Finding Nature

Guest blog by Rachel Howfield Massey

As an arts and wellbeing practitioner specialising in the benefits of nature connection I work creatively with people in nature supporting them to gain a sense of connection with themselves and their surroundings. It was a great pleasure recently to talk to Miles about the creative and playful approaches I am developing in my work with museums, galleries and heritage sector. We talked about the resources I’ve designed, including my origami ‘Nature Explore’ game, which has a series of open-ended questions to take the user on a journey of any distance and make nature connection discoveries along the way.

Resources – Other Ways to Walk origami ‘nature explore’ game

I was particularly interested in Miles’s matrix of ‘micro-activities’, as a foundation for developing prompts for nature connectedness focussed activities. I have developed a wide range of different resources, looking tools, invitations and activities to support nature connectedness, and it is interesting to think about them in relation to this matrix and the Five Pathways. I enjoy striking a balance between very practical activities, ‘look at a tree for a long time’ and more philosophical or poetic ideas ‘walk in a way that connects you with time and space’ – and sometimes the downright silly ‘follow a map of a different place’. I know from experience how these different approaches offer different ‘ways in’ for participants, but it’s great to map them against Miles’s matrix – and people always love to hear about how their nature connected experience is supported by measurable scientific evidence of the benefits to wellbeing.

My sessions and resources are necessarily open ended, designed to be used by people of all ages and abilities. They don’t follow prescribed routes or fixed activities and can be used in a tiny garden or on a full day hike, so the walker can create their own adventure of discovery. For example, my Other Ways to Walk cards include 15 individual cards with invitations to connect with nature and hand drawn images – use one card as a theme for a whole walk, or take turns to draw cards and follow the invitations.

Resources – Other Ways to Walk in Formal Parks cards

It’s impossible (and also undesirable) to plan a detailed session as the character of a particular stretch of path can change so dramatically from one hour to the next and real nature connection can only happen with what is actually there! A breeze might be rippling a field one moment and total stillness the next – a sudden blackbird alarm call can make you jump changing the mood entirely – bright sun gives way to cloud and thoughts close in.  There is no logical step-by-step process to nature connection, it’s an individual process and can happen in subtle or more powerful ways – but always based on meaningful engagement with nature.

For some, this might include invitations to slow down and linger using guided meditation, sensory activities, poetry and metaphor supported by reflective facilitated conversations. For others, it might involve games to randomise the route, or using chance to determine what activities we will do, drawing, poetry and various props to help people notice things that may have gone unnoticed. I’ve trained as a forest guide and mindfulness instructor, and also done a bit of animal tracking and forest immersion – magpie-like I take the bits that are relevant into my practice and synthesise them into whatever resource or activity is most appropriate for the circumstance.

Through a gradual process of carefully observing and listening to people in nature I am able to encourage them to follow their own fascination and curiosity, noticing what they are drawn to. This naturally leads to a sort of dance between the different themes identified in Miles’s matrix – an invitation to lie under a tree and notice movements in the branches can appear very passive, yet in reality the participant is moving between a great many experiences…

feeling the damp, cold earth under their body, smelling the earthy leaf litter, noticing sunlit spider threads, recalling childhood rolling down hills, appreciating details in the shape of branches,  feeling resonance or dissonance with the pace of movement in the branches, sensing changes in their thinking and emotions, wondering why they argued with their loved ones again that morning, hearing a dog in the distance, sounds bringing them back to the present and noticing that their attention had wandered from the tree, hearing birds, squirrels, the creak of the boughs, finding meaning in the way a robin flicks it’s tail, wondering how long they’ve got to lie here, feeling safe and protected by the tree, noticing a sense of opening and compassion…

The flow of thought and feeling interact with the sensory prompts from nature. People can simultaneously be admiring beauty, feeling compassion, connecting with feelings and tuning into their senses then without noticing this dissolves into thinking, planning, remembering, disconnecting from this experience of lying under a tree. The value is in noticing when they come back, training their senses to notice how it feels. As a guide I see it as my role to set the conditions and hold the space for this to happen, then to drop in facts or information to encourage or support one of the five pathways or link to another. For example, people sometimes need their words repeating back to them ‘so lying under the tree helped you feel safe – do you think the tree felt safe too? What could you do to help the trees stay safe?’ (linking to ‘emotions’ and ‘compassion’ in the matrix.)

Workshop Participant.  Photo Credit: Paul Floyd Blake

The real challenge for me is to facilitate learning from these experiences – to encourage reflexive behaviours and an understanding of how people can take this into their lives – so much of it happens inside someone’s mind, it can be hard to tell what’s happening.  Occasionally, someone joyously declares their life has been transformed and I go home with an extra glow – a recent participant said the experience was ‘like a kind of magic fairy dust. You’ve opened me up. I can see beauty in the world that wasn’t there before.’ These words have helped me too – to notice and welcome that feeling of joy when I notice some beautiful detail in nature.

Rachel Howfield Massey is arts and wellbeing practitioner and founder of Other Ways to Walk. She develops bespoke resources and offers training and consultancy.

For more information:

www.otherwaystowalk.co.uk

info@otherwaystowalk.co.uk

Facebook: @OtherWaysToWalk

Twitter: @rachelhowfield

A theme of my research into improving our relationship with nature for both human and nature’s wellbeing has been that the simple things in nature matter. Our first intervention was simply noticing the ‘good things in nature’. Jotting down the good things in nature each day for a week led to sustained increases in nature connectedness – which helps us feel good and function well – and also increases pro-nature behaviours.

More recently we developed a smartphone app to prompt people to notice the good things in urban nature. People wrote about breeze in the trees, beauty of flowers, active wildlife, changing seasons, birds singing.  Doing so for a week led to a sustained improvement in nature connectedness and clinically significant improvements in mental health. It’s clear – simple moments matter. There is magic in the power of everyday nature because we evolved to make sense of nature.

Sadly, people tend not to notice nature. There are many demands for our attention and nature features less and less in our lives. Indeed, the climate and wildlife emergencies show that our relationship with nature is broken. Fixing that relationship requires transformational change throughout society. However, part of that change is more people being more aware of the benefits of a close relationship with nature. Reminding people to pause and notice the good things in nature.

We need a Green Care Code. A code where we care for nature and we care for ourselves. A future with more wildlife and more enjoyment of it.  For those old enough, the green care code, makes on think of the green cross code road safety campaign, which raises a wider point, where are the Public information films for the climate emergency? Where are the information campaigns for the biodiversity crisis?  Over the decades there have been public information films for crossing the road, road safety more generally, danger of farms and railways, swimming and ponds. There have also been extensive government health campaigns on smoking, drinking and eating. As there’s no well-being without nature’s well-being, new campaigns are needed as part of the transformational change required for a sustainable future. Currently, nature is overlooked too often. For example – as I’ve posted before – there’s no reference to the benefits of nature in the 5 Ways to Wellbeing. This matters because we need to emphasise the essential role of nature in our lives wherever we can.

Our latest article in Landscape and Urban Planning provides a thematic analysis of the good things in urban nature. The results are pioneering in that they begin to define the components of urban green space that have most value and meaning for urban citizens. I then combined the themes with the pathways to nature connectedness to produce a matrix of ‘micro-activities’. This provides a framework to inform many nature engagement activities, from social media content to urban planning – more on that later.

The research was part of the £1.3 million Natural Environment Research Council funded project IWUN: Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature. The Nature Connectedness Research Group at the University of Derby led the work package that developed the smartphone intervention that prompted users to notice the good things in urban nature each day for 7 days. We found that increasing connection to urban nature can bring clinically significant improvements in quality of life for those with living with a mental health difficulty – and bring significant benefits to all adults.

This research moves beyond our previous work by identifying common themes in the good things in nature that led to clinically significant improvements in wellbeing in an urban environment. Qualitative analysis of participants’ observations about the good things in urban green spaces revealed a number of themes.

The good things in urban nature

The dominant theme which emerged was participants’ wonder at encountering animals in day-to-day urban settings. Within this theme of appreciating urban nature, a large number of observations in the study related to the enjoyment of hearing bird song.

The second largest theme was that of expressing gratitude for street trees. The third most represented theme was the awe participants expressed at dramatic skies and views from high up looking down over the city. Minor themes included: green planting amongst built space; noticing flowering plants; mentions of water; natures beauty; feelings of awe and calm; . Of the main themes, it is interesting that biotic themes (e.g. Wonder at encountering animals; Gratitude for trees) had greater representation than abiotic themes (e.g. awe at dramatic skies and views). This may be indicative of our ‘biophilia’.

The good things in nature data and themes generated provide an insight to what people appreciate in urban nature. Therefore, when setting out to engage people with nature it is sensible to highlight them. Further, the pathways to nature connectedness provide a theoretical background and framework of the types of activity in nature required to improve nature connectedness. The themes and the pathways can be combined as each pathway activity can be developed around a theme of the good things in nature. Such matrix of themed activities can inform specific efforts to connect people to urban nature.

Indicative matrix of micro-activities from combining the good things in nature themes and pathways to nature connectedness to provide the micro-foundations for nature connectedness and inform activity programming, nature engagement media content, intervention and urban design. From https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2019.103687

The matrix of 40 activities are indicative suggestions generated from combining the data themes and pathways. They aren’t intended to be exhaustive and provide example prompts for a wide range of nature connectedness focussed activities. Content for the matrix can be adapted or revised from differing perspectives such as mental health or urban planning through consulting experts and practitioners in those domains.

Given the basis in the pathways to nature connectedness and the good things in urban nature, the approach can be used for a variety of purposes around engaging adults with urban nature. For example, they can inform activity programming (especially when combined with a range of arts from photography to creative writing), social-media content for nature engagement and the design of green spaces.  As an example, an activity could be focussed on water, with elements that draw out the deeper relationships of the compassion and meaning pathways not seen when simply noticing the good things. The meaning theme provides a prompt for deeper reflection on why the good things in urban nature are inherently good, using metaphors to communicate these ideas. Therefore the water-meaning intersection provides a prompt for those involved in cultural programming in urban areas with access to water. Or, from the perspective of the urban planner or designer the water-meaning intersection provides a prompt to allow space for cultural programming close to water or specific infrastructure (e.g. social spaces, art installations, boardwalks) designed to to afford the activities and encourage deeper relationships between people and nature.

The results are pioneering in that they begin to define the components of urban green space that have most value and meaning for urban citizens; values and meanings that may strongly underpin an individual’s mental health given the results from associated research. Through combining the themes with the pathways to nature connectedness, the paper provides matrix of activities to prompt activity programming, nature engagement media content, interventions and urban design. Given the benefits to wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviour, it is important to align the aspects of urban nature that people enjoy with activity programming, intervention design, policy makers’ and town planners’ views of how best to design and develop cities.

This blog is based on excerpts from a post-print of the published article available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2019.103687

In an increasingly urbanised world where mental health disorders have affected 30% of the global population, simple nature based solutions are often overlooked. Our recent paper in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health shows how increasing connection to urban nature can bring clinically significant improvements in quality of life for those with living with a mental health difficulty – and bring significant benefits to all adults. All through simply noticing the good things in nature – an approach I first developed at the University of Derby a few years ago.

The recently published research evaluated a smartphone based version. This allowed it to prompt users to notice the good things in urban nature each day for 7 days. In a randomised controlled trial, the app prompted 582 adults, including adults with a common mental health problem (n= 148), to notice the good things about urban nature (intervention condition) or built spaces (active control). There were statistically significant and sustained improvements in wellbeing at one-month follow-up. This improvement in wellbeing was partly explained by significant increases in nature connectedness and relaxed positive affect. This study provides the first controlled experimental evidence that noticing the good things about urban nature has strong clinical potential as a wellbeing intervention and social prescription.

The research was part of the £1.3 million Natural Environment Research Council funded project IWUN: Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature. The Nature Connectedness Research Group at the University of Derby led the work package that developed the smartphone intervention. To help engagement users interacted with the app through a ‘conversation’ with a ‘chatbot’ – the users companion for the week. The design operationalises some of the Behavioural Insights Team ‘Behavior Change For Nature: Behavioral Science Toolkit‘  strategies. It motivates through positive emotions, it socialises through reciprocity (social media sharing), it makes things easy through humanised message, simple messages and timely prompts.

The app also tracked the user’s time and use of green spaces using about 1000 ‘geofences’ in the city, reminding them to notice the good things in nature when near green spaces as most people spend the vast majority of their day indoors. The app also recorded what the user was doing, who they were with and the amount of biodiversity in the green spaces. This data will help show the links between the type of green spaces, biodiversity and well-being and is still being analysed or on its way to publication.

Back to the findings. The research highlights the need for engagement with nature in everyday life. We found that people who spent less time outdoors in the last year improved more on nature connectedness. Further, those who had lower baseline nature connectedness scores improved more. Overall, this is supportive of targeting those who spend little time outside and provides a simple engagement strategy.

Similarly, we found that those who had spent more time outdoors as a child showed a greater improvement in nature connectedness scores. There is some discussion that childhood exposure to nature is important for nature connectedness as an adult, but there have been no longitudinal studies to evidence this, so this is an interesting finding and perhaps evidence of a ‘latent nature connectedness’ – we know childhood connection drops sharply in adolescence. It is possible that a childhood connection with nature is reignited by noticing the good things in nature, this then results in a renewed nature connectedness and subsequent wellbeing benefits. There’s also the potential for use to help address the ‘teenage dip‘ in connection.

Looking at the mechanisms for the benefits in mental health, increased nature connectedness (25% higher sustained for 1 month) was a predictor of increased wellbeing in users of the app. This supports the growing importance of the psychological construct of nature connectedness as a new paradigm for wellbeing. In addition, increased relaxed positive affect was a significant predictor of the improvement in wellbeing in the green space condition.

This study was the first to use a multidimensional measure of positive affect, which distinguishes low arousal/positive valence affects (such as relaxed and safe positive affects) from high arousal/positive valence affects (such as activated positive affects) as an outcome measure for a nature connectedness intervention. Low arousal positive affects, such as relaxation, have been found to uniquely predict life satisfaction, depression, wellbeing, mindfulness, anxiety, and stress beyond high arousal positive affects, such as activation. The inclusion of the Types of Positive Affect Scale revealed a unique finding: an intervention which increased nature connectedness and relaxed positive affect predicted increased wellbeing. The finding that relaxed positive affect and nature connectedness were predictors of increased wellbeing is also consistent with our affect regulation account of wellbeing through nature, which states that low arousal positive affect such as relaxation and high arousal activated positive affect, such as excitement, can offer unique inputs to wellbeing through nature connectedness.

In sum, this study provides the first controlled experimental research evidence that a nature-based prescription can be effective in an urban environment. Prompting simple everyday engagement with urban nature can help improve nature connection and wellbeing. This can be done using a portable, widely accessible and cost-effective smartphone app, and is therefore of interest to public health organisations seeking solutions to mental health issues in an increasingly urbanised society.

McEwan, K., Richardson, M., Sheffield, D., Ferguson, F. J., & Brindley, P. (2019). A Smartphone App for Improving Mental Health through Connecting with Urban Nature. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(18), 3373.

Richardson, M. & Sheffield, D. (2017). Three good things in nature: Noticing nearby nature brings sustained increases in connection with nature. Psyecology.

Richardson, M., Hallam, J., & Lumber, R. (2015). One thousand good things in nature: Aspects of nearby nature associated with improved connection to nature. Environmental Values, 24(5), 603-619.

Over the past few years the Nature Connectedness Research Group at the University of Derby has been focussed on delivering several research projects. Over the summer we found a moment to pause, update our pathways guidance (see below) and plan a team photo. For a group photo we wanted an image that prompted reflection on human-nature relationships, but was also a bit of fun. We could have gone out into nature, but our research shows contact and connection are different – independent and additive. Moving beyond contact to a close relationship with nature is important for human wellbeing and pro-nature behaviours.

Our new group photo was inspired by Joseph Wright of Derby’s An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump. At first sight this can seem like an odd choice. There are three reasons, two are simple, and the third requires a little more discussion. Firstly, Joseph Wright was from Derby, so is the group. Second, it’s more interesting (and enjoyable to be a part of!) than a standard group photo – it’s an experiment with a wooden bird. Third, in many ways the painting is about the human relationship with nature.

Members of the Nature Connectedness Research Group

Joseph Wright was from Derby, working at a time of scientific enlightenment – a period marked by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism. The reductionist scientific method focuses on minute and quantifiable factors with straightforward explanations of the data being sought. While it is an objective and informative approach, it should be remembered that it can miss dynamic and complex connections present in natural systems – we can’t measure and control every variable in a complex system. Some argue that the enlightenment and reductionist scientific method led to a separation of humanity from nature. Further, the painting was completed in 1768 towards the start of the Industrial Revolution, the start of unprecedented use of natural resources and fossil fuels. It is a time of increasing urbanicity and key changes to the human relationship with nature.

An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump shows people gathered to observe an air pump experiment into the nature of air and its ability to support life. The painting shows a cockatiel panicking, perhaps dying, as the air is the pump withdraws the air from the vessel. The witnesses display various emotions, from understandable distress to fascination. The painting reflects a certain type of relationship with nature and the natural world. A relationship of enquiry and knowledge where scientific curiosity overcomes concern for the bird – nature.

The nature of our planet’s atmosphere and impact on all life is a key concern now, a new relationship with nature is needed for a sustainable future. The Nature Connectedness Research Group studies our emotional connection to nature and the benefits to wellbeing and pro-nature behaviours. We have replaced the bird with an artistic representation of nature, the type of pursuit that can help build a connection with nature, for the artist or the viewer. The photograph also includes one of our main research tools, a laptop, which adopts a natural symbol for its brand, just one way that the meaning of nature has changed in our lives and a symbol of the technology that defines us more and more. You might also spot some of the applications of our research, such as the National Trust 50 Things leaflet.

Our new pathways postcard – Let nature be your story

There are many types of relationship with nature, both sustainable and not, and we’ve recently refreshed the guidance on the positive types of relationship identified in our pathways to nature connectedness research in a new postcard (PDF). We’ve also produced a short video to help explain and illustrate the pathways. These help explain the types of activity to foster to improve nature connectedness. They provide an applied framework for those designing programmes, or places, to improve human-nature connectedness – bringing about the benefits to wellbeing and pro-nature behaviours.

For the Nature Connectedness Research Group our story is nature, let nature be your story.

Thank you to Geoffrey Shek and Jay Lawrence for the photography, and to the Dolphin Inn in Derby for the room.