Mother Nature: Mistress of Design

A few days ago, I guided a virtual forest therapy walk: although I've guided many forest bathing walks in person, doing it virtually was a first! One of the participants joined from her living room in London and found the experience "very relaxing".

🌱

Why did the participant find the experience relaxing? Here's one reason:

🌱

Nature creates beautiful patterns everywhere: in the petals of a flower, in the branches of a snowflake, in the spirals of a shell.

🌱

These natural patterns are called fractals. A fractal is a pattern that repeats itself over and over again and looks the same at any scale.

🌱

They are everywhere in nature. Look at the photo above: look at the way the tree grows. One trunk grows until it divides into two branches, then the two branches divide into another two, and those two divide into another two and so on.

🌱

These infinite patterns of nature are scientifically proven to relax us.

🌱

Studies have found that we are 'hard-wired' to respond to the kind of fractals found in nature - and that looking at these kinds of natural patterns can reduce our stress by as much as 60%.

🌱

Because we evolved in the scenery of the natural world, we can process its patterns easily. And it is this fluency that relaxes us.

🌱

If you would like to join a virtual forest bathing walk or arrange a private walk for you and/or your household, please do get in touch: liz@theforestguru.co.uk

🌱