1 Stop
Source: Pixabay
Do you know that a few seconds in front of the image of a natural landscape is enough to produce a change on a biochemical level? There was once a word for this: contemplation, “con-templum, the space of heaven”. It means opening a door to infinity, feeling the moment. Observe a flower, the sky outside the window, a newly blossomed bud. Every so often during the day do this exercise: Stop! Stop!
2 Walk
Walking in the mountains, the lake, or the sea has a different quality because it brings you back in contact with the elements of nature. It doesn’t matter if it’s cold, uncomfortable, or not in training. Near the place where you live there are many places where you have never been, it is the right opportunity to discover them. And maybe organize a picnic with the whole family.
3 Orthotherapy
Source: Pixabay
Horticultural Therapy was already practiced in England in the nineteenth century. The reason is soon said, keeping your hands busy calms the mind: recently this awareness is also giving interesting results in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity syndrome. Dip your hands in the earth, choose the plants: cultivating them and appreciating their fruits will allow you to encounter a new way of perceiving time.
4 Create
A sandcastle, just like when you were a kid. Try it next time you’re on the beach. Anyone who loves stone balancing, the art of balancing stones on top of each other, knows something about it: maybe you have seen these ephemeral creations along the banks of rivers or at the sea. Touch is the first sense we use as children to discover the world. Turn back a child and start playing!
5 Silvotherapy
Source: Pixabay
In Japan, they call it a “forest bath”, shinrin-yoku: silvotherapy is a total immersion in green environments dominated by trees and plants, the lungs of the world. These silent giants teach a valuable lesson in the art of resilience and time. They have withstood calamities and storms. In nature, there are no mistakes: what was an obstacle becomes an entanglement, a new direction, an evolution that does not eliminate the previous one but rather integrates it. Walk among the trees, feel their energy. Embrace the power of nature, you are part of it.
6 Breathe with your skin
Source: Pixabay
Sunlight is a source of energy and growth for every living being on planet earth. According to experts, uncovering the skin as much as possible is a concrete aid in the prevention of osteoporosis and helps us to fill up on vitamin D, mostly synthesized through the epidermis. Light fights depression and bad mood, makes us feel alive, heals, and transforms. Close your eyes, begin to feel the enveloping caress of the sun. Imagine breathing the sun through every inch of your skin as the light enters your heart, lungs, all organs in your body.
7 Barefoot
Immersed in the cold water of the river, with the sand between your fingers, or the soft moss of the forest: your fingers find contact with the earth again because with bare feet you can perceive the world without filters, like a child who is starting to walk, free and in synergy with the environment. It is no coincidence that experts advise parents of young children to let them take their first steps barefoot, the best way to start walking because the plant finds more stability, positively influencing balance and proprioception.
8 Collect
Source: Pixabay
Leaves and flowers, each unique and different depending on the season: our distance from nature is such that most of us have lost the memory of how to use them. Often we don’t even know how to distinguish one species from another.
Observe, collect, let yourself be infected by the wonder, and go towards what attracts you. Once at home it could be an opportunity to build a herbarium, find information on the properties of plants and turn them into a special recipe book. Or who knows, paint a stone found at the river, carve that branch found adrift or write a diary of your walks to color and combine with the collected flowers. The ideas are endless.
9 Listen
Source: Pixabay
What sounds can you hear around you? The water of a mountain stream, the motion of the waves, the wind in the leaves of the trees, the chirping of birds. We are unaccustomed to feeling: today 90% of our attention is on the visual system. But we’re not just made up of eyes.
Turn the walk into a five senses workout. Recovering smell, taste, hearing (and sixth sense!) Is giving yourself the opportunity to experience nature and our sensations in a different way.
10 Experience Not-Doing
You can swim, meditate, cycle, hike. Or none of this. It depends on you, and it doesn’t always have to be the same thing. Your mood and your desire to do are not always the same. We are so used to the habit that even the passion for moving outdoors turns into a rigid calendar of activities, workouts, goals, and appointments.
Nature gives us great meditation every moment: there is nothing to do, there is no point to reach. The forest always appears the same as itself, yet it is different in every single fragment. Season after season, change draws the geography of a nature that is constantly renewed. And we with her.
