Exploring the untapped potential of Earth's greatest, yet most undervalued, ecosystem service: Ecotherapy
Fifty years after the invention of Xanax, mental illness remains high despite pharmaceutical advances; could retreating to our roots be the solution?
In the amber glow of dawn, rusty brown leaves crinkle sharply beneath bare feet, carrying the weight of your body down a winding, gravel-covered rural road surrounded by lush greenery and brush. You walk assuredly, with a steady gait. Alongside you walks your therapist, engaging you in an open dialogue and inviting you to practice therapeutic exercises which engage the mind and body alike.
The techniques that your practitioner adopts are as diverse as the plants that inhabit the surrounding environment.
Depending on the week, you could be practicing mindfulness, reciting affirmations, soaking in a mud bath, or planting a tree. All while grounded in nature, perhaps on a farm, a forest, or a community garden.
Is that what you visualize when you reflect on your last visit to the doctor’s office or therapy session? Probably not.
However, the picture I’ve painted depicts a rather typical ecotherapy session.
Such is precisely the case for a 37-year-old Canadian woman whose cognitive function had declined so severely from Lyme disease complications that doctors were requesting that she retake her driver’s license exam.
According to the case study, she exhibited poor memory, declining cognitive function, and low-grade depression that impacted her daily functioning so significantly that she had not been able to work in over a year.
She had attended countless doctor’s appointments and was prescribed several rounds of antibiotics, to no avail. Her symptoms persisted, and she was feeling forlorn and distraught.
At the beginning of her ecotherapy treatment, she was losing hope that she would ever recover.
Despite this, she gritted her teeth and convinced herself to give it a shot; ‘it’ being a nature-based regenerative healing treatment program built around the principles of ecotherapy.
After a thorough initial meeting with her counselor, treatment began. Sessions involved much dialogue between her and her therapist, and tasks involved reciting poetry, repeating affirmations, and meditating in nature to strengthen cognitive skills.
Within the first three months, the patient showed remarkable improvement in cognition, memory, and mood. Within six months, she had returned to work. Upon being reevaluated by the clinic who had suggested she retest for her driver’s license, the doctor was shocked and impressed at the remarkable progress she had made in such a short time.
They redacted their suggestion to take her driver’s license exam again; apart from that, their only advice was to “keep doing whatever you're doing,” because it was working incredibly well.
An inspiring story, right?
Absolutely! But it’s not a miracle. In fact, it’s not unique at all.
The truth is, this woman’s story describes only one of many successful applications of a versatile, all-encompassing, holistic approach to wellness known as ecotherapy.
What is Ecotherapy?
Green medicine. Nature therapy. Forest bathing. Shinrin-yoku. Ecotherapy.
Over the years and across cultures, many unique names have been used to describe the practice of engaging with natural, Earth-based environments to reap the benefits of nature on health and wellbeing.
Ecotherapy is an umbrella term that encompasses a diverse range of approaches that involve incorporating nature into health and wellness practices.
It is adopted by mental health counselors and psychologists to strengthen their therapeutic techniques, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy.
It is utilized in group therapy sessions as well as individual ones.
It is weaved into intensive, in-patient programs in which recovering addicts receive guidance as they engage in farm labor, animal training, horticulture, and community building projects.
It is even the foundation of animal-assisted therapy; you might be familiar with therapy dogs.
Perhaps informally, but equally beneficial, is the casual, non-clinical approach to nature therapy that we often take, simply by going for a hike, watching a sunset, gardening, or adopting houseplants.
Ecotherapy is manifested in a variety of ways. There is no single, correct approach.
However, there are a few basic guiding principles.
Guiding Principles of Ecotherapy
Ultimately, ecotherapy is a holistic approach to wellness built upon an underlying theoretical framework of the following principles:
Therapeutically immersing oneself in nature, incorporating the outdoors into treatment methods, and engaging with nature multimodally—with all senses—can treat a myriad of physical and psychological illnesses.
Diverse natural environments, specifically ‘green environments‘, which inhabit the Earth harness immense power to impact human health and wellbeing.
Nature-based ecotherapy treatment approaches can be used to address various physical, psychological, and emotional illnesses.
Put simply, nature can heal.
One need not be a scientist or a doctor to attest to the positive impact that nature has on our mood.
Consider the last day you spent hiking on a mountain, inhaling the cool, crisp air as the branches of the trees surrounding you undulated gently in the breeze. Or perhaps reflect on your last camping trip; the ambient lighting of the campfire, crackling fiercely as it slowly devours the wood that you stacked precisely with your bare hands, the sense of awe that envelops you as you gaze across the dark, speckled open sky, untainted by urban light pollution. Maybe even a trip to the beach, the vast expanse of never-ending ocean that makes you feel small, wiggling your toes in the grainy sand.
Nature is a natural mood-booster.
It energizes us with the sun’s rays and refreshes our lungs with richly oxygenated air.
It calms us with quiet ocean waves gently lapping upon a sandy shore, a fiery orange sunset gracefully receding beneath the horizon, and gorgeous hues of red, yellow, orange, and amber painting a brilliant mosaic of autumn foliage as the trees shed their leaves in anticipation of winter.
Nature is beautiful. It is serene. It is powerful.
Nature makes us happy, relaxes us, and invigorates us, all at the same time.
Most of us have experienced it firsthand.
What most people don’t realize is that nature has immense medicinal powers with potential to treat conditions ranging from arthritis to ADHD to depression to chronic pain to PTSD.
There is ample evidence mounting to confirm that nature therapy improves aggressive behavior and irritability in patients with Parkinson’s and borderline personality disorder.
Which brings us to… the research.
What the Research Says about Ecotherapy
As Homo sapiens, it is in our inherent nature to strive for survival.
Early human survival was driven by a holistic approach to wellness
Early humans quite literally fought to survive and reproduce. What factors influenced their outcome?
Physical strength
Speed & agility
Adaptability
Social prowess
Problem-solving skills
Ability to acquire resources
Immunity against disease
Resilience
A robust community support system
Basically, all the facets of health that constitute a holistic approach to wellbeing.
To this day, humans strive for holistic wellness. So naturally, we want to know how to achieve it.
Modern-day scientists explore the factors that impact wellbeing
Scientists and non-academics alike have a vested interest in studying the diverse factors that influence human health—be they environmental, social, physical, or otherwise.
Researchers have accumulated a plethora of findings confirming the positive impact of nature on human health—specifically, mental health.
But since all facets of health are deeply intertwined and highly influential to one another, according to the holistic wellness perspective, robust mental health paves the way for positive outcomes in other areas of wellness, too.
As if the mental health epidemic in America isn’t reason enough, there is now another urgent motive to take action; our physical health, and overall state of wellbeing, depends upon it.
A study conducted in Japan asserts, in no uncertain terms, that the collective state of heightened stress and anxiety that plagues modern humans is exacerbated by the artificial, constructed environments that we inhabit.
The researchers emphasize that human beings evolved to thrive in natural environments, and our physiology remains best adapted to those habitats today.
Our modern world is not conducive to the bodies in which we have evolved. Therefore, our trajectory must change. Otherwise, our collective stress will only increase.
As a solution, the scientists propose using nature therapy as a preventative medical practice to ensure human health and wellbeing.
Here’s the chart they created to demonstrate this concept:
An interdisciplinary study conducted by Stanford University examined the effects of nature on cognition and mental health, with scientists offering a broad outline of the currently accepted theories regarding how nature impacts humans in these ways.
Dabbling in research from the fields of environmental psychology, urban planning, landscape design, and human medicine, the researchers evaluated factors that influence the interaction between humans and their natural environments.
One major factor they identified was an individual’s unique preferences for nature.
Certain individuals identify as more outdoorsy than others. Even among nature-lovers, preferences for specific natural environments vary. Personal preferences played a large role in physiological outcomes, suggesting that personality psychology and mindset are relevant variables.
Such a finding reminds us that the field of ecotherapy is highly interdisciplinary, drawing on many different areas of study.
In 2021, a study was published about the impact of nature on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A few short years ago, in the midst of the pandemic, there were unprecedented rates of remote work and virtual schooling. With so many people unable to leave their homes, population-wide mental health plummeted.
Homes no longer served the sole function of living spaces, but transformed daily into classrooms, offices, and workspaces.
An opportune time to examine how the home environment impacts mental health. The researchers seized the opportunity.
To measure “nature“ in living spaces, they assessed a few variables: outdoor green space, indoor plants and greenery, tactile contact with nature, and accessible nature views through windows.
What did they observe?
Individuals with greater access to green space, nature views, and indoor greenery exhibited higher self-esteem, greater life satisfaction, and more happiness. Consequently, this cohort had lower occurrences of depression and anxiety.
Even houseplants and pleasant window views positively impact the physiological functions driving mental health.
It’s as easy as heading to your local nursery and choosing an attractive plant. Simple enough!
Not surprisingly, the researchers concluded the report by emphasizing that urban planners enact nature-based public health initiatives. Such initiatives would be beneficial for all communities—urban, suburban, and rural alike.
That’s because even in rural communities, homes are not immune to the imprint and ongoing influence of modern-day technology. Screens are ubiquitous.
One study entitled, “Healthy nature healthy people,“ adopts a refreshingly optimistic perspective, offering advice for what steps to take next.
The researchers place great emphasis on the vital need for interdisciplinary collaboration among physicians, healthcare professionals, urban planners, environmental lawmakers, environmental educators, and social services to incorporate nature-based interventions as a population-wide preventative health strategy.
Clearly, ecotherapy is a team effort! And it’s a team to which all of us belong.
Likewise, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a study emphasizing the dual impact and interconnectedness of nature, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and wellbeing.
They embrace a dual-pronged approach, identifying ecological needs for conservation, biodiversity, and ecosystem health, as well as equally urgent public health needs to improve societal wellbeing.
Nature therapy positively impacts multiple mental illnesses
Apart from its function as preventative medicine, ecotherapy offers great promise for treating, and mitigating the symptoms of, various mental illnesses. To name a few:
Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Social Anxiety Disorder (SA)
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
Bipolar Disorder
Depression
Seasonal Affective Disorder, or seasonal depression
Parkinson’s
As further research emerges, I have no doubt that the list will grow.
Have you personally experienced the effects of ecotherapy in your wellness journey? Whether you experience physical, psychological, or emotional health challenges, I’d love to hear from anyone who has dabbled in nature therapy themselves. Share your thoughts below!
Despite modern medicine’s rapid scientific advancement in the past few decades—including several effective, life-changing medications and treatment options—it is increasingly important that we rekindle our connection with nature.
Doing so could drastically change the trajectory of our global health and wellbeing in the years to come.
Don’t underestimate your power to effect change, in your life, in others’, and in the world.
The forest is my happy place. No measurable results, but it always puts my “problems” in perspective.
Being exposed to the earths electromagnetic field is great.
I make sure my phone is on airplane mode and off I go.
On the lookout for some moccasins with a hard leather sole!