Nature is a Healer
I’m currently on holiday in Oaxaca, Mexico. I wake up at 6:00 am to go to the beach and swim before the sun fully comes out. On this empty beach, surrounded by salty water, I get rocked by the waves as the sun rises. I feel like, at this moment, I would happily disintegrate into this salty water, and just be.
It makes me think of the phrase: "Nature is a healer."
Is it just one of those empty, feel-good phrases ("frase feliz" my father would call it)? Or is there actually something to it?
Nature, indeed, activates our rest-and-digest mode. When you walk in a natural space, your mind takes in the surroundings, through an effortless focus process. Beyond "feeling nice," there is biology happening:
Immune system: Trees release compounds called phytoncides. Inhaling them boosts our body’s Natural Killer cells—the white blood cells responsible for fighting off infections.
Brainwave Calming: (my favourite!) Nature is full of repeating geometric patterns called fractals (found in ferns, branches, and clouds). Looking at them triggers soothing alpha waves in the brain. Isn't it brilliant?!?
Mood-Lifting Microbes: Soil contains a harmless bacterium called M. vaccae. Touching or breathing in soil microbes stimulates serotonin production—our key happiness hormone.
I can see how nature plays out in my own daily life:
Back home, I walk my sausage dog every day in Chiswick House (Looo-oooove this park). When walking, I listen to the birds singing doing their own chatting, and my mind starts to float. I love watching the play of light, and I've noticed I match my routes to my mood: if I feel strong, outward, and social, I head to the open lawns. If I feel broody, inward, or private, I take the sheltered, tree-lined, woods-like darker paths. What happens is that my creativity and imagination are unlocked. Most of the time, my walks are a mini refresh/ reset button for my mind.
Perhaps the term ‘healing’ invokes a quick solution? as in, being cured of an illness from one moment to the other. I don’t think natures works like that, it is a slower, gentler working, an everyday calming presence available to everyone.
It always makes me laugh when I see museums hosting "immersive" digital experiences that copy nature—like simulated fog or projected forests, (WTF?) It’s so much simpler than that.
If we let nature be, it will heal us.