My Favorite Anxiety Remedy - Forest Bathing
Over the weekend, Sam and I spent two whole days goofing around at the beach and inside one of NW Florida’s groovy coastal forests.
It highlighted for me how little time I’ve spent lately recharging my batteries in the natural world, and that spells danger for me because I’m an anxiety girl. Without the forest, here’s how I get:
My mind races and gets dark quickly.
A churning, burning, gnawing in my gut becomes a regular companion.
I catastrophize.
I worry myself into exhaustion and burnout.
Do I have any sisters out there?
To Change Something, YOU Have to Change It.
So many of us are waiting for a magic pill or an improvement in our circumstances to finally calm the anxiety. Waiting for the world to change so you can feel better is exactly backward. Instead, there are things you can do right now to help yourself (and the world really) it just takes a little effort.
Forest Bathing is a Japanese practice of wandering through the forest just to be there, oxygenating, slowing the heart and mind, noticing and remembering things like:
You are not your job.
You can’t control everything.
The world will do what it does.
Your mind and happiness are your responsibility.
Forest Bathing is a sure-fire way to calm your mind but you’ve got to choose to schedule it and be deliberate about what you’re going to do there. This morning I asked the Firegirls - a very busy group of women - to open up the screen time app on their phones and tell me how much time they spent on FB and Insta last week.
That is where the choice comes in. "Will I collapse on my couch and space out hoping my screen will soothe me, or will I make the effort to get outside and do something that is clinically proven to soothe me?”
Here’s how to forest bathe:
Don’t make it another thing you have to do or work at. Simply decide to head out in the forest or other natural space for a set period of time. Once there, commit to wandering and noticing things - birds, waves, wind through the leaves.
Accept that your mind won’t settle down right away. The moment you begin to notice flowers and leaves and trees and smells, smile because your mind has just surrendered to your senses. Let it be.
If your mind is like a pitbull and won’t let go of your to do list, maybe task your brain with making a list of all the things you’re grateful for in the moment. Sneaky.
Don’t worry about making anything instagrammable. In fact, maybe leave the phone at home.
This is me after forest bathing.
I feel calmer, more energized, happier, and less anxious about the world today. I attribute that to doing nothing but making space to just be in the woods.
What could be simpler?
ps. Did you know, this kind of anxiety strategy is exactly what we teach in our 3-month course The Meaning of Midlife? If you need some help being more strategic, less anxious, more joyful reach out and book a free breakthrough call with us.