Nature rituals for stressed people: simple ways to calm your nervous system on a weekend away

It’s often said that trying to calm the mind is like trying to stop ripples on water with your hand – well intended but it doesn’t actually work.  

The trick here, is to settle into the kind of language the body and the mind speak – and that doesn’t mean big, structured wellness routines and tight itineraries, it means little moments of sensory experiences that help you slip into a calmer, more natural level of calm.  

Instead of a checklist of to-dos, consider these as some gentle suggestions that you can just effortlessly give a go, falling in and out of as you please.

The brain and body take clues from each other, and as confusing as it sounds, the only thing between them is the mind. Start thinking about how you can trick yourself into feeling a little calmer – and that can be by just pretending that you are. If you move slowly, you can make yourself believe you’re not in a panicked hurry.  

One easy way to do this is right from the very start of your day. Take pleasure in making your first drink of the day slowly, and ritualistically (even if it is just straight from the tap), and head straight outdoors to the deck or whatever green space you have. 

Ignore the urge to be on your phone, pop on music or start chatting – and take in the morning air, just noticing what the light’s doing, what you can hear, and the soft breeze (or calm stillness).  

This way, you’ll begin the day a little more mindfully, and most importantly, without starting it in a flap and a panic.

Wandering aimlessly gets a bit of a bad rap. If you’re old enough to be working, you’re old enough to have been told off for just sidling around without a purpose. But there’s nothing wrong with stretching the legs, and getting outside – after all it’s about the journey, not the destination, right? 

The best part about being in the great outdoors, a rewilded site or meadow etc, is that there’s generally a walk to be had straight from the front door. Ready yourself for a little stroll, and pop on your boots and just start putting feet in front of one another. 

Wander slowly, let your intuition take you, follow interesting lines of sight and go down paths because you’re curious. Don’t let your brain try to make sense of it, or in fact, let it make too much debate or thought about anything. The important part here is that you take the pressure off yourself to be making conscious decisions. This is all about letting go.  

Enjoy the rhythm of your pace, take in the surroundings, the views, the light between the trees, the smell of the woodland as it warms in the morning sun. Don’t worry about the length of the walk, it’s all about doing what feels right, and easy.

Whether you take your water wild or cultivated is up to you. Some prefer to live on the wilder side, with dips in the stream, the loch, the sea, the swimming pond and others prefer to slip into a plunge pool or a cold tub – but a dip in fresh, cool water can be exactly what the doctor ordered (just do actually ask the doctor first).  

Whilst it’s not for everyone, many swear a dunk in the icy stuff can make them feel incredibly alive, boost their dopamine, or simply stun the body into focusing entirely on what’s around them and how they feel. There’s plenty to read on the matter.  

What’s almost more important however, is what you do afterwards. Warming back up is the best bit. That might be a gentle towelling in the stunning surrounds of a cabin, or it might be a spell in the steam of a sauna – any which way, it tends to loosen the muscles and set you on course for a relieving moment of calm.

Modern cities have some pretty wonderful benefits. No one’s going to debate the brilliance of an espresso machine, and the untouchable benefit of steamed milk. In fact, there’s so many good things, we can’t even list them. But if we had to think of a drawback, a mere handful of faint dots in the night sky is one of them.  

Out in the countryside, where light pollution is lower, or indeed, in some spots, almost non-existent – there’s an ancient marvel to wonder at that we’ve all come to forget. The night’s sky in all its brilliance. In fact, when was the last time you really saw them?  

When you’re out at your treehouse, yurt, shepherd’s hut etc – you’ll have the opportunity when the sun goes down to peer up at the heavens and have your perspective shifted into one of awe and amazement. You’ll likely see a pitch black dome with brilliant spots of light so bright they twinkle with faint streaks of colour. In fact, if you’re in the right spot, you’ve got the chance to see galaxies or the northern lights. And if that doesn’t make you feel a little more relaxed and alive, nothing will.

This one’s as old as… well. Making fire. If you’ve been glamping before, you’ll know all about why this works. Or rather, you’ll know that it does work. Why doesn’t really matter. 

After a long day of exploring, going for walks in wooded spaces or hikes that take you up to stunning vistas, there’s really nothing quite like a spell round a firepit or an evening gazing into a wood burner. 

For starters, the warmth itself is beyond comforting, and with all your energy drained by the day’s adventures, it’s nice to outsource keeping yourself warm to an external source. But it’s not just that.  

Fire moves just like water, a rippling, flickering motion – hard to predict, and yet, entirely familiar and comforting. Let the brain trail off with its constant flow of thoughts, find a comfy position, settle down and watch as conversation moves from the jolly and the upbeat, to ever quieter, calmer and sporadic one-liners about the fun you had that day. Until it’s just silence, and the crackle and spit of the wood. The amber light will soon trigger your brain to think about deep sleep – and then the body will follow suit.

It doesn’t get much easier than this. Ever noticed that you can’t help but feel the pull towards bodies of water? Who has seen a flowing river, a rippling lake or a roaring coastline and not ambled on over to take it in? Humans are drawn to water, and it has a natural, calming effect. Whether that’s cortisol levels, lowering blood pressure or changing our brain activity.  

A huge number of our spaces have water nearby, whether that’s a tiny waterfall flowing past, a river at the field’s boundary or it’s sat right on the banks of a lake or on the shore of the sea. Toddle on over to your nearest stretch of the clear stuff and sit for a while. Let your brain go on screensaver mode, and just watch the water do its thing.  

The very shape of it, the smell, the ionised particles, the many reasons water is good for us – it’ll wash over you and let your brain and body shift back into equilibrium and get you to a moment of true calm. Is it as exciting as a doomscroll? No, but that’s the point. It’s all about downregulating, not spiking your body’s chemicals into a dopamine frenzy.

Another age-old experience, cooking outdoors and sharing that hard work with the right people can do wonders. If you’ve cooked outdoors before, you’ll know it tends to involve a few more steps. And whilst it takes a little longer, that’s actually entirely the point.  

Many tasks that force us out of our routine and require an extra bit of thought tend to take us out of the ruminating part of our brain, and into our task-doing part of our brain. Think Einstein working in the patent office – the every day tasks were enough to let him carry of thinking about the laws of the universe. And that’s what you’re doing here, laying our strips of food on a searing grill, chatting away about everything and nothing, and forgetting the silly stuff that doesn’t matter.  

And of course, there’s the other side. Socialising is probably one of the best ways to relax, whether it’s just a little conversation to keep you distracted, or the cocktail of positive chemicals we get from being heard, understood and appreciated. There’s only one goal here, and that’s don’t burn the food. But the benefits? Many.

Well first of all, does it matter? Give it a go, and you’ll see that it does. But if you’re desperate to know, it’s all about simplicity. Modern life is filled with the panic of keeping up, performing, side-hustling, demonstrating expertise or competence.  

Sometimes the best thing you can do for your mental health, is let the shackles of pressure off for a while and return to what the body and the mind was adapted for. Spending time in nature, doing without direct purpose, letting the mind go blank when it feels like it – not when you have the time. And most of all, doing it all with others.  

The best getaways aren’t about packing activities into a short time frame, it’s about giving yourself the time and space to allow life to happen as it wants to for a while, and being a calm, happy passenger.  

Stop trying to calm those ripples with your hand – and start letting them ripple themselves out.