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Being outside allows minds to wander and wonder
Sep 29, 2020
Enjoying the great outdoors will improve our mental health, writes Adam Burley
Mary Ritter Beard the famous American historian, writer and social justice activist, once wrote: “Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”
The positive links between outdoor spaces and wellbeing have been shown to help deliver improved mental health, behavioural and learning outcomes. Is it time to offer a new mental health service by harnessing the power of nature?
For those of us who have experienced high levels of adversity in our earliest years, opportunity for travel has often been limited. And not just geographical travel, but travels into new experience and opportunity. The fears and anxieties that early trauma, neglect and mistreatment can leave us with, can be powerful barriers to psychological growth, development and exploration. They can leave us feeling trapped, limited and depressed, and in need of seeking out help from mental health services. They can also leave us uncertain about relationships with others, and whether we can trust in them. They can lock us down and confine us into a narrow range of experience, all in the service of avoiding further pain and anxiety.
It is interesting how often the mental health services we seek out operate within the boundaries of walled buildings and small rooms with closed doors. Independent of the quality of the care provided in these settings, one can see how, even if unconsciously, they might mirror something of the very psychological confinement they seek to address.
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