How to find hope in nature

• Low mood – feeling severely sad, lots of tears, no identifiable root cause 
• Loss of interest or pleasure in hobbies – my usual go-to uplifts left me feeling flat 
• Loss of appetite 
• Obsessive need for control – e.g. restricting food, excessive exercising, over cleaning my house 
• Disrupted sleep 
• Difficulty resting/sitting still – lots of anxious energy in my body, restless and fidgety 
• Intrusive thoughts and rumination – constantly rehashing past negative experiences 
• Catastrophising thoughts – feeling like something ‘bad’ was going to happen, e.g I was going to crash my car 
• ‘Hermitting’ – cutting myself off from friends and family 

Being out in nature had always been an anchor for me, something my dad instilled from childhood. Some of my happiest memories with him were walking country lanes or hiking across Dartmoor, gathering nature treasures enroute.

I vividly remember one evening, when feeling especially low and hounded by very desperate thoughts, I wandered into an unmown field and lay down in the waist-high grass, comforted by its green walls forming a nest around me, unseen by the world for a bit. I closed my eyes and suddenly a Blackbird began to sing out the last of the light, silent tears began to flow. It felt as though that bird was singing its stunning melody inside my chest, a song just for me, and the lyrics were of hope and love. Of keeping on keeping on, because if beauty like that existed in the world, it had to be worth fighting to stay alive for.

• Lower Cortisol, our stress hormone.
• Activate our parasympathetic nervous system which creates a sense of calm or ‘rest and digest’ by lowering our heart rate and blood pressure.
• Increase Serotonin, the hormone that helps regulate our moods.

The RSPB’s Nature Prescriptions programme is a response to these findings, offering a simple way for healthcare and associated professionals, and appropriate community organisations, to support and help improve health and wellbeing by encouraging meaningful, personal connections with nature.  

Importantly, these beneficial nature connections don’t need to be overly complicated or time consuming. It can be as simple as looking at clouds through your window or tending to some indoor plants. Even watching nature documentaries has been proven to help our moods.  

Make time each day to enjoy nature: a 5 min stroll around the block on your lunchbreak, listening to birdsong through your kitchen window, smelling the autumn mulch in the air, feeling the texture of bark on a tree – try to get all your senses involved and tuned in daily. 

One small, positive action: litter pick at your local greenspace to keep nature safe for wildlife and people. This autumn make your own outdoor space welcoming for wildlife by creating a deadwood and leaf pile, the perfect cosy home for insects and small mammals. Find lots of seasonal tips here. 

Find your community: making connections with like-minded people can help make us feel less alone, especially during challenging times. Find your nearest RSPB Local Group and check out RSPB volunteering opportunities. Great ways to connect with nature, nature-loving people, and help save our natural world too. 

Celebrate good news: it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the state of the world. We want to help, but we can feel stuck in how to start, especially if we’re already living with low mood. Look at the many good news stories on our website to help inspire you and see the positive change we can achieve when we work together for nature. 

Get creative and active in nature: exercising our minds creatively and our bodies through movement is hugely beneficial to our wellbeing, add in nature and you have the perfect trio. Take your sketchpad outside or start nature journalling. Try yoga in the garden, a park run, or footie in a field with mates. 

Most importantly, be gentle with yourself. Learning to live with a mental health issue isn’t easy and there are no quick fixes. Gift yourself the space and grace to go at your own pace and to find the right support for you.

Take a leaf out of nature’s book – she doesn’t rush, some seasons are all about slowness, taking time to rest, replenish and rebuild from the ground up – one day at a time. I absolutely felt that my own mental health wobbles have involved an unravelling of myself, a letting go, and the death of my former self – there’s grieving to move through with that positive transformation.

Hand on heart it does get better, and you are not in this alone. There's a big natural world out there, just waiting to hold you. Lean into her.