Embracing Nature – Ways Benefit from the Great Outdoors | Adventure Yogi Embracing Nature – Ways Benefit from the Great Outdoors | Adventure Yogi

Embracing Nature – Ways Benefit from the Great Outdoors | Adventure Yogi

Being in nature makes us happier and healthier. Fact.

 

Scientific studies prove that finding yourself a green space and reconnecting with the natural world is good for both body and soul. Reducing stress and anxiety levels, blood pressure, boosting the immune system, improving mood and concentration levels. It is even connected to accelerating recovery rates after surgery or illness.

For most of us, life is hectic. Intergrating time outside into our lives can quickly feel like another task or chore but it doesnt need to be. There are plenty of ways to reconnect with the great outdoors

 

Ways to Reconnect with Nature and Find Your Wild Side

Connect to Nature and Go Barefoot

Kicking off your shoes and letting your feet feel the ground beneath them is the quickest and easiest way to reconnect. Infact, it is said to help release the build up of negative energy in the body. Universally recognised as ‘earthing’, barefoot adventures now have science behind them!  Stand on soft grass or sand and scrunch your toes into the ground. It seems to have an instant way of making us feel more present. Take a walk and notice the sensations under foot.  Allow your toes some freedom! Furthermore, walking meditations have been used for thousands of years by monks and yogis as a way to connect to our physical world in a spiritual way. Give it a go!

 

Find Your Inner Monty Don

Gardening is incredibly calming. There is something therapeutic about getting your hands in the soil and watching something you planted  bloom. If you don’t have a garden try planting a window box, joining a community garden or applying for an allotment. You could even bring the outside in and fill your home with plants! There are plemty of house plants that have an incredible effect on the air quality within our homes and workspaces. Moreover, simply being surrounded by greenery is enough to make us feel calmer and mre relaxed in our space.

 

Take Your Yoga into Nature

If you do meditate or practice yoga at home, take advantage of the warmer weather and go outside. Breathing in that fresh air, aware of the sights, sounds and sensations around you – it really helps enhance your practice.

Being outdoors and enjoying the natural world around us is central to all our holidays and retreats. Whether you’re enjoying yoga outdoors at sunrise or taking in breathtaking views from a mountain peak, we’ll help you reconnect with nature. You’ll certainly feel the benefits. Check out our full calendar for all our scheduled retreats.

yoga class on cliffs by sea cornwall

Try Forest Bathing

In Japan the art of Shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, became a cornerstone of the public health programme back in the 1980s, with the government recognising that simply being in the forest surrounded by the trees had huge health benefits, both as a form of therapy and preventative medicine.

What the Japanese recognised was that when we take time out and immerse ourselves in nature it is a form of mindfulness. Instead of worrying about daily stresses, or mentally churning through everything we need to do that day, we are consciously making the time and finding the space to be present, and be aware of our surroundings. Without our head buried in our phones, our senses are fully awakened-we smell, look, listen. Our mental energies aren’t being pulled in a thousand different directions and we can truly focus on just being. And so when we do reenter our everyday world, we come back with renewed clarity- and improved creativity and productivity.