Nature is a pathway to good health and creativity. When we participate in outdoor recreation, we treat our bodies with the well-deserved advantages that our natural environment can bring. Researchers believe that mere walks in nature can promote “mind-wandering,” which is helpful for our mental clarity and imaginative thinking.
Walking, hiking, climbing, or swimming, nature also connects us with other people, not only ourselves. Studies have shown that we lead better, healthier lives when we feel connected to a community. However, there are many different ways to enjoy life outdoors. How do we know which one is good for us?
Engaging families with children
While children learn subjects in school, the world can also teach them about creativity, especially in the playground. As adults, it is our responsibility to prepare them as they grow up, even if we don’t have a huge backyard.
Parks are a great place to engage children in caring for nature. Teaching them to be comfortable in the water through swimming, snorkeling, or scuba diving are all incredible ways to improve their creative thinking skills. Raising a child to live a curious life is not easy, but if we guide them through our natural environment, these children can become adults who care about their health and future.
Young children can start painting rocks, collecting leaves, and building snow sculptures to encourage their bond with nature. For the older adults in the family, we can try nature sketching, stone balancing, and foraging. Nature is a family-friendly place! It’s up to us to find how we can most benefit while respecting natural resources.
Promoting work-life balance
A team can also feel the benefits to an individual. Most teamwork and collaboration activities are fit to occur in a natural setting, such as picnics, hikes, beach clean-ups, and sporting events. Businesses are beginning to recognize that building partnerships with clients and between employees boosts productivity and performance, making stronger bonds and developing community at the workplace.
While most office benefits are in the guise of free beer, ping pong tables, or therapeutic spas, nature is the one free thing that all of us take for granted. As more people discover that working from home and spending less time commuting is ideal, companies have to be creative in ensuring their employees are engaged. Can there be a work-life balance when both professional and personal life occur in the same place?
Promoting stress reduction techniques such as spending time outdoors and seeking support from health professionals should be encouraged. Although we may live in cities with limited greeneries, we can still prioritize our well-being by introducing wellness days or paid holidays to luscious environments to recover and reconnect with nature.
Wonder and Wander
It is nature’s way of always leaving us in awe through its beauty and unexplainable phenomena. We discover it for ourselves, yet we can never honestly know everything about it. But this fact is an invitation for us to connect with nature more, not distance ourselves from it just because we’ve only known our cities and suburbs our whole lives.
When we truly let our minds wander, we welcome the different wonders of the world to inspire us and be caring members of our community. Finding creativity outdoors is best done with others, but it can still be fun if we start it with ourselves because the joy and fun it’ll bring us will most likely reflect on others.
Sources:
https://positivepsychologynews.com/news/cordele-glass/2020012440097