Learning about The Power of the Outdoors Through Covid-19

One thing that has become clear to a lot of us since lockdown began is what a lifeline time spent in nature is. 

Whether it’s pottering around your garden, enjoying Spring in all its vivid charm when out walking in one of Bristol’s parks, or traipsing through the woods, for many, it has become a source of sustenance that feels almost as important as eating.

With life so contracted in lockdown, and the decision of some councils to close local parks, the need for nature has become urgent, felt sense in a way it wasn’t before.

And it makes sense. Hundreds of millions of years of ancestral memory locked into the deepest neural networks of our minds tells us that the outdoors is where we belong. 

Being denied access to it is like being denied access to our biological home. And in recent weeks, getting outside of the four walls of our actual homes has proven to be a medicine and a tool.

Time spent in nature calms us and changes our breathing patterns. 

Subtle sensory signals like feeling the breeze or the sun on our face, hearing birdsong or having all that green beamed onto our retinas anchors us in the present and quiets the part of our mind that wrestles with the uncertainty of the situation we now collectively face.

The space nature creates for quiet reflection gives us the mental clarity we need to focus on what matters. To distinguish between what can be acted on and what must, for now, just be accepted. It gives us the room we need to make creative connections, problem-solve and come up with ideas about what would serve us right now.

In this surreal and emotional time, the psychological utility of nature has more than proven its worth to us as individuals.

When the restrictions are lifted and the engines of our shell-shocked economy reawaken, it’s worth remembering that the enhanced perspective and calm groundedness that intentionally engaging with nature gives us presents a valuable tool for organisations as much as it does for people. 

Reuniting

Friends in HR have been telling us they are already looking to book in away day ideas in Bristol that will reunite people as soon as relaxation of social distancing makes it possible, understanding as they do the fragmentary affect that working from home has had on the team.

They are looking for team building days that will support their people who’ve all been through so much and at the same time will be a type of team building that will equip the organisation with much needed resource for the unknowable journey ahead.  

We truly believe that to replenish the resilience of your team, reconfigure strategy, and start making shared, smart decisions in a changing landscape, the outdoors is an ally that those faced with the daunting task of leading organisational change through huge uncertainty can depend on.

Light Box we are Association of Nature and Forest Therapy accredited practitioners and resilience through change experts and we are ready to help organisations come up with away day ideas that lever nature’s resources.

We love devising outdoor team building days in Bristol that will strengthen people and prepare organisations for the road ahead. We have instated a complete cancellation policy waiver which means no planning paralysis and no risk to organisations who want to get something in the diary and give their teams a positive focal point. And with the cunning use of cup-phones and creative cordons we have even worked out to disguise social distancing in the outdoors as fun.

Contact us today to get a joyful and useful reunion for your team in the diary when lockdown is over and we’re able to be in groups again.

For more on nature connection read the blogs below.