Why Nature Is the Best Medicine – for Mind, Body…and Eco-Anxiety
5 min Read | Alex Taylor Jun 11, 2025
Most of us would agree that we feel better when we spend time outside. When the Covid pandemic spread throughout the world, it seemed like we all wanted to be in the countryside, our local parks and even just our gardens. When life gets stressful and busy, we’re instinctively drawn to natural spaces to restore a sense of clarity and calm. But it’s not just instinct, there’s way more to it than that.
There is now decades of research that shows how strongly nature supports us physically and mentally. It’s not a luxury or simply a place to escape to, it’s essential for our health. And when you add mindfulness to the mix, you become truly present in nature or there’s a nature-theme to the practices, you super-charges those benefits! For those of us living with eco-anxiety, this combination has never been more important.
Nature is Good for Your Health, Research Proves it
Studies consistently show that time spent in nature plays a huge role in supporting our wellbeing, even if it’s only a view of trees or the sky. Nature lowers our blood pressure and heart rate, it reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol, it boosts our immune system, improves sleep and decreases symptoms of depression and anxiety. These our real physical and chemical changes that our body experiences – it quite literally calms our nervous system and is perfect for not only rest, but for repair. Physically, and since we’ve evolved alongside nature, our bodies recognises it as a safe environment.
For our minds, which are usually spent working, planning, scrolling, navigating busy environments and trying to tick off everything on our endless to-do lists, nature helps us to switch gears. It holds our attention in a different way, it holds our focus without demanding it. It’s a more calm and gentle attention, and it allows the mind to rest and reset. This is why you may feel so clear-headed and better able to work through a tricky problem after going for a walk – nature gives us the mental space we need. It increases our working memory and cognitive flexibility so we think more clearly and respond more thoughtfully, rather than reacting out of panic or overwhelm.
Why Nature is the Best Place to Practise Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of being fully present in the moment. Without judgement or getting lost in thought, it’s about focusing on what’s right in front of us, right now.
Nature offers some of the best conditions for this to happen. Here’s why:
There are fewer things to distract us, like noise, information overload, tasks and digital pings.
It’s a place rich in sensory experiences. The feeling of sun on your skin, the sound of wind rustling the leaves, the smell of soil after rain are just some examples of perfect focal points for mindfulness because they naturally bring you and your body into the present moment.
It’s the best place to shift out of “thinking mode”. Nature helps us observe rather than analyse – its gentle stimuli encourages calm focus rather than mental fatigue.
And importantly, nature doesn’t demand anything from you. You’re not expected to perform or produce. It doesn’t judge you – it’s a place where you can completely be yourself. That makes it easier to simply notice and be with what is.
Why Mindfulness in Nature is so Important for Eco-Anxiety
It’s clear nature is good for us. But how long do the benefits of connecting with nature last? A walk in the park might feel good at the time, but what about when you get back home and check the news… does the anxiety creep back in? And what if your thoughts are racing, even while you’re surrounded by the nature you love? Just being in nature, while beneficial, isn’t always enough. During my struggles with eco-anxiety, I have often sought nature as a solace. And it worked…up to a point. I felt calmer certainly, but my mind would still race because all my worries were focused on the very thing I was hoping would help me stop worrying!
Seeing nature in my local area would make me worry about losing it. Seeing trees would make me think of the deforestation happening in the world. Cooling down by a river on a sunny day would make me think of increasing temperatures. Seeing animals and birds would make me mourn the many species and individuals lost at the hands of man. I’d suffer from two things that eco-anxiety often brings with it – emotional overwhelm and disconnection. The grief, fear and worry about the state of the planet becomes too much, and it can often separate us from nature. Many of us feel powerless, isolated or stuck in our heads.
Nature-based mindfulness addresses all these things.
It’s brought me back my relationship with the Earth, because I am far more present – in all aspects of my life. I’ve been able to truly notice and appreciate what’s around me, the aliveness in the life all around. It has allowed me to reconnect with what matters to me, and reminds me why I care in the first place. It also helps with the heavy stuff. It helps us to process the difficult emotions that come with caring for nature so deeply. Rather than drowning in despair or shutting down because it’s too overwhelming, mindfulness gives us a way to acknowledge our emotions, sit with those hard feelings and manage them better.
When done in nature, it gives us the calmness and clarity we need to do what it takes to protect it. But it’s equally something we can do at home too. If we give practices like meditation and visualisation a nature theme, it keeps our interest and our motivation high.
In the long-term, it helps us stay grounded when we see a difficult headline or experience an anxious moment wherever we are. It’s what turns nature from a temporary break into a lasting support system.
It's Not a Shortcut
Nature-based mindfulness won’t solve the climate or biodiversity crisis, of course not. And it’s not about escaping into nature or pretending everything’s fine. But it offers people like you and me – the people who care and are most deeply affected by it – a vital way to stay focused, resilient and emotionally healthy. Looking after yourself isn’t indulgent or selfish, it’s essential. Challenging times are with us and lie ahead of us – we need to make sure we’re able to face them.
For me, it felt like nature knew what I needed. Once I began to be more present, I realised this was what it had been telling me all along, in its silent, gentle way. This was what I needed to stay the course and not turn away.
Nature needs me and you to stay well, to stay connected to it, to stay in the fight. Because it’s not just something we’re trying to save – it’s also what helps keep us going.
