Compassion And Nature Connection: Do They Go Together?

Image by Helen Correia

by Kirsten McEwan

Associate Professor of Health and Wellbeing, University of Derby

If I’m being honest, it was probably the helplessness of growing up with a parent with post-natal depression which led me to a career in psychology. I couldn’t help my mum but the vicarious helping of others appealed to me. This is how I ended up building the evidence-base for psychotherapies such as Compassionate Mind Training (CMT) so that more people could access effective treatments. CMT focuses on fostering feelings of compassion to self and receiving compassion from others. It’s rooted in attachment theory and the premise that when we are distressed, we notice our distress (empathy) and are motivated to move toward it (rather than avoid it) and take action to alleviate it. A goal of CMT is to move us into our ‘rest and digest’ (or parasympathetic) nervous system and reduce the amount of time we spend in fight and flight.

Rediscovering nature connection from childhood

In year 2012 after experiencing burn-out from doing my job and a part-time PhD, I moved to Wales. Here I rediscovered my childhood connection with nature. When things were bad at home, me and my sister would escape to the woods and our favourite trees. We were often outside dawn till dusk, nature always felt so welcoming, non-judgemental, and safe. Even the sounds of nature outside at night (the breeze through the trees, the calls of owls, the geese flying to the lake), reassured us that nature was close-by and always available. In Wales, where the coast or the hills can be reached in 30mins, I rediscovered this feeling of sanctuary in nature. I spent a lot of time green volunteering, especially on islands and seabird colonies. Surrounded by thousands of birds I felt a sense of smallness. A bit like looking at the nights-sky, whatever problems I had felt small.  

Bringing together mental health and nature connection

I became a nature addict, visiting smaller and smaller islands and wanting to live on one. I began to look at retraining to become an ecologist. But then an opportunity came in the form of a grant to combine psychology with nature. I spent the next few years working with the University of Derby researching the impact of how the daily noticing of the good things in urban nature (the street trees you pass on your commute to work) could improve wellbeing.

The benefits of spending time in nature were obvious to me, but healthcare professionals want the evidence of how it affects our physical health and how it might save public-health spending, so I began working with a colleague to write a paper on how nature can affect our physiology. It’s here that I first discovered Forest bathing. Forest bathing is a mindful nature experience using all of the senses to notice and appreciate your surroundings. It originated in Japan, known as Shinrin-Yoku, where it is available on prescription to manage stress and improve health and wellbeing. Most of the research evidence we reviewed for our paper came from Forest bathing and its impact on cardiovascular and immune health.

I’d been researching for years how CMT could move us into our rest and digest nervous system, and here I found over 20 papers showing that Forest bathing could achieve this too. Also, like CMT, Forest bathing used mindfulness and embodiment practices. But would an approach like Forest bathing which originated in Eastern cultural traditions work in the West?

This led me to a collaboration with The Forest Bathing Institute (TFBI) in Surrey and my first Forest bathing experience. Forest bathing with TFBI completely changed my connection to nature and enriched it much further, so much so, that I trained with them to become a qualified Forest bathing guide.

Research study comparing Forest bathing with CMT

Forest bathing has been heavily researched in Japan and South Korea, but the control comparison group is usually a walk in the city and some researchers argue this is not a particularly good comparison because the over-stimulation in the urban environment can be stressful for many people. It made sense to compare Forest bathing with CMT.  The overlap between the two approaches of moving people into their rest and digest nervous system through mindfulness and experiential practices made me curious about whether a combination of Forest bathing and CMT might be even more beneficial than these approaches in isolation. A third control condition was therefore introduced where the psychoeducation of CMT, the soothing rhythm breathing, and compassion imagery practices were included in the Forest bathing walk.

The results from this study revealed that Forest bathing, CMT (and the combination of Forest bathing and CMT) produced similar results, with a trend for CMT to have more impact on mood and compassion, whilst the combination of Forest bathing and CMT had the largest impact on heart rate variability. We found more activity in the rest and digest nervous system (indicated by increased heart rate variability), a reduction in anxiety, and increased compassion for other people.  The study led to Forest bathing being supported by the government as a Social Prescription in Surrey. You can go to a doctor in Surrey, and they can prescribe Forest bathing. 

The research left me feeling like drip-feeding the psychoeducation and practices of CMT into Forest bathing could be a way to produce good outcomes. But taking any psychotherapy or self-care practice outside could be beneficial. Therapists such as Mary-Jane Rust write about the benefits they have seen from taking their practice outdoors. As humans who have spent most of our time in nature, we can experience improved attention, learning and creativity outdoors, nature is no one’s territory, so therapist-client hierarchies are perhaps muted, walking side by side direct eye-contact can be minimised and tolerated. Nature also offers ways to mirror our own experiences and gain new perspectives, such as the resilience shown by the tree which has fallen over but is still putting out fresh shoots.

Next steps

My research continues, with a special focus on organisations who are widening accessibility, for example, offering Forest bathing to populations who may not be able to physically access nature such as those with low energy and impaired mobility. I’m also advising others on how to combine Forest bathing and CMT so that clients can benefit from both approaches, and perhaps discover an approach they would previously not have considered.

For my own practice, in addition to offering regular Forest bathing walks in Derbyshire, I try to have a routine of starting and ending my day mindfully walking in nature. Even if it’s just 20mins walking in my local woods or appreciating the trees in my neighbour’s front-gardens, it really helps me switch-off from rumination and return feeling more relaxed.