We need to get back in touch with nature

For the sake of your wellbeing and the planet, go outdoors

This is going to be a more philosophical post than normal; you’ll have to forgive me when I say that none of this is based on science or fact but from mild observation and drifting thoughts.

I want you to think of your average day. You wake up, travel to work and spend the day in the office. You leave work, travel home and then chill back at home before going to bed. There might be some activities thrown in there: going to the gym, a pint or two at the nearby pub, an event on a special week. Your weekend is a bit different, you’ll go out and experience the world a bit more, maybe discover a new part of town, hit up a museum and almost definitely go out one evening to meet up with mates.

The whole time though, we never really live in nature, more alongside it. Sure, we’ll walk by green spaces and appreciate a sunny day, but we’re never surrounded by trees or breathing in fresh, clean air on an isolated hilltop. We’re really quite disconnected from the natural world.

There’s an interesting relationship I’ve noticed between the amount of time spent in the true outdoors and your interest in environmental agendas. This, of course, makes a lot of sense. The more time you spend outside, exploring new terrains and appreciating the natural beauty of the world, the more you realise that we should not be exploiting these precious resources but preserving them.

And this is a massive problem for people who live in cities, many of whom are unable to tap into nature on a semi-regular basis. When we lose this connection, we forget that our actions affect not only people, but animals, plants, entire ecosystems around the world. We become short-sighted and selfish; in short, we lose our respect for nature.

What’s scary about this is that already 55% percent of people live in urban areas. And even more worrying is that this is expected to increase to 68% by 2050. That’s means over 2/3 of the world population will not be regularly getting their dose of open-air living!

So my ask of you today is this: find some time in the next few months to properly reconnect with nature. There are loads of places within an hour’s train journey from London where you can walk alone in the woods or take a seat along an isolated stretch of river, and it’s even easier for you if you live outside the M25. If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, go on a microadventure.

Get back in touch with one of your most primal instincts and you’ll find a renewed connection to something much larger: that you are part of a living, breathing world.

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