The story.
The door click shuts behind me, and I begin my morning nature walk with a deep breath. One foot in front of the other, I study the ground, then bend my neck back to appreciate the blue sky lightly streaked with white clouds. I lower my gaze again. The leaves on the trees shimmer in the light of the just-risen sun. At my feet, a black ground beetle scurries off to the side, into a dark green patch of ground cover.
Slowly, I make my way down the stone path, onto our driveway, and onto the gravel road. Trees flank both sides. Their height, the shadows dancing among them, make me feel protected.
Nurtured, almost.
I pause for a moment, take another deep breath, exhale out the little worries over today’s to-do list.
My daily morning nature walk resumes, first away from the sun and up a short incline, then toward it, the bright rays piercing through breaks in the tree branches. It’s mid-September, so there is a light hum of insects. The occasional twitter of a bird has me casually glancing up and around, wondering if I could see it if I tried, or if it has cleverly hidden itself within the foliage of the high branches. A semi-cool breeze brushes against my bare arms. I shiver, but only a little, and it’s a good shiver, the kind that energizes and rejuvenates.
Why a mindful morning nature walk?
A stroll around outside, even if brief, even if around a landscaped city block, produces all the physical benefits you can derive from any sort of wandering. But a mindful morning nature walk carries additional benefits.
- It reduces stress by quieting your mind.
- It encourages your brain to produce its feel-good chemicals such as serotonin and dopamine, both of which tend to be lower than is healthy in the neurodivergent brain.
- It helps you set a relaxed and focused tone for the day.
- It reminds you of the simple things in life. This facilitates your subconscious to guide you to prioritize and simplify.
- It sparks the imagination. This is crucial if you’re a creative and make a living with your creativity. But even if you don’t consider yourself a creative, communing with the birds and the bugs and the flowers allows your mind to take flight and possibly see challenges in your own life from different angles and perspectives.
Getting the most out of your Mindful Morning Nature Walk
There is no lock-step, perfect way to reap all of the benefits possible from a mindful walk in nature at the break of day. Consider what I’m about to offer as suggestions, not a set of commands. I don’t follow all of the steps myself every day, but they provide a solid starting point for anyone wanting to ground themselves at the beginning of each day.
The one rule is that you do it alone. The activity is a type of meditation, and bringing along any type of companion would only serve as a distraction.
On to the steps. Let’s call them “The Four P’s.” They are:
- Prioritize.
- Plan.
- Practice mindfulness.
- Play with variety.
Let’s look at each one in more detail, so you can enhance your journey of self-care.
Prioritize.
First of all, if you want this activity to become a regular part of your life, you need to make it a priority. You might need to get out of bed earlier. You might need to talk to your spouse about adjusting your joint morning routine.
Second, you need to prioritize your intention. For most of my life, taking walks meant exercising my heart. I’d power-walk for ten to fifteen minutes, not paying attention to anything around me, in a hurry to get “exercise” off my mental to-do list so I could tackle the next thing.
I missed a lot.
Now, I’m not saying to never do cardio. What I’m saying is that, even if the walk can only last five minutes, give the task fully over to that five minutes. Don’t walk out of the house with the intention of hurrying your way back. That completely defeats the purpose of the activity. Which is…
Plan your walk.
How long will it be? Where will you go? Do you need to take a coat? An umbrella? Do you want take your binoculars with you and do a little birdwatching while you’re at it?
If you’re like me and no longer have to work, and you live in a rural area, the logistics are a lot less complicated. Chances are good, however, that you live in an urban area and have to go to work or run a business. It pays to drill down the details ahead of time – no later than the night before – so you don’t end up rushing out the door or feeling more stressed than when you began.
Again, defeating the purpose.
Creating a checklist to glance at before you leave your home will do wonders for you along those lines.
Practice mindfulness.
And now we’ve arrived at the heart of the activity: nature meditation. That’s essentially what a Mindful Morning Nature Walk entails. Instead of closing your eyes, you keep them wide open. You keep all of your senses “wide open,” as it were.
Walk slowly, and allow the ambiance of nature to engulf you. Stop and study a pleasant scene. Notice the particular details of a certain plant. Lean down and smell it. Sniff any blossoms you pass by.
Stand straight, close your eyes, and focus on the scents floating through the air. Then focus on the sounds. Listen to the various bird songs and calls. Can you name any of them? Does a breeze rustle the leaves of the trees? What does the sound remind you of? Perhaps a child’s voice rings out in the distance, or a neighbor’s wind chimes plays their haunting melody.
Perhaps it’s raining. Enjoy the calming sound of the drops pattering on the ground. Breathe in the clean scent as the rain pushes polluting particles from the sky.
Open your eyes and keep walking. Feel the air caress your skin as you move. If you can walk barefoot on the grass, do so, and relish the feel of the cool blades massaging the soles of your feet.
As you move through your morning nature walk, focus your mind, as well. Hold inside of it a single word, or short phrase, one that brings you peace, makes you feel grounded.
In fact, the word could be “peace.” Or “content.” I like the phrase, “thank you.”
Other thoughts will emerge, trying to usurp the place of your mantra. Take a mental step back and let the thoughts pass by. This move is one of the similarities that nature meditation has with standard meditation.
The final “P” in your mindful morning nature walk: Play with variety.
If possible, change where you walk every once in a while. Some days, become a nature photographer. Other days, do a field recording with your phone. As noted above, you may do some birdwatching once in a while.
If all you ever want to do is walk with your hands free and body unencumbered with devices, great! I’m just offering a few ideas to keep your nature walk interesting.
Another way to do this is focus on different items on different days. For example, one day pay particular attention to trees. Another, to flowers. Another, to clouds. And so on.
They say that variety is the spice of life. In this case, variety motivates you to keep going outside. It brings meaning to life when you can’t feel any meaning.
It keeps a child-like sense of awe and wonder alive.
Time to plan your next Mindful Morning Nature Walk.
Let it be soon. Let it be often.
And let us know how it went in the comments. 🙂
