Have you ever wondered why you feel so refreshed and clear-minded after spending some time outdoors? Turns out, being immersed in nature can positively affect the human body and mind.

Spending time in nature doesn’t have to mean hour-long hikes or a whole day at the beach; I find that a quick walk in the sunshine during a lunch break will have me feeling more alert and happy for the rest of the day.

The scientific evidence behind this phenomenon proves that people can gain massive mental and physical health benefits from being in the great outdoors. From increasing energy levels to preventing disease, below are three reasons to spend some more time with Mother Nature.

Nature Reduces Stress and Improves Mood

Stress can easily show up in anybody’s life, whether from a heavy workload or simply juggling everyday tasks. When poorly managed, anxiety is unhealthy and can lead to more severe health issues. For me, being boxed up in my house or office all day typically leads to feelings of discomfort and anxiety. One way to relieve this stress is by taking a walk in natural environments, like a park or just around the block. 

Personally, I’ve been an avid hiker my whole life. The experience is excellent, and it is an excuse to get outside and clear my head to feel more grounded and at peace. Being under the sun can turn my mood around in a matter of minutes. Hiking is a way that I can get in exercise for my body and my mind at the same time. Even if it’s just a quick 2-3 mile hike, getting it done feels like a huge accomplishment.

If that’s not enough to convince you to get outside, here’s something crazy. Recently, healthcare professionals performed an extensive study showing that 90 minutes of outdoor activity can reduce brain activity linked to mental illness. The research also suggests that time spent in natural environments can lower the risk of depression.

Nature Increases Energy Levels

Feeling sluggish is a normal part of most people’s days, so don’t underestimate the power of being outdoors to help combat this. Numerous studies have proven that exposure to nature is directly linked to increased energy and an elevated sense of well-being. 

The very presence of nature helps me ward off feelings of mental and physical exhaustion during an extra-sluggish day. I find that my head feels lighter, and my body feels more energized when I prioritize time outdoors. Neglecting to go outside throughout the day often leads to mental and physical fatigue.

Escaping into nature for extended periods can significantly boost focus, creativity, and cognitive function. Another reason to step outside is to get Vitamin D. While Vitamin D supplements exist, the best way to get this crucial nutrient is straight from the sun. Our skin produces Vitamin D when exposed to sunlight, and it plays a significant role in boosting our energy levels.

Nature Increases Creativity Levels

A constant flow of emails, messages, and general notifications can end up having a burdensome impact on our brains. Small, technological demands distract and cognitively wear us out, making inventing new ideas a more difficult task.

When I spend time basking in the outside air, I often experience a natural shift in how I view the world around me. This is mainly because being in nature helps in finding inspiration and unlocking new levels of creativity. Additionally, the outdoors tends to shift my mindset from “I’m running out of time” to “I have an abundance of time.”

Many people face harsh deadlines in their careers, which can directly correlate to experiencing a creative block. The good news is that quality time in nature can help you jump over “writer’s block.” Heck, even before writing this article, I stepped outside to get the creative juices flowing.

Many studies have shown that nature can improve your memory, as well. When it comes to memorization for tests or taking better notes, spending time outdoors could be the key. If you’re anything like me, keeping my memory sharp is an increasingly difficult challenge!

In Conclusion: Take a Hike!

Today’s world is primarily fueled by technology, so the urge to get back into nature is stronger than ever. To fully reap the benefits that Mother Nature has to offer, it’s essential to take a break and recharge outside often.

Aside from the refreshing sense of outside air, the great outdoors can increase satisfaction with life, happiness, and mindfulness while lowering anxiety and depression. Find time every day to take advantage of these benefits.

The pressure and stress of day-to-day life can quickly build up and weigh heavy on our hearts and minds. Many factors play into this, like work, relationships, or technology. Still, the good news is that nature is a free resource, and we can access it and its benefits by merely stepping outside.

Aside from the normal hustle and bustle of everyday life and the endless list of responsibilities that consume most of our day, many of us have been faced with heightened stress and anxiety every year.

Let’s be real; we have A LOT going on. 

Unmanaged stress can trigger mood episodes, cause physical ailments, and have a negative impact on several aspects of your life. Now more than ever, it is important for you to make self-care a priority that stays high on your to-do list. One simple solution that can help reduce your stress and balance your mood is nature. 

How Does It Work?

When people are under high levels of stress, the prefrontal cortex malfunctions; this is the part of the brain that controls our emotional responses to stress. When it is impaired, it can cause a continuous loop of negative thoughts, making you feel like you’re trapped in that emotional state. Nature’s calming sounds and visual aspects have a soothing effect on both the mind and body. 

Whether it’s the mountain views, a beautiful hike, walking your dog, or visiting a nearby beach, getting out into nature can do more for you than you may think. Countless studies have proven that nature has many therapeutic benefits.

Nature has a way of bringing you into the present moment and allows you to take a break from stressful thoughts of the past and future. It can help align the mind, body, and spirit. Becoming more aware of the nuances of nature sounds such as the wind rustling through the leaves of trees, crickets chirping in the distance, or the running water of a nearby creek can improve your overall sense of well-being. If you’re lucky enough to be close to any body of water, simply being near it can make you feel a sense of calm and elevate your mood.

How Much Nature Do I Need?

Research shows that being in nature for as little as 20-minutes can reduce feelings of anger, fear, and stress. It can also increase the development of more pleasant feelings that improve your overall mood and make you feel more energized. 

Try spending 30-minutes barefoot on the grass, sand, or dirt. Scientists have found that there is a source of free electrons conducted by the Earth that can neutralize the free radicals in your body, leaving you feeling more balanced and grounded.

Can Nature Do More Than Relieve Stress?

Ecotherapy is a type of formal treatment that involves doing activities outside in nature and has shown to help symptoms of mild to moderate depression. Due to its natural therapeutic benefits, Ecotherapy has also helped improve other mental health problems such as anxiety, OCD, and bipolar disorder. 

Many clinicians believe that spending too much time indoors can lead to feelings of isolation and boredom, which can trigger a depression relapse for those who are more susceptible. Outdoor activities promote personal growth, establish a deeper connection to the world around us, and foster a greater sense of self-awareness.

What If I Can’t Get Outside? 

Simply visualizing scenes of nature can bring a sense of calm and quiet. Nature therapy researchers conducted a study on patients recovering from heart surgeries, which were stuck in hospital beds for long periods of time. The patients who were shown images of nature were said to need less pain medication and reported lower levels of anxiety than patients who were not shown these images.

Can Nature Help Physical Ailments?

Exposure to nature can not only help you feel better emotionally; it contributes to your physical well-being. Spending time outside has shown to reduce blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension, and the production of the stress hormone cortisol. It even supports a better night’s sleep.

A recent study that was conducted involved taking groups of people into the forest and measuring certain biomarkers. This allowed them to collect data that demonstrates how natural environments have a therapeutic effect on our immune system, respiratory system, and cardiovascular system. It also offers opportunities for natural physical activity, which has several physical and emotional benefits of its own.

There is undeniable tranquility about nature that naturally encourages relaxation. Every time you are in nature, you benefit, and regularly spending time outside profoundly impacts your physical, mental, emotional, and psychological health. Whether you live around natural surroundings, visit local parks, or head out into your own backyard, every connection with nature makes a positive difference. 

Having compassion for others can be easy. It is much more simple to focus on others and overlook their faults, flaws, and any limits to their abilities.

On the other hand, showing elements of self-compassion can be incredibly difficult and something we all need to work on.

This article will cover four necessary self-compassion elements so you can start cutting yourself some slack without cutting out your drive, passion, and zest for life!

1. Take the time to prepare

This might sound like the oldest trick in the book, but preparing ourselves for things is an absolutely essential element of self-compassion.

Whether you’re a parent, single person, couple, or retired (or anywhere in between), being prepared for the coming day or big event in your life is a must for keeping the stress levels down.

This is doubly important if this event impacts others around you.

Prevent the extra stress of being unprepared from ruining your day by getting organized (even just mentally) a little earlier! If you can think through something beforehand, chances are when you get to that moment when you really need to be mentally present; you can be.

You won’t need to put too much thought into what you need to do, because you’ve already done it!

2. Take regular time for self-care

Self-care is definitely a trending concept now, and there is a very good reason.

Many people neglect self-care on a consistent basis.

This leads to stress, burnout, and often other connected issues-not to mention the relationship issues that can arise from never spending time together if that’s also an issue!

You can find any number of self-care ideas on Pinterest and all over the internet, but. Basically, the activity (or relaxation) you choose to use as self-care needs to cover these:

• It needs to refresh your SOUL-you come back feeling like you have taken a big, mental, or emotional breath of fresh air.
• It needs to help you recharge-after you have implemented this for a while, you should feel energized or at least ready to get re-energized afterward or the next day; and
• It needs to be something you can access regularly. Once-a-year cruises are NOT consistent self-care.

3. Allowing time to process

This element of self-compassion is all about giving yourself permission to process.

If you have had a breakup, big change, or another big event in your life, processing this is extremely important. You will need to let yourself move through those emotions and NOT get annoyed at yourself for even having a few down days.

Allowing these emotions to move through you and being present with them means seeing them for what they are: emotions. They do not define you unless you let them. Sit back and feel the feelings so you can let them go.

However, you don’t need processing for just the big things in life.

That small comment from another parent about your child, that comment from someone at work, the silly look someone gave you, the way you dealt with your partner that day… these all need processing too.

We’ve all woken up at some time early in the morning and thought about some of these little things, but they need to be processed too, or we wouldn’t be waking up!

Allow time and KNOW that it’s OK.

4. Allow yourself to make mistakes

This is close to my heart because I work with kids, and parents allowing ourselves to make mistakes is extremely important.

Do we want to go out and make mistakes without caring? No!

But learning that mistakes are part of life, part of growth, is essential to building our resilience. This means that we learn to ‘bounce back’ in adversity and learn that in order to succeed, we need to keep trying when we fail!

So while we teach this to our kids and talk about it-how do you go with this yourself?

Do you actually allow yourself to make mistakes without beating yourself up unnecessarily?

Because that is the thing about self-compassion-its about the mental attitude you have towards yourself, more than anything else.

So next time you make a mistake, feel like you stuffed up, feel like you just embarrassed yourself?

Don’t go over it, and over it, and over it in your head.

Cut yourself some mental slack, try to shrug it off (after you have processed, of course), and don’t hit that mental ‘song repeat’ anymore!

We all need to take time to think about which elements of self-compassion we can work on because no one is really ‘there’ at the pinnacle of perfection in this area.

We all need a refresher course now and then.

Let’s be more aware and give ourselves that beautiful, life-giving gift of self-compassion and self-love.

You deserve it.

Self-compassion is integral to a good self-care routine. Many people are aware of the importance of showing compassion to others; however, it is often overlooked when it comes to the self.

Elements of compassion include forgiveness, kindness, understanding, and mindfulness.

Self-compassion involves understanding that you are just a human and make mistakes; it means forgiving yourself when you missed a deadline or goal. Compassion encompasses kindness of all sorts and, at its core, is love. Understanding your boundaries and limits is also demonstrating compassion, as it shows self-respect. 

Socrates’ famous quote ‘to know thyself is wisdom‘ encompasses the virtue of understanding that is a cornerstone of compassion. Realizing that you are a human and make mistakes is only the first stepping stone to true self-understanding. Knowing yourself includes knowing your likes, dislikes, and outlook on the world. Being mindful of your thoughts and feelings can help to arrive at true understanding. 

Being Mindful

Mindfulness is an important part of compassion because it allows the current situation to be observed without judgement. Identifying and categorizing what is happening is not conducive to compassionate understanding because it removes you from the experience at hand. A large part of showing compassion involves acknowledging pain or negativity and then dealing with it in a kind way. Isolating the experience of trying to define it inhibits emotional engagement, which is an important component of kindness and love. 

Developing a habit of showing compassion to yourself can help you cope with issues in a more balanced way and likely spread to others. The way you treat yourself both reflects and creates your self-image, which in turn has an impact on your behavior towards others. There are several ways to begin actively practicing compassion, and acceptance is an underlying theme among them. 

Getting Started

There are generally thought to be three steps to cultivating self-compassion. Each of which can be tailored to fit seamlessly into your schedule.

The first principle of compassion is kindness. This kindness is not just about doing good deeds or giving compliments; rather, it is a deep and unconditional resolve to be considerate and avoid passing judgement. While it might seem effortless to apply this to a friend who is going through a rough time, applying this level of kindness to yourself is often easier said than done. Kindness is fundamental to being compassionate, and thinking about the impact that your thoughts and words have on your emotional state is a good way to start applying this step to your daily life. 

The second step that can help build self-compassion involves decreasing feelings of isolation. Realizing that you are a human being, just like everyone else, can be both discouraging and comforting. We all make mistakes, and you are no exception. Next time you notice yourself judging something you did or did not do, remember that it was a mistake, and everyone makes them. You did the best that you could given the situation, and that is enough. Isolating yourself from humanity’s follies only serves to make the situation worse and is not a demonstration of compassion. 

The final practical step to cultivating self-compassion involves forgiveness. This step specifically asks you to suspend all judgement and simply observe what is happening at the moment. Judging yourself doesn’t take into account the value of the experience or what you learned from it. Either, it prevents you from accepting that what happened is in the past, not the present or future.

Acceptance of the emotions you feel and embracing them as a part of your experience allows you to forgive yourself for any mistakes and move on. 

The Value Of Compassion 

Compassion has a way of dissembling emotional obstacles and limitations you may have, assisting you in creating a life of joy and peace.

Being aware of your emotions and the impact that your thoughts and words have on others as well as yourself can open up a world of opportunity, as limitations are often beliefs that you have about yourself. Letting go of the past and forgiving yourself for previous actions demonstrate that you are living in the present and are no longer the person that you used to be. 

Living compassionately with yourself can teach you valuable lessons about how to interact with the world in a kind, loving, and gentle way. Applying compassion to conflicts or fights can be a great way to diffuse tense situations as well as provide emotional support to everyone involved.

Living your life mindfully and showing kindness to all you encounter, including yourself, is a powerful way to spread love and build a more welcoming world.