What Happens When The Sounds Of Nature Have To Compete With Everything Else? A Lesson In Acceptance

I love birdsong. There’s something about it that gives me comfort whenever I hear it. You can be walking along a familiar path, thinking about everything you need to do that day, and then suddenly notice a blackbird singing from a nearby tree. For a moment, your attention shifts. You listen. You are brought right into the present moment.

But what happens when that birdsong has to compete with traffic, machinery, aeroplanes and all the other sounds of modern life? Sounds that we really don't want to hear.

A new study has found that even relatively low levels of traffic noise can reduce some of the wellbeing benefits we get from listening to birdsong. More than 1,500 people listened to different soundscapes containing birdsong and traffic noise. While the birdsong had a positive effect on wellbeing, those benefits were reduced when traffic noise was introduced. The researchers also found that people experienced greater wellbeing when they heard a greater diversity of bird sounds.

This reinforces the importance natural sounds, but it also teaches us something about attention. What are we actually listening to? And what happens when we apply that question to our own minds?

What are you listening to?

When you’re outside, try listening without deciding what you should be hearing. Maybe you notice a bird, the rustle of leaves or wind moving through the trees. Perhaps there’s water nearby. And then you hear a car.

It can be tempting to think, there goes the peace.

But mindfulness isn’t about creating a perfectly peaceful environment. Or about only practising when you are in a peaceful, quiet place. It’s about becoming more aware of what is actually here. The traffic is there, but so is the birdsong. You don’t have to pretend that the traffic isn’t annoying, force yourself to feel peaceful, or spend the rest of your walk wishing the road wasn’t there. You can simply notice it.

This is what's useful about acceptance for those of us with eco-anxiety. Acceptance can sometimes sound as though we are being asked to approve of something, or decide that something is ok. That’s not what I mean by it. Acceptance is about acknowledging what is here, including the things we don’t like, rather than using all our energy fighting the fact that they are happening.

And that applies to our thoughts and emotions just as much as it applies to the sounds around us.

When our thoughts become the noise

If you experience eco-anxiety, you may know how quickly a single thought can turn into something much bigger. You might read about another environmental loss or see a worrying climate headline and feel a surge of sadness, anger or fear. Then your mind starts filling in the gaps: What if this gets much worse? What will the world look like in twenty years? What does this mean for the future? What if we don’t change anything?

Those thoughts are understandable. When you care deeply about something, your mind naturally wants to anticipate threats and work out how to protect you from them. But sometimes it doesn’t stop at what is actually happening. One thought leads to another, and before you realise it, you are no longer responding to the situation in front of you. You’re caught up in a chain of possible futures, each one more frightening than the last. Or about how much you wish the present was “better".

This is where acceptance can be helpful. Not because accepting your thoughts means believing them, and not because accepting your feelings means allowing them to take over. It means noticing what is happening in your mind without immediately trying to push it away or getting swept along by it.

You don't have to fight every thought

One of the things we practise in Be Natureful is learning to notice our thoughts and emotions without automatically reacting to them. You might notice, I’m scared, I’m angry, or I’m really worried about what this means. Instead of immediately trying to get rid of those feelings, you can acknowledge them: This is what I’m feeling right now.

That doesn’t mean you have to stay there, and it certainly doesn’t mean you have to believe every thought that comes into your head. In fact, the opposite can happen. When we stop fighting with our thoughts, we sometimes create enough space to see them more clearly.

There is a difference between I’m having a frightening thought about the future and this frightening future is definitely going to happen. When we are caught up in anxiety, that distinction can disappear. Mindfulness gives us a chance to notice it again.

The aim isn’t to silence difficult thoughts. It’s to stop them from becoming the only thing we can hear.

Acceptance doesn't mean doing nothing

This is particularly important when we’re talking about environmental issues. If you care about climate change, biodiversity loss or the destruction of nature, the idea of “acceptance” can understandably feel uncomfortable. Why would I accept something that I want to change?

But acceptance and action aren’t opposites.

You can accept that you are frightened about climate change and still want to do something about it. You can accept that you are angry about environmental destruction and still challenge the people or systems contributing to it. You can accept that you are grieving for what has been lost and still work to protect what remains.

Acceptance isn’t saying, everything is fine. But it allows us to acknowledge, this is what is happening right now, and this is what I am feeling about it.

And once we can acknowledge that, we have a little more space to ask what comes next. What is actually happening? What is within my control? What could I do to help? What matters to me?

Those are very different questions from what if everything goes terribly wrong? And they are questions we are much more likely to answer when we aren’t completely overwhelmed by the distress itself.

Listening for the birds

This is one of the reasons our senses, and particularly sound, is used in nature-based mindfulness. You don’t need to find somewhere completely silent, and you don’t need to create the perfect conditions for mindfulness. You can just listen.

Notice the sounds that are close to you and those that are further away. Notice the sounds you like and the ones you don’t. Notice what happens in your mind as you listen.

Perhaps a bird catches your attention. Perhaps you notice yourself becoming frustrated by traffic. Perhaps your mind wanders into something you’re worried about. When that happens, you don’t need to tell yourself that you shouldn’t be thinking about it. Just notice, bring your attention back to the moment, and then listen again.

The traffic might still be there. The difficult thought might still be there. But perhaps it no longer fills your entire field of attention and consumes your thoughts. There's room in your mind for other things: a blackbird, the wind, your footsteps, the sounds of the place you’re standing.

And perhaps, eventually, there is a little more space to decide what you want to do with the thoughts and feelings that came up.

Because mindfulness doesn't mean that we care less. It isn’t about accepting that everything is going to be fine, or becoming detached from the things that matter to us. It is about learning to stay present with what matters without becoming completely overwhelmed by it.