself with storms, birdsong or the gentle crunching of autumn leaves. Explore our Soundscape series on YouTube for more.  
• As you listen, see if you can notice patterns. The slow, steady rhythms of wind, rainfall and waves can be of great comfort to us.  
• Reflect on what sounds stand out to you, or if any hold more meaning than others. Certain sounds can trigger happy memories of times we spent in nature in the past.  

If you don’t have time to sit quietly, you can use these natural soundscapes as a backdrop to your day.  

• While you go about your to-do list, take 30 seconds to listen in, pick out three sounds, then carry on with your tasks.  
• If you’re a podcast listener, or stream music regularly, try swapping in wild sounds once a week to see what effect it has on your mood.  
• If you can wear headphones while you work, inject a ‘green power hour’ into your morning or afternoon.  
• At the end of a long day, lie down and let the sounds of nature send you off to sleep.  

While meditation has all kinds of relaxing benefits, adding nature into the mix can calm us even more. If we’re seeking a mindful escape, guided nature meditation can transport us to jungles, forests, oceans and deserts all from the comfort of our own home (or wherever we take our headphones).

• It involves listening to a recording and following some simple instructions.  
• A gentle voice will guide you on a journey and direct your attention to different sounds you hear. These could be things you recognise, like birdsong, rustling leaves, or running water. They could also be more abstract, like high-pitched notes or deep, vibrating chords.  
• You might be encouraged to use your imagination to feel sensations like warm sunshine or a soft breeze. Your body may also respond to these, which is a sign of your mind’s amazing power.  

Our guided meditation ‘Step into the Forest’ with Miranda Richardson is a great place to start.  

Try to incorporate a meditation session, however long or short, into your daily routine. It’s a flexible activity that can be done anytime, over a cuppa, during a lunch hour or right before you go to bed.