Being outdoors improves your mental health by reducing stress, lightening your mood and increasing your physical health too.
Motivation to get outside can come in the form of daily habit, a social activity with friends or family, or by engaging in an activity focused on nature, like birdwatching.
Introduction
In recent years, the stigma around mental health has been broken down and society is far more aware of the impact this has. The fast-paced lives we all lead can result in many of us feeling stressed, worried and anxious. Over time this can begin to feel overwhelming.
Research has shown that getting outside can transform our feelings, but how does being outdoors and in nature improve mental health? We thought we would take a closer look…
How can nature benefit my mental health?
For many of us, it can feel like we spend all of our days staring into a screen: for our jobs, our hobbies, our entertainment. Even following a recipe or a workout tutorial involves a screen!
Too much screen time affects the human body in a negative way and can cause stress. How do we combat this? By exposing ourselves to natural sunlight. Studies have shown that an increase in natural light improves mood, sleep and memory.
Getting outside and spending time in a green space, surrounded by the natural world, can transform your physical and mental wellbeing. There are proven studies that listening to birdsong improves anxiety. There are an array of outdoor activities for mental health, but any time spent breathing fresh air can reduce stress and ease anxiety. So how does being outdoors improve mental health?
- Improve your mood – Research has shown that spending more time outside can significantly enhance your mood, leaving you feeling happier and more optimistic.
- Reduce stress – When it comes to looking at how being outdoors improves mental health, one of the biggest factors is its ability to reduce stress. Studies have shown that regularly being in nature lowers the stress hormone cortisol and eases depression and anxiety.
- Improve physical health – Of course, it’s not just about outdoor activities for mental health. Regularly getting outside for fresh air and exercise can also be fantastic for your physical health.
- Boost confidence – When you are feeling better physically and mentally, you will notice that your confidence is also increasing with it.
- Reduce loneliness – When looking for fun activities to do outdoors, you will find that there are lots of social communities built around them. This means that it can also be a great way to reduce loneliness and meet like-minded individuals.
Nature and mental health problems
When was the last time that you were able to get outside for an extended period of time? Do you remember how you felt afterwards? Chances are, when you think back, you will find that you were feeling better both physically and mentally. Spending time surrounded by birds, wildlife and nature have been shown to transform our wellbeing.
There are even formal treatments which are designed to help individuals by prescribing them outdoor activities for mental health. Ecotherapy has been shown to help with moderate depression and other conditions.
Feelings of depression and unhappiness often rise in the winter months due to a condition called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) which is related to there being less natural light during the day. Making an active effort to get outside into nature during the winter months will help to reduce the impact and ensure your body is getting plenty of sunlight.
In recent years, one particular area that has been driving anxiety is the rising impact of climate change. Many people are worried about what the future holds, but getting outside and spending time in nature can help to ease those feelings.
One of the ways you can help to ease anxiety is by going birdwatching for mental health.
It’s easy, fun and calming. Birds are almost everywhere, from parking lots to city centres, you can always find birds around you, wherever you go.
This is also useful if you look for activities that can help the planet, such as conservation opportunities or taking part in citizen science with the Birda app.
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Fun activities to do outdoors – what nature ideas can you try?
There are lots of ideas for fun outdoor activities but knowing the best outdoor activities for mental health can seem a little overwhelming, and there are a huge array of options to choose from.
To help you, we have curated a list of options across three core categories:
Outdoor activities
Any time that you get to spend outdoors can improve your mental health, and there are some great opportunities to explore your local areas. Some of the best ways to get outside more include:
- Simply going for a walk in any local green space. Even cities have great green places to visit. You can easily find green spaces on the Birda App’s Discovery map.
- Unlock your creativity and start painting and drawing local scenes of nature and animals. If art is not your thing, then why not consider writing a poem or completing a journal?
- Take your lunch outside. Whether you are meeting with friends at the weekend or you are making the most of your lunch break at work, get outside and eat your lunch in the local park or your garden.
- Another popular fun activity to do outdoors is to go stargazing. You should try and spend at least 20 minutes outside every evening, and you can use a stargazing app or book to track what stars you are seeing.
- Why not forget the gym and go running outdoors instead? Or if running is not quite your thing, then you could look to join a local outdoor yoga class.
- If you want to meet some new friends while also spending more time outside, then joining a local walking group can be a fantastic option. This will not only help you to explore more of your surrounding area, but you will meet a host of like-minded walkers, turning your time outdoors into a fun social activity.
- If you are lucky enough to live near the beach, then you could take up beachcombing. This fun activity is suitable for the whole family and involves searching the shoreline for interesting items that have washed up on the coastline. You never know what you find!
- Taking up birdwatching is another great opportunity to explore your local area and get closer to the natural world around you. While many people think the activity is only suitable for those who live in the countryside, this is not the case, and urban birdwatching is on the rise!
Help the environment
If you want to experience nature more and do some good while you do so, then there are lots of outdoor activities that will improve your mental health. Some of the most popular include:
- One of the easiest ways to help the environment and improve your mental health is to go litter picking. Taking a stroll through your local park and collecting rubbish that has been left behind will leave you feeling great and the area looking beautiful.
- Volunteering is another great opportunity to help others while also spending more time outside. You could join a local conservation project such as those run by The Wildlife Trusts or The Conservation Volunteers.
- Of course, you don’t always need to leave home to get the benefits of being outdoors. Taking up gardening can help you to transform your home, and you could also create a unique animal habitat by building a bird feeder or hedgehog house. Fun for all the family!
Connect with wildlife
Finally, one of the most rewarding and fun activities to do outdoors is to connect with wildlife. There are lots of ways you can do this, including:
- Visiting a local community or city farm
- Take a stroll through your local park and keep an eye out for the local wildlife, including birds, insects, squirrels and more!
- Taking up birdwatching is a wonderful way to explore your local area and take in some of the incredible wildlife that surrounds you. Here at Birda, we know how beneficial birdwatching can be, and our popular birdwatching app is designed to help users deepen their connection with nature and discover local species of birds. Our friendly community brings birdwatchers together, allowing them to share their experiences and answer questions.
FAQs
How does being outdoors improve mental health?
From improving your breathing and enhancing your sleep to reducing depression and boosting your energy, being outdoors can help provide you with a huge array of physical and mental wellbeing benefits.
How does being outside reduce stress?
Getting outside and moving encourages your body to release endorphins, which in turn makes you feel good. Being outdoors also helps to lower the levels of cortisol in your body, the natural stress hormone.
How does nature reduce anxiety?
Being outside helps to ease muscle tension and lowers blood pressure. Sunlight helps to increase your endorphin levels and increase dopamine production, making you feel more relaxed. Listening to birdsong helps to reduce anxiety too. Taking up an outdoor hobby like birdwatching also helps keep you motivated in the outdoors.
Improve your mental health by going birdwatching!
At Birda, we believe nature is for everyone and nature needs you. That is why we developed our unique birdwatching app to help connect newbies and enthusiasts and unlock the world around them. The Birda app will help you learn all about the various bird species that you see on your adventures and will encourage you to get out more and explore nature.
Our app is packed with useful information all about birding; we’ve even put together our top gifts for birdwatchers to help you find the perfect present for your loved one this Christmas. Want to find out more about the benefits of being outdoors? Download Birda today and start exploring!
