How much time would you say you spend outdoors in natural places? Would you be surprised if I told you that, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average american spends a whopping 93% of their time indoors, including time spent in their cars. That’s only 7% of their time spent outdoors. I couldn’t find a similar survey for the UK. I’m assuming that Brits spend a little bit more time outdoors due to the fact we generally have more time off work than Americans. However, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the percentages were pretty close to the above, since we live similar ‘western’ lifestyles. 

Another study conducted by the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology suggests that spending just 5 minutes outdoors in green/natural spaces can significantly boost mood and self-esteem, according to a meta-analysis of 10 studies.

I think it’s fair to say, we could all benefit from spending more time outdoors in nature. Especially now, during a pandemic, where most of us have been spending even more time in our homes than usual. It’s become more important than ever to ensure we are still getting outside everyday for fresh air and exercise. 

Spending time outdoors and in natural spaces is a great way to reconnect with nature. And by reconnect, I mean rekindle our natural connection to the natural world. We humans are part of nature, but it often feels that we are separate from it. 

We’ve become disconnected from the earth in multiple ways. We live in urban, man-made environments. We often eat food that doesn’t nourish us and causes us health problems. The way we farm food has become a destructive process of continuous soil erosion and pesticide use. Instead of working with nature, we fight against it. We take excessively from our planet without giving much back and we waste enormous amounts of resources. We are not in tune with our natural surroundings. Most of us don’t know anything about our local ecosystems. We spend hours inside offices, sitting in chairs, staring at computer screens without taking a break to allow the sunlight to touch our skin – something we need in order to be healthy. We are far removed from the humans we once were, millennia ago. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can reconnect.

There are some really easy things you can do today to start your journey towards a life in tune with nature. It’s important for many reasons. It will help us heal mentally and physically. It will help us form a deeper relationship with our planet, so that we care more to look after it. And we don’t all need to give up our lives to live in caves and tree houses in the wilderness to do it. We just need to bring back balance, between the artificial and the natural so that we can be more authentically human. Let’s become true earthlings. What will you do today to reconnect? 

Here are 15 ways you can reconnect with nature today.

Photo by Ralph (Ravi) Kayden on Unsplash

1. Eat a nutritious organic meal

Eating a healthy balanced diet is incredibly important. The food we eat has a massive impact on our overall health and wellbeing. Nature provides us with everything we need in order to be healthy. Trees provide us with delicious juicy fruits and berries. The earth provides us with hearty root vegetables and lush leafy greens. Most of the food we need to be healthy comes from the soil. The healthier that soil is, the more nutritious our food is.

Buying organic vegetables is one of the best ways to support healthy soil, and the farmers that protect it, while reaping the nutritional benefits for ourselves. Next time you go shopping, look for organic choices. Not everything you eat needs to be organic. It can also add up and become expensive, so if you need to be frugal try picking just a few organic options to begin with. You might also be pleasantly surprised to find that some organic options aren’t always more expensive than the non-organic kind too. 


Not sure where to start when shopping more sustainably?

Why not try out a tasty organic fruit and veg box from


Photo by Pablo Merchán Montes on Unsplash

2. Practice mindful eating. 

Next time you sit down to eat, make a conscious effort to sit at the table and enjoy your food slowly. Turn off any distractions such as the TV or the radio. Quiet music can be fine. Pay attention to how everything tastes, how it smells, how it makes you feel emotionally and physically. Whilst you enjoy all the sensations involved in eating a delicious meal, think about where your food has come from. Picture the vegetables growing in the sunshine. Imagine the energy of the sun transferring from the food into your body. Imagine the vitamins and minerals passing from the food into your bloodstream. Mindful eating helps you form a deeper connection with the food you are eating, thus deepening your connection to the earth in which it came. It can really make you appreciate food in a whole new way. 


Bolderwood, New Forest
Exploring the woodland and admiring the pine trees near Bolderwood, New Forest, UK

3. Mindfully observe your surroundings on a walk

Instead of listening to music or a podcast, simply listen to the sounds of nature around you while you’re out for a walk. Notice the different bird songs or the sound of the wind rustling through the tree branches above you. If it’s raining focus on the different sounds of the rain as it falls onto plants or into puddles. Notice how nature smells, is it fresh and cold? Or dry and warm? Can you feel the warm sun beaming down onto your skin? Make a conscious effort to immerse yourself in the sensations of nature. It’s incredible how much you’ll become aware of. Notice how your intuition comes alive and how it makes you feel. 


Photo by Amee Fairbank-Brown on Unsplash

4. Purchase a ‘nature spotting’ book

I always used to have these little books as a child, where I could tick off the different birds, animals and insects that I found in the garden, or while out exploring in nature. ‘Nature spotting’ books like the i-SPY books are a fun way to tune in and become more observant of your surroundings while you explore. It also helps you keep track of what you’ve seen. 


Bolderwood, New Forest
Sitting under the pine trees near Bolderwood, New Forest, UK

5. Sit outside on the ground and breathe with nature

Find a comfortable place to sit in the park on the grass with nature around you. Focus on your breathing. As you breathe in, know that you are breathing in the oxygen produced by the plants and trees around you. As you breathe out, know that the plants are taking in the carbon dioxide that you exhale. You are breathing with nature and sharing the same air. This notion should make you feel at one and at peace with your natural surroundings. 


Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

6. Grow your own herbs and vegetables

Even if you are not blessed with a garden or outdoor space where you live, you can still grow edible plants on a windowsill or under UV lights. Growing and nurturing plants that you can harvest and use in cooking is a wonderful and fulfilling way to connect with nature. You will see the whole process, from seed to sprout to established plant to harvest. This circle then continues as you nurture and harvest again and again.You will begin to develop a deeper understanding of where your food comes from, and you’ll appreciate it more. 


Photo by Dominik Martin on Unsplash

7. Walk barefoot on the ground or at the beach

When you walk barefoot on the ground outside, there is a transfer of energy from you into the ground and from the ground into the body. This is known as grounding or ‘Earthing’ and can provide many health benefits including relief from chronic pain. It is believed that Grounding/Earthing can have anti-inflammatory effects on the body. You are essentially becoming electrically connected to the Earth when you stand on the ground with bare feet. If you would like to read more about the science behind this I would highly recommend the book by Clint Ober, Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D. Martin Zucker – It’s really fascinating stuff! 


Photo by Samsung Memory on Unsplash

8. Photograph your natural surroundings

Taking photos of nature is a wonderful way to appreciate the beauty of it. Through practising photography we actively engage in a moment that pleases the eye. Why not print some of your photographs too. Frame them and display them in your home. We often display photographs of our friends and relatives, but we don’t often display photos of the natural world. Displaying images of nature in the home is a great way to appreciate those wow moments and the memories you have of nature on a daily basis. 

I love going out with my trusty DSLR to explore natural places. It gives you the perfect excuse to tune in to the world around you. For example, if you’re out in a woodland looking for birds, you have to listen out for their songs in the hope of spotting them as they dart between the tree branches and watching to see where they land in the hope of snapping images of them. Photography is one of my personal favourite ways of observing and connecting with the natural world because I really tune in with all my senses and I feel really submerged in my surroudings.


Photo by Sanni Sahil on Unsplash

9. Decorate your home with houseplants

It is believed that simply looking at houseplants can increase our sense of wellbeing. Plants also purify the air in several ways. They absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. They increase humidity by transpiring water vapor through pores in their leaves. Plants can also absorb pollutants through the surfaces of leaves and through their roots. Plants don’t only look nice, they improve air quality. Caring for plants is also a wonderful way of building emotional connections to them. 


Photo by bennett tobias on Unsplash

10. Walk or cycle to work

If you’re not currently working from home and you’re lucky enough to live close to your place of work, try walking or cycling instead of driving a few times a week. Walking and cycling, like other forms of cardiovascular exercise,  boost stress-busting endorphins, which can reduce cortisol and adrenaline levels and ease mild depression. You’ll also find that the fresh air helps to wake you up and you’ll likely arrive at work feeling more relaxed and ready for the day ahead. Try to take a route through a park on your way too if possible so that you can appreciate nature along the way.


Photo by Devon Janse van Rensburg on Unsplash

11. If you can’t walk or cycle to work, take a scenic drive

Rather than sitting on the same old motorway route, why not leave a little earlier and take a slower countryside route. I used to commute from Southampton to Poole for work and there would often be bad traffic on the motorway anyway, so sometimes the ‘slower’ route through the New Forest would take about the same amount of time, but I’d get to enjoy more pretty scenery along the way, and the occasional pony crossing the road!


Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

12. Make a home at home for nature

Nature is right on our doorstep. If you’re lucky enough to have a garden, it’s likely that you’ll have all sorts of creatures visiting you throughout the day. From bees buzzing between the flowers and worms wiggling their way through the soil below, to hedgehogs hunting slugs at night. Even if you have a small courtyard or balcony there are things you can do to support wildlife. For some, your garden may already seem abundantly full of life, but it is still important to help support all creatures great and small, and there are lots of fun and easy ways to do it. The planet is in a climate crisis, so the more we look after our own little patches of land, the better. It has a small but mighty impact on tackling bigger issues.

You could set up a bird table or hang bird feeders from trees or your balcony, filled with seeds and mealworms for local birds. Why not place a hedgehog house under a bush for hedgehogs to shetler and hibernate. You could plant a meadow flower patch to support bees and other pollinating insects. Try building a bug hotel out of logs and deadwood for beetles and woodlice. You ultimately want to increase the biodiversity in your garden. I also want to add that I’m personally not a fan of AstroTurf. Try not to replace grass with plastic. This is really not good for supporting nature. Visit the RSPB website for lots more inspiration on giving nature a home


Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

13. Go camping

This is particularly relevant for the world we’re currently living in. Travelling to far away places for holidays has become very tricky. But it’s now the perfect opportunity to holiday closer to home. Stacations became incredibly popular last year and I think the trend will remain for 2021. Why not fully embrace the beauty of your local countryside and go camping. It’s the perfect way to immerse yourself in nature for a long weekend or even a couple of weeks. There’s no better way to increase the amount of time you spend outdoors. You’ll soon feel right at home, cooking food over a campfire, breathing in all that fresh air all day and falling asleep in a tent to the sound of crickets and hooting owls. 


Photo by Ilnur Kalimullin on Unsplash

14. Get creative 

The natural world can be a great source of inspiration. Why not use your adventures out in nature to fuel your creativity. Whether it’s through painting a landscape, sketching the flowers and animals you see, or writing down your thoughts and learnings after a day exploring, the possibilities are endless. And you don’t have to be an artist or an author to do it. As long as you find enjoyment in what you are creating, that’s all that matters. 


Photo by Beth Jnr on Unsplash

15. Go foraging 

Foraging for berries, herbs or wild mushrooms can be wonderfully rewarding. If you’re new to the idea I would recommend joining an organised foraging walk. This is a great way to learn more about what nature provides throughout the seasons, how to forage responsibly, only taking what you need, and how to use what you find. There’s a great article on the Countryfile website that lists out some great foraging courses you can do around the UK. Some of these might not be possible until later on in the year, (hopefully) once the pandemic is more or less behind us. 


I hope this has given you some inspiration on some of the ways you can get back in touch with the natural world and I hope that you enjoy trying some of the examples above. 

If you want to go a step further and commit to re-establishing your relationship with nature, I’ve put together another post that you may find useful. It’s all about creating a vision board and setting some real goals around reconnecting with nature. The vision board will then help keep you motivated as you commit to achieving those goals. Click here to read more.

Have a beautiful day.

~ Faine

Disclosure: Some of the links featured in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through to these products and make a purchase. I will only ever recommend products that I personally use and benefit from. For more information, please click here.