The Doctor Is Out – How Stori’s Nature Therapy Boosts Mental Health
Have you ever been out in nature and noticed how within a few minutes you’re breathing more deeply and finding your chill? How the sound of a babbling creek or the echoing call of a hawk can make you tune in and notice even more about the landscape around you? Maybe you start to notice the sunlight streaming through the leaves above, or how a wave becomes translucent just before it breaks? It’s not a coincidence that nature has a calming effect on us – it happens by design.
While our minds may like to think that we are above our animal instinct, all it takes is being in the presence of nature, even on a park bench, to realize that the landscape affects how we feel. That’s because as Earthlings, we have evolved, and continue to do so, along with the natural world. So while we may push ourselves ever faster and farther with technology and human innovation, our bodies still very much belong to the planet and its rhythms.
This is why in the era of WFH, too-many-zooms, 24/7 screentime, VR, immersive gaming, and more, we’re paying a price with our physical and mental wellbeing. We’re not meant to stare at a screen all day, and for those of us who do, I’m betting we can all count the ways that it makes us feel stressed out, exhausted, short-tempered, and even depressed.
The good news is that you don’t have to pack your bags for a remote island in the South Pacific to unplug and reset your system (although, tbh, we dream of it everyday). A large and ever-growing body of research shows that humans benefit physically, mentally, and emotionally from exposure to nature – whether that’s a walk along the beach, sitting for a spell at your neighborhood park park, watching the creek flow through the forest, or even perusing the houseplants at your local nursery when you’re in a pinch. And it makes sense to us. After all, nature is a self-regulating system with the built-in ability to remediate imbalance.
Take the Quaking Aspen tree…what looks on the outside to be a cluster of single trees is actually an interdependent network – and the largest single organism on earth – that knows how to send nutrients through its interwoven roots to a tree that is ailing so that the entire stand of trees thrives together. (Check out The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben if you want to learn more mind-blowing things about nature). Even unassuming plants like barley, wheat, and cotton can, over time, help purify salt out of soil, restoring and reinforcing its life-giving fertility for future growth.
We also know that people co-regulate together, which is to say that when we’re with others, our nervous systems will naturally seek to match the other. This little known fact is one of the reasons why therapy is so powerful for those of us that come in dysregulated, anxious, fearful, or upset. By being in the presence of someone who is calm and present, it gives the signal to our own nervous system that it’s safe to find balance.
It’s for these reasons and many more that we believe there is no better place for you to explore and unpack your inner landscape – out in nature, with the comfort and safety of your trusted Stori therapist.
The benefits of nature on the nervous system and our mental health are too compelling to ignore:
Lowered stress
Anxiety relief
Lower blood pressure
Greater ability to focus and concentrate
Improved memory and mental recall
Improved mood and sense of overall wellness
To see what it’s like to trade the four walls of the therapy office for the lush landscape of a local park or the soothing sounds of the beach, simply visit our website to get in touch and we’ll walk you through how to set up a Stori Nature Therapy session in a park or on a trail near you.
Disclaimer: While nature is a powerful way to support mental health, we do not intend to suggest that it can replace medication and/or other necessary forms of treatment to address mental illness. Talk to your Stori therapist about whether Story’s Nature Therapy is the right fit for you.
