Throwback episode: the inconvenience of nature connection

0:00Hi, everyone, Holly here, it's that time of year where we've got a lot going on here at Thoughtbox and Rachel and I are again away from our microphones this time we're at a conference for her teachers. So we're not with you today and instead we thought we'd share again another throwback episode this time with the inconvenience of nature connection. It just felt right at this time of year as particularly here in the Northern Hemisphere where we are in the natural world it started to come back to life in abundance and we're seeing the daftains finally emerging so I hope you enjoy and we'll see you again soon. Hello and welcome to two inconvenient women with me Holly Everett and me Rachel Mussen in a world which can feel increasingly volatile and uncertain. Join us each week as we share some of the stories, thoughts, questions and provocations shaping our lives as we work towards creating a healthier future for people and planet.

1:03Morning Rachel, are you doing? Good morning, I was just frantically sniffing before we started so I didn't sniff on air and I just you know slightly over oxygenated my brain. Fantastic start. Good morning. How are you this morning? Yes I'm good, very good thank you. I'm on my second cup of tea. I have a great time. You've got a big cup of coffee with you today. I just like to hug it. I had a friend come over on Sunday he's taught me he spent nine years perfecting how to make the perfect cup of coffee and I had this lovely tutorial. Honestly it's like I don't know what I've been doing for all my coffee drinking years. Well he's not interfered with your singing while making coffee as you know. No. Having stayed with you know a couple of times I know that the singing is a key part of the coffee. I just the whole ritual isn't it of making the coffee but it's all about twirling it with a fork. A little bit of insight. There you go. I haven't reached the coffee

2:09era of my life yet. I will now drink a cup of instant coffee every now and again which for me is progress but I've always been a tea person so I've never quite and there's something I definitely understand the ritual of the coffee but there's also something about being a caught you know being someone that like really cares about the coffee beans and the way they're ground on my eye just don't have the energy for that. Yeah. I feel sad for my former self. I mean I only started drinking a few years ago but I used to work when I was 18 in wittards, the tea in coffee drop and I love the smell. I love the fact that we had maybe 20 or 30 different blends of coffee from right around the world and people would come and you'd chat about where it was from and you grind it but I didn't ever drink it so I was some sort of like heathen working in there because I couldn't ever really say much other than I love Costa Rica and it smells nice. So I would like to go back now and have that job for a day, actually no it was a awful job I wouldn't at all.

3:11Oh no. Just for smelling and tasting. Yes. Yeah. No, coffee does smell amazing but yeah so yeah it's a route that I don't want to go down because I can see it just becoming a benefit of obsession. It's a brewery's like stick with coffee cake. That's a good one. Yeah coffee cake. Anyway what are you grateful for? I am grateful. What am I grateful for? I am grateful for our lovely team member Alex who we had a meeting with yesterday and he has just been working away on some beautiful pages for the website where we can start showcasing this podcast and some of the other work that we're doing and really shine a light on the stories of triple well-being and the people that we're working with and not particularly in our fellowship and so it's just always so lovely to meet with him and hear all his creative ideas and see what's coming to life.

4:13So yeah I'm feeling grateful for him. He's such a wizard, isn't he? He's a creative wizard. Yeah literally like you know his coding looks is just like magic. I like this magic. Yes. Magic beauty. Yeah and it was so nice he was just surrounded by little dogs yesterday. Yes he's dog sitting so just dogs just wanted to join in the call. It's just very cute. He's like no not right now I'm talking to Rachel and Holly and it's not so cute. What about you what are you feeling grateful for? Do you know what I'm feeling really grateful for waterproof trousers this morning? Yes. Yeah I made this you know for many years I couldn't afford really good waterproof trousers because they are a little pricey and I have my mum's old pair which I'm not sure that waterproof is the word maybe like you know sneeze proof or something but you just got really wet in them and then I invested last year and it's just a game changer and this morning it was absolutely bucketing it down and I was like a little child I put my waterproof so I'm a

5:13welley boots on because I went I do a morning walk every morning and I was just fronting around in the woods in the pouring rain and then had one of those classic moments when I was crossing the road to come back to the house where a big SUV was coming down the road giant lake of a puddle right next to the pavement. I'm pretty sure he deliberately swirled towards the puddle and it was a sort of tsunami wave that just went right over me and I just loved it because I'm like I'm not getting wet. It's so true. I love it yeah I for a very long time I had Andy's old waterproof trousers from when he was a scout so back when he was a 13-year-old he had these plastic waterproof trousers which did the job in terms of waterproofing but we're very not very breathable and then this year I have upgraded to good waterproof trousers and they're so satisfying. When I walk to the theatre and it's pouring down with rain and I'm I don't care because I've got my water trousers up.

6:15It's always the thing isn't it you know a lot of lots of people that work with children or you know work in different climates have this notion that there's no such thing as bad weather there's just bad clothing and I completely appreciate that now. Yes yeah me too do you know I just while we're on the subject of wellies I'm really sad because I got rid of my wellies a while back because you know I don't have a lot of space well I think it was when we were moving flats and I was like Andy was like do you really need parafuelington boots anyway he convinced me out of them but there's just something so great about jumping and puddles wearing wellington boots they do nothing like it yeah it's the joy of one you know you know the little town that we live in in Totteness loads of people just march around town in their wellies because you know not in a kind of as a sort of slightly elitist version of wellie boot wearing yes you can get like fashion pants or welling yes that's not this it's like frog wellies yeah it was so not yeah really nice just being being squishy in the mud this morning with my wellies which have got

7:17very cute dog bites all over them because I thought these really amazing wellies from a second hand market when I was living in Tanzania and I loved them so much they came back home with me and then I was at my mum and dad's and my cousin came round with her renegade dog who basically ate most the shoes in the in the porch while we weren't looking so I just I'm even more fond of them now because they've been half eaten by dogs well this is all very topical for your choice of not dog bites obviously but that's a later episode yes because they're very inconvenient yeah yes but yes the splashing around in the mud wearing waterproof trousers do you want to tell me a little bit about our topic for today and why you've chosen it yes so we are going to talk about the inconvenience of nature connection um um for many many reasons but obviously sitting at the very heart of the work that we're doing in the world is is helping to reconnect with ourselves

8:21each other and the more than natural what the more than human world the rest of the natural world and um both of us have very regular practices and access to to to nature um and both of us really recognize and and feel the immense regenerative qualities that happen when we're in nature as well as understanding that to to care and protect for the natural world we firstly need to notice and be in it um and yet we're living in worlds where increasingly folks don't have access to green spaces they're growing anxieties about being in nature we're not perhaps living in ways that are relational with the natural world um and we're working with many different people within the educational remit who are working in climate action nature connections so we've got quite a large network of folks that we work with who are active in the space and you just thought it would be interesting to actually start to dig a little bit into why is nature connection so inconvenient and just

9:22something like but thinking of what comes up when you're sort of exploring this this framing I think for me I feel there's like an an innate understanding that time outside in natural spaces feels good and I think you know there's there's a ton of research to back that up that that that is the case for pretty much every human that time outside in nature feels good and I think we can sort of jump into a lot of paths and and ideas around why that is I think you know as I've I've said before in the podcast I live in a city I live in Brighton and Hove which is a funny little city because it's very small it's on the coast so it's actually sandwiched between the sea and then the south-downs nature park which is you know these beautiful rolling hills so actually we're very very close we're surrounded by natural environment all the way around the city and um which is amazing and yet also I do find that where I live the flat that I'm living in

10:26it's a 15 minute walk to get anywhere that is not built up so you know if I can walk 15 minutes to the park I can walk 15 minutes to the sea front there's a couple of different parks so it's a funny one because in one way I feel very connected that I have a lot of access to nature if if I if I have time but also it means that I can't just pop outside for two minutes and sit under a tree in my garden because I don't have a garden I live in a flat um so I have to I have to have at least 45 minutes really to hand to be able to go and spend some time out somewhere that isn't concrete and pavements so that's it's a funny dance that I mean of having a lot of access but also still not having it quite at my fingertips and how do I how do I find it yeah there's two there's two um numbers in that in that sort of narrative that you just shared 15 and 45 and I just like to dive into both of them for some reason

11:31one of them being like that time to actually be connecting to nature and we've made a very conscious decision within our organisation that we have time every day not working to be out to be connecting to nature that is a painful part of our job yeah that is just go out and be there because we know that it's so nourishing and restorative and we also know that it's hard to actually find that time in the busy maelstrom of do do do um so that feels something that actually as as part of you know running a regenerative organisation that is an active part of how we can practice what we're preaching um but also the 15 minutes it's just triggered a memory of something we was talking about yesterday which is a survey that was done by the Eden project a couple of years ago that was called time outdoors and it was a national survey so just in the UK and looking at how much time people spent outdoors on average and it's a very staggering statistic that came back that majority of people in the UK are spending less than 15 minutes a day

12:36outdoors and those 15 minutes are predominantly the time that people are moving from their house to the bus stop or the house to the car or the house to the tube or maybe walking to work and then the the journey home again so that it's not it's not nature connection time it's just literally time not inside a box and whether that box is that the house the flat the car the office the school the wherever it is it might be and I think that is something that is is staggering and this survey it was done in 2020 um so sorry a more than a third of people are spending less than 15 minutes a day outside um over 70% are getting less than an hour of daily natural light a quarter of people say their mental health and wellbeing has declined um this is since the lockdown came in um yet 70 to 80% said that nature really helped them to cope in lockdown as well so we've got this dichotomy with just what you were naming there we know you know innately that we feel

13:39better when we're outdoors and yet culturally or societally we're structuring our lives to be predominantly indoors and so again it's another inconvenience of our modern world that we are not doing things that make as well yes yeah and it's it's it's really interesting to name that that that is socially culturally that that is what we're setting up you know I think about how much we prioritize traveling by car versus other forms of transport you know Andy works um just outside of Brighton it's it would be a 15 minute drive I think 15 20 minute drive but he decided to cycle so it's a 45 minute cycle there and then another back each day um but the benefits that that's given him in just in terms of his physical fitness as well as mental wellbeing of cycling along the shoreline all the way down and yet that is so uh rare you know of of not many people

14:45do that and similarly when I walk to the theatre the theatre is in town it's you know I could easily drive in there's not that much parking there are lots of buses sometimes I get a bus and that's you know but actually I prefer to walk because and this is a slightly different conversation but it is interrelated that actually when we are spending time outdoors it's it's time connecting with our bodies as well because actually to get past these man-made spaces and into more natural spaces you have to come into your body in some way because it's to get out into those spaces whether that is on a bike or whether it's through walking or running or actually for some people maybe that's feeling the air on our skin um it's yeah there's a way of being out in nature actually bring us into the nature within us as well I love that as well and I think it'd be so great to start to connect in this call about that you know that we are in nature so the connection is actually as you said connecting to ourselves but maybe before we go there just to kind of heart back to Andy's is commute and and that notion of the physicality of of the body taking us to work

15:51you know we've we've normalized things that are not our bodies yeah and and one of the things and I probably will sound a little bit judgmental here and I don't mean to be judgmental I'm just more curious the thing that always this has really frustrated me is people that drive to the gym and and I get it but also I don't because actually if you just walk to the gym the amount of exercise you do you probably have done it before you get to the gym so you wouldn't need to have a gym membership so yeah I think there's something sometimes we're perhaps being encouraged to be passively stagnant in our actions and not and not and not just being bodied as you say and do what we're really good at our bodies are designed to move and to to carry us around you know yeah we don't allow a label that as much as as we could yes and I think there's something there as well about the the amount of ease and comfort that is in our modern lives now which is wonderful and you know I don't want to sniff at it at all but you know when you live in a less comfortable

16:56less easy space actually you are using your body more you are fitter you are you know I think about when I I lived in the mountains for you know four years on and off and even just the daily walk to work was upper mountain and that you know and we live we worked in a shallow with four floors so you're up and down constantly the level of fitness that you get the amount you're carrying things around and moving things there's no need for the gym because you are using your muscles in a way that we just don't anymore so many of us anyway as part of our daily way of being you know the other week you were talking about washing machines and the the struggle of not having a washing machine and having to manually ring out clothing and lift heavy sheets but actually there's something lost there's something really gained obviously with with the ease in which we can now clean our clothes that's so important but there is there is a slight loss of you know that that physicality of being we've we've tried we've basically removed

18:02so much of that from our lives now yeah and it's so pertinent isn't it because because we've taken away livelihoods that are just a innately you know physical mental emotional spiritual and then we've we've become passive and sold ourselves back access to the physical because you know I don't I don't have a gym membership but I know that they're very expensive and so we've taken away this like way of living that as you said is just embodied and is and is healthful because we are active and I certainly found after leading teaching which was hugely active you know you're never sitting down you're constantly moving around not necessarily in a health for way because it can be quite stressful yeah but I didn't ever exercise when I was teaching because I was very active and you don't have time and there's no time but yes you're constantly on your feet constantly moving yeah yes so you are it's that active lifestyle to then working from home and having quite a sedentary lifestyle and having to actively put the action back in because it would be very easy to just become stagnant yes yeah and it does you know and I think you know I'm

19:08so grateful for this focus that we have here at Thoughtbox of you have to spend time outdoors because even knowing that that is you know a part of our routine it's so easy for me just to go oh well I just I just have quite a lot of emails that I need to answer and I want to get this thing down so don't want you know it's easy for it to slip down the list and you know today for example I have put my running clothes on because I know I need to go out for a run I know it will feel better going outside and moving my body and it's so easy to come up with excuses about why there's no time for that or why that's not the priority but actually when we do prioritize it and we do flip it and we do keep questioning that what is the important thing here it has the ripple effect of it makes us happier it helps us to be healthier then that ripples into the work that we do and the people that we work with and so it's just keeping that going and keep it but why do we find it so hard when we know it's so good for us it's well there's something you know

20:10I remember when you were here the last year and we went for a really lovely walk on a Monday afternoon and you know I think we sort of said you know we should be working right now but actually like what is work and what is productivity and we both knew that that lovely lovely walk in the woods meant that when we got back home and had to get our brains in gear and do something very productive it would be so useful because we've resourced ourselves yeah there's there's also I'm such a fan of rebellion in you know a kind of cultural story would I want to say poo poo I know it's like I've brought this in a podcast before it's about Sarah you used to say poo poo and then like you know you just said something she's there again in my head so here we go a kind of modern culture of poo poo the idea that going for a walk on a Monday is productive because we should be working and so I think we find it hard because the the kind of narrative around us we know that there's an energy of people being productive and sitting indoors and emailing or working and we're

21:13like swanning around in a forest yeah so there's something about the rebelliousness of knowing that this is deeply resourcing and deeply impactful and ha ha I'm going out anyway and your email can which is not you know you know not antagonistic it's more pushing against that that tide that's taking us into places that we know are not helpful yeah that's the thing and it is the tide isn't it because you can feel the drag of it and you know one of my best friends works in a school and she's sometimes jokes that you know I'm here sitting on a podcast talking about how difficult her life is and then going for a nice long walk while she's actually out there at the call facing the difficult work she's like I'm not sure this is how it should work but there is something about that the more that we can talk about it the more that we can start to shift things that and you know it's not that we all we do is sit and talk about it there's a lot that we do in terms of resourcing educators trying to help shift individual systems larger organizational systems that the wider educational system but you know it comes back down to my favorite topic of fractals

22:17actually that idea that we have to start the small patterns that we begin in our own lives start to shape the pattern of the larger system and the larger whole and so it's standing firm against that tide and be like yeah this is more of what we need to be doing and actually we have to keep talking about this and doing this so that it does and and and sharing it with others so that it does keep changing things absolutely and we all have a different role in this world and it's we can't do all the all the doings and our role right now is to is to asking convenient questions and shift stories that allow more ease for health for ways of living and there's something you were sort of you said a minute ago why is it so hard I just had this sort of thought about twitchy legs and how I'm I'm so grateful for twitchy legs because I you know when I sit for too long my legs just like stop sitting and it's a really visceral sign that I need to go for a walk or I need to move or I need to stretch and I know for myself that if I ignore those twitchy legs and carry on

23:23sitting after a couple of weeks they'll stop twitching because they'll become sluggish and so it's also it gets harder because our bodies get more or less kind of active and responsive and become more sluggish and and and therefore we kind of almost undo what is our innate desire for for movement by not moving so it can become a vicious cycle but it on the flip side it can become a very generative cycle because the more we move the more we want to move the better we feel the healthier we feel so it's got that lovely you know yeah also to mentor yeah that's so true and I think I was telling you yesterday about when we first came back from living in the mountains and I started working in an office and I just couldn't sit still I was like this is unbelievably challenging and people were just sitting at their desks for lunch or they might just move to the sofa and then come back to their desk and I I was like I can't do it and my boss was like he ended up buying me one of those exercise balls to sit on because he was like is that help?

24:25yeah that's the you know it's because I was so acclimatized to movement but you know gradually I did I did make myself kind of a promise that I would go out every day and you know we only had a half an hour lunch break but we lived we worked right in the centre of Brighton right near the sea front so I even if it was just popping out and looking at the sea for five minutes I would get outside every day and when the lunch break changed to an hour I was like I'm I'm still taking that whole hour outside every day so again it's a lot of it's about finding that permission and also making that deal with yourself and and I think for me anyway one of the things I've been thinking about is it really like you say listening into what you and your body and what works for you because I think for many people you included getting up and going outside in the morning works really really well and I've always been like I want to be someone that does that I really and feeling very guilty and sort of shameful that that instead of being up at 5 30 AM out on a

25:28walk in the woods and seeing the sunrise I am fast asleep in bed but then I'm realizing again that the midday pigeon has its place that I you know that really it's okay that I am someone that needs nine 10 hours sleep a night to feel well and refreshed and that's annoying in some ways but it's it is how I function best and then going okay so actually where in my day can I schedule in time that fits me not fits with the social narrative not fits with what a good person does but what works for me and if that is going on a 2 p.m. run or walk then I'm so lucky that I work in an organisation where I can say to you yeah this is now when I'm going outside for for a bit and that's part of the workday it's sort of reminding me of conversation we had in a previous podcast called the inconvenience of rest and also one on the inconvenience of life's rhythms where we were really tapping into the fact that we don't all have the same internal rhythm and external rhythm and yet we live in cultures that say that everybody must do

26:33everything at the same time in the same way and sort of part of that that kind of challenging narrative but you know this there's not a way for us to be active is there it's like our way is the way yeah yeah but I'm drawing to want to talk a little bit about children if we can and maybe bring this conversation into both the sort of education space and the innate desire that we have as humans to connect in nature because we're born naturally connected to the rest of the natural world and when you look at any small child those of you who have children or have spent time with children you know that when they're in the in the natural world they are wide eyed wandered sort of poor struck children because they find beauty in everything and fascination in that little you know lady bird on the leaf or the bit of mud on their shoe or the cloud in the sky and so that that deep joy in that deep satisfaction of being nature and also that children you know and we were all former children we evolve physically and mentally emotionally spiritually to be

27:38in the natural world and our bodies form their strength and their capacities and their flexibilities by being out with others in nature and learning like any kind of small animal you know offspring you watch them play in you know with each other that's how we are also evolved but what we've not consciously done but what we are still doing is we're taking children at the point where their bodies are evolving to move and their their voices are evolving to express and their their beings are evolving to become and we're telling them all to sit down and be quiet for four five six hours a day and so when you were just talking a minute ago about coming back from the mountains and sort of fidgeting in your office I was just having a sort of vision of how many children in school of fidgety children who who become punished for being fidgety children and we're actually unconsciously perhaps or unthinkingly punishing children for wanting to do what their bodies

28:41need to do yeah and I'm going to get a little bit miserable but I shared an article with you yesterday that the friend had shared with me that came into the news that was looking at some of the impacts of children's physical development that are starting to come into schools that many children are now starting school unable to sit up or hold a pencil because they have been the various reasons given access to to smartphones or iPads and are spending much more time not active and what we've sort of inadvertently done there is we're actually changing the muscle development of children because they need very constant opportunities to play and run and be out they need obstacles to move bodies they need to be physically adaptive and so their muscles and their joints are developing balance and posture and the brain body kind of coordination is

29:42forming and yet when we're not having access or opportunity for young children to be developing naturally in the natural world we're now starting to see the negative ripple effects of that on child's mental physical emotional development and so again it's another huge inconvenience of the structure of our education system but it's not formed to actually nurture the needs of children as they're coming into that space yeah absolutely and one of the head teachers that we work with that we talk about all the time on the podcast Tina Farh who has a head teacher at a primary school in Oxford that she's been doing a lot of research into the importance of play and play-based learning and actually has decided that for her pupils all the way up to year two now that actually that that is essential premise of the work that they're doing and you know she she's there's a brilliant conversation that I've recorded with her that we can share in the show notes where she talks about their kind of theory as a school but you know they are still at a state primary

30:47school you know they're still teaching they're recognisably a school they're teaching maths they're teaching English they're teaching all of the things that you know offstead are looking for but they are doing it in a way that actually supports and centres healthy child development and that means playing and having time in your body and having time outside and you know they're in a city they're not you know they have a lot of the same restrictions as many other schools do but she's finding ways to to explore that and and and actually just stop and think why are we doing what we're doing what are we trying to do here and how can we actually realistically bring the well-being of our pupils into the heart of it all because that's actually the crux of it and you know there's something so potent isn't there of stopping and asking that question it's such a significant question for what was the point of school and how are we bringing the well-being of children into the heart of it and and yet the capacity we have to stop and ask that question is is limited but as as the sort of team it's an ebb show it doesn't need to be

31:52revolutionary it just needs to be conscious and that there's an organisation that they work with called O-POP outdoor play in no called O-POP outdoor play in learning which which provides playgrounds with resources for children to just play but it's basically old junk isn't it yeah old car tires and old you know prams and and ropes and and it's just allowed I think from the local community completely and it's such a joyful place and and Tina sort of has a lot of sharing on this that you know you walk around the playground and you see intergenerational player you see lots of creative play lots of physical play lots of risk-taking boundary crossing because children are learning as we are designed to learn by doing rather than sitting and learning about risk assessment before they go and climb on the on the rope and then fall off and so again it's at trust space and and and scores who are using this process are just seeing the the bountiful impact of health well-being cognitive function relational building it's like you know

32:56very little negative downside to any of this other than making that space in the curriculum yeah yeah and and you know even just in in play time you mentioned risk there and I think that is something that's really important especially when we're thinking about nature connection both as adults and with young people and I think as well about you know the change in childhood over the last 50 years or so that that you know 50 years ago children were outside all day playing allowed just to roam free I mean this you know this is maybe a rose tinted glasses view of it but but there was so much more outdoor play and now as you say there is so much more indoor play and I think there are many reasons why parents have a much more reluctant to to let their children outside and also children are more reluctant to go out but I think a big factor is this risk and this fear of the outdoors and danger and what might happen if they were

33:58to fall out of a tree or to you know to hurt themselves because they're you know there is that there I'm going to say something that it has to come out and again I'm not saying this to be judgmental but I am saying this to encourages to be a little bit more consciously thoughtful there's such a exactly what you just shared there there's a growing sense of fear and cotton wool parenting or actually it's sometimes called curling parenting which maybe we'll come back to explain what that means but this idea of cotton wool parenting have been so beautifully tenderly compassionately anxious about the risk of of growing up in our modern world that we that we don't allow children to be out and learning by doing we keep them indoors and the reason I just suddenly had the spurge of frustration is that what we've inadvertently done is shut children away from the world to keep them safe and in many places given them an iPad or an iPhone or access to the internet where every single danger available to humans

35:05is in the palm of their hand we are not aware of the the massive impact of internet exposure to whatever is coming out there on children and and so there's something that I just find very frustrating in this notion of like let's keep them safe by keeping indoors and give them everything in the world and send them into their bedrooms with freedom to just explore the internet and whatever dangerous out there that they might find and I I know it's not that simplest and it's not a naive choice that we're making but sometimes it's it's a choice that needs perhaps a wider lens of thought yeah and I think you know there is you know there is something really important about taking and again I'm thinking about outdoor risk you know about actually seeing the limits of our bodies and taking those risks and those challenges and falling over and knowing that that's okay that that's part of life it's all building that resilience and that grit and that you know and you know I get it I can understand why the natural world feels

36:08quite scary to people especially as people become less and less exposed to it the less we know about something the the more scary and intimidating it feels but that's precisely why it's so important to to be outside to be in the world so that it does feel more known and you know either for me that's things like starting small like you know sounds ridiculous but having house plants in my flat has been a really good introduction to okay this is what it feels like to have dirt under my fingernails and and that's quite fun actually you know and you know then then moving onto looking at the trees and lining the street and then you know building that out and and giving ourselves that exposure and allowing our young people that exposure to so that we are comfortable with that you just reminding me of a very beautiful piece of work done by some friends of ours a global action plan that was called dirt is good and they partnered with personal and did a really

37:10interesting exposure to the fact that we're designed to be dirty we're designed to have our fingers in the mud and it's designed to actually get germs and our bodies then respond to those germs and and coming back to this idea of curling parenting those of you know that the sport curling which is about getting a really smooth plane of ice and then you send this thing I don't know what it's called um curling bell curling bell yes that sounds good and then you have these people with little brushes and they're brushing away all the grit all of the dirt all of the sort of things that might get in the way of the smooth glide of this of this curling stone and what's happening in our kind of modern cultures is we're removing the obstacles that actually help us to learn and grow so that when we do hit an obstacle in our lives we're not used to it and so therefore we flounder and and just while we're talking about dirt and mud one of the things I've just loved in the research that we've done over the last couple of years is the vital importance

38:13of mud and actually that we you know it's not a surprise that children want to jump in muddy puddles because actually evolutionarily we have evolved to actually be muddy and our and the fascinating um bit of research that's coming out shows that our gut microbiome is actually regulated by being in mud and so because the souls of our feet are huge absorbers of of everything you know that we're stepping on when we're in the mud we're absorbing huge amounts of bacteria through our skin that goes into our gut and helps to regulate a really healthy gut microbiome so actually the more that we're spending time with fingers and feet in mud the healthier our bodies become which is so counterintuitive to the cultural narrative especially in COVID get incredibly obsessed with washing your hands so that no germs come anywhere near us and there's a bit of research we'll share while we're talking about mud on the kind of chemicals

39:16that are released through the soil through trees through photosynthesis that actually come into the human body and help regulate our serotonin in our endorphine levels that are producing happy hormones in us so literally even just be being outside and breathing um when we're in a green space we're actually co-regulating the happy hormones in our body and and in the mud there's a bacteria I'm having to read this one because I can't remember what it was called called my co-bacterium vacae which actually releases serotonin in the brain and there's a natural antidepressant which you know it's free and it's in the soil so I think all of those kind of feel quite exciting kind of research that's coming through to help counteract a little bit of this this notion that dirt is bad and we'll share the that the research in the dirt is good um campaign as well yeah you know I'd love that and you know what you were just saying there as well about breathing in was just making me think of forest bathing and this ancient Japanese tradition

40:18I think it's I don't know how it's pronounced but shinrin yoku this idea of actually finding therapeutic relaxation amongst trees and they found that again the that what is given off by trees that released into the air actually is so calming to our nervous system and I think for many of us will know that feeling of just taking in a big deep breath in in the woods and just feeling that kind of sense of calmness and there's something there as well about visually you know I think actually the calming influence of organic shapes versus linear man-made shapes and actually again just surrounding ourselves with with organic shapes of squishy curvy non-linear shapes is so much better for our brains than these very when we spend a lot of time around straight lines and around it it really starts to to heighten our stress levels

41:21whereas spending time with soft shapes reduces stress it's also making me think so I was just looking around my feet to see if I could find it on my bookshelf both of the friend of ours Richard Dunn who runs a beautiful education project called the Harmony project which is really looking into that that our relationship with nature's patterns and also inspired by a book written by King Charles many years ago that I think is called Harmony yeah and it's a really beautiful book where he's also writing about this deep innate human connection to the patterns of nature that makers feel well and and let you said and so much research done into the physical structures of the spaces that we live in can actually massively impact our health and well being when they're curved when they're more you know full of plants and there's a lot of companies now working in school spaces to design the physical space at the school to allow it to become much more natural in its in its design so there's yeah there's places we'll share in the in the show notes on that

42:26but just talking back to what you were saying a minute ago about you know all of the health benefits of being in nature it's also really exciting I feel that that in our medical in our Western medical practices we're also now offering what's called green prescribing and doctors that you know are meeting patients with all of their elements and saying you know what going be in nature because we can we can show now even though we kind of innately know this that being in nature reduces stress and anxiety improves mood and boost concentration in hearts as physical well being lowers blood pressure lowers heart rate and so's the vagus nerve which we're constantly talking about in our work and so actually for many of the of the kind of day-to-day troubles that we're finding just being outdoors being in nature is an immediate suzer yeah and so and if we can't have that access to nature just as you were sharing at the very beginning of this podcast we can put houseplants in our houses we don't need much money to buy a houseplant you can buy them very very cheaply yeah second-hand pretty much all of mine of Facebook marketplace yes and I

43:32my huge fan of spider plants because they are really good to to oxygenate and clean the air and they have so many babies that you can buy one spider plant and have 20 spider plants by the end with you know a couple of months yeah I mean I think that's the exciting thing right about particularly around green prescribing that there has been a big shift in our understanding of the importance of that and I was reading a report from natural England about the complexity being that that we need a minimum of two hours a week they found to have this real significant boost to our health and well-being on a longer term level and on one hand two hours a week you know is very achievable and yet as you were saying actually we're getting 15 minutes a day outside that's really the walk to the car and back you know it's that that doesn't quite cut it you know how do we carve out time create space in our structures to allow

44:34that two hours of outdoor time and again coming back to schools actually how can schools do that there are so many ways but you have to push back against that dominant system so you have to be the school that says yes we are going to be spending we're going to have an outdoor classroom and then how do you then equip your your students for that so as we said do you have to have the right clothing right clothing is very expensive so you know it's it's finding ways to push back against this dominant system that's keeping us indoors in these boxes and say no we are getting at least two hours a week in the outdoors for our young people for ourselves that means investing in the right structures the right clothing or the right you know all of these things to allow that to happen and then it can be useful but you have to put in a bit of prep for that and time and investment I guess for that ease to then come about. Prep and pressure it's making me also think of another survey that was done by the National Trust in 2024 so only last year that surveyed again it's a UK-based survey both children and parents

45:41about access to nature and 76% of children surveyed said that they want to spend much more time in nature but two thirds of the parents said that they can only take them once a week or less because of accessibility and this is the survey has been part of a national bid to to pressure or to to to champion government to be able to provide a green space within a 50 minute walk of all housing so that we actually have that as part of our cultural narrative and so there's something about the pressuring as well this is not just Holly and Rachel sitting here on a morning thinking this is a nice idea this is a this is an essential human need and it's something that we're calling for and then it's also something we're saying we're not able to find that please can we do something about that yeah and as a governance in our country we're running through this democracy now is the time then to be listening to that call and that plea and I'm meeting the research that shows yes this will help reduce all the bulging NHS waiting lists because we're actually

46:44going to be allowing people to take more proactive response to their health and well-being so it's a kind of win-win with the modding convenience that we're going to have to do something about it to allow that access that's the thing you know I talked spoke about investment but actually as you say that the costs to the NHS in terms of the physical and mental and emotional impact that being deprived of nature is having on us all it makes so much sense to allow this and to encourage this and you know take take that risk take that leap and you know make that possible for people and you know and I think there are pioneers who have been doing this you know we haven't mentioned forest schools yet but forest schools have have really taken off here in the UK and I believe internationally as well I don't I don't know where they originated actually but you know my nephew he went to forest school last year for his first year of nursery and just seeing the

47:45photos of him out in the woods in his like little all in one waterproof jacket and his belly boots and just hearing the stories of him coming out of the woods after a big day there and just seeing the absolute joy on his face you can see the impact and how can we encourage and allow that more of that to happen yeah and it comes back to so so much of what we in many many people are exploring all the time that we cannot just keep addressing the symptoms of a disconnected world if we just come back to the route the route is simply let's connect more yeah more we connect the healthy we become the less symptoms we're having to respond to because we don't have the symptoms because we are not depleted from being devoid of nature devoid of being in spaces world spaces but we do need to recognise it unless we change something nothing is going to change and so that I love the fact that you bought that reframing the narrative of economic need you know where can we find the money to make more green spaces we'll find it from the NHS but because we're

48:48we'll bring it away treating things that can be treated naturally that's the thing you know it's it's there and again I don't want to oversimplify because there is more complexity to it than that but also as you say there's it's actually quite straightforward we talk about this meta crisis idea that it is what all these symptoms are showing us is this root cause of disconnection and I'm thinking I saw a post on LinkedIn this morning that just really made me stop and think and it said shouting self-care at people who actually need community care is how we fail people from Nikita Valerio shouting self-care at people who actually need community care is how we fail people and I think that also opens up to who also need healthcare you know again think about that idea of triple well-being we cannot care for ourselves if we are disconnected from ourselves if we're disconnected from other people and if we're disconnected from the natural environment it's not possible to be disconnected in one space and

49:52have full connection in another that they're all interlinked and so if we're thinking about encouraging self-care for thinking about encouraging social justice and community care all of this links into needing to care for the environment to have that connection with the with the wider natural world and in doing so we can really care for ourselves really care for each other and again it's that positive feedback loop that you know healthier systems be get healthier systems there's a couple of things I think I can already feel because I know we're closer time that this is the beginning of a maybe a series I think there's a lot more that we can unpick here and just a couple of things that maybe just we throw into them unpick at a later date but one is this idea of we're living in a climate now that's actually making some of us fear nature and that fear has come through a growing climate and nature crisis where suddenly the the weather or nature is doing things that we fear they're extreme extreme weather events extreme things out of our control or

50:53that we that we're hiding from and I think that will be interesting to unpick probably at a later date yeah hovid had a massive impact on our connection to nature because we literally shut ourselves in into our houses and therefore that innate connection was severed and we became less at ease being in in nature and and the other thing I'd love to unpick and this probably will be another day is the difference between nature contact and nature connection yes because I think we can be in nature we can go for a lovely walk in the woods with our headphones on and we're out in nature but we're not connecting to nature because we're actually connecting to the person speaking a lovely podcast or wherever it might be or the music we're listening to and there's again a slight severing of a relationship there and and maybe I think the last thing that I'd like to bring for this podcast is this invitation into nature connection that can come with a practice that we have as part of our triple wellbeing cards which is a wonder wonder

51:54and we invite folks and we do it in quite a lot of our trainings to just go on a five-minute wonder wonder in a natural environment and it can be in your house if it's full of pop plants or you have an animal and just notice the world with the wide-eyed wonder of a small child and pay attention to what is right there it can be a little tiny weed poking up through a crack in a pavement doesn't need to be you know a beautiful you know healthy ecosystem out in in a in a nature park nature is amazing looks exactly open your window and see a bit of moss growing on the windowsill but when we notice and pay attention start to really be in awe of nature we start to connect and and that is part of the shift and I'm going to finish for me with with a quote from David Attenborough who says that if children don't grow up knowing about nature and appreciating it they will not understand it and if they don't understand it they won't protect it and if they don't protect it who will so again it's this invitation to the more we love care notice protects and

52:57feel part of nature the less likely we are to want to exploit you know extract and pollute nature because we recognize that we are nature yeah so again it's this beautiful cycle of care and connection yeah I love that and oh there's so many paths that I want to jump into with you especially around that nature contact versus nature connection you know and thinking about that and also that allowing people really getting people to care for nature there's a whole different avenue that I'd love to go down at some point and show us think about is geography students becoming geology students becoming people who then work for a big oil or mining how people who through school form this deep interest in the natural environment who then go and study geology at university that really innate love of an interest in our world and then the careers that come out of it are quite exploitative anyway that's a whole different board game I feel the part too but I do find that interesting I wondered if I could just finish with a poem just because this is

54:01what often comes to mind when I think about this idea of nature connection and the importance of it and it's permed by Donna Ashworth from her wild hope collection which my lovely former colleague Sandy gifted to me with the tagline for when you need to add magic and this poem is called you are nature and she says there is a reason why walking amongst nature is most people's best advice when depression strikes because walking in nature is a return to home you are not a lover of nature or in need of some nature you are nature you're as much nature as the trees in your garden and the bees on your picnic you are designed to live your days out in the wild with your fellow creatures and plants but progress humanity had different plans for us all and so we exist day to day in our homes but never home the quickest route back to self to inner peace is bare feet on grass arms around trees head in the clouds and heart in a forest put your weary body in water whenever you

55:05can smell every flower you see and crumble dirt between your tired of typing fingers you are nature so go home once in a while it will bring you so much you didn't even know you were missing thank you Holly there's such riches in that yeah I feel it let's start the next podcast that we do on this with that poem and then I'll pick everything in that yes but your weary body and water is a line that goes through my head at least three times a week and I think oh I must have a bath wonderful thank you I really really enjoyed this and and feel very generated by it yeah I'm very grateful for the conversation yes and really again energize to go out and not to go oh well I've got lots of work to be doing but not being outside is is part of that work opportunity in the garden is where we're off nice or cup of tea at the window or cup of tea on the porch yes I have a really nice travel mug I might take a cup of tea down to the beach

56:06there we go have a lovely rest the morning you too speak soon bye you've been listening to two inconvenient women from thought box education with Rachel Massen and me Holly Everett with thanks to Stuart Robinson for our theme music to the rest of our thought box team and our triple wellbeing community and to a cast for hosting the podcast if you'd like to find out more about joining our triple wellbeing community or accessing any of the courses resources or events mentioned in the podcast then please visit www.thoughtboxeducation.com and if you liked the podcast we would so appreciate it if you could rate to review and subscribe thank you and see you next time