Connect with Nature for Wellbeing

A 6-week online community experience: Weekly activities to practise in your local nature, and benefit your health.

Or, the 3-month accredited version: Learn the tools and skills of supporting others to connect with nature.

“A delight from start to finish”

6-week Modules:

If you’re looking for ways to improve your own health and wellbeing, and connect with nature, read on below.

3-month Professional Course:

If you want to bring Nature Connection into your work, click below:

This course might be for you if you want to:

✔️ improve your health and wellbeing naturally, through simple, enchanting activities.

✔️ practise Forest Bathing locally, without travelling a long way to your nearest guide.

✔️ feel more aware of the beauty of nature in your everyday life, no matter where you live.

✔️ feel you belong in your local nature, and on the land where you live and work.

✔️ pause our society’s busy ‘doing’, to experience effortlessly ‘being’.

✔️ rediscover your childhood ease in nature (or discover it, if you never had that chance).

✔️ pause your habitual thinking, to feel calm, clear, and present.

What is Forest Bathing?

It’s easy, it’s free, it’s remarkably good for us, and it’s fun!

When we connect with nature, something magical happens to us, which is beyond the health benefits of going for a walk.

By relating through our senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell and the internal senses), we drop our habit of endless thinking, and sink into Forest Mind - absorbed, calm, clear and connected. We feel present and more alive.

This way of being has been shown to be highly beneficial for our health and wellbeing, and engaging this way for even 20 minutes is known to have lasting positive effects.

Past participants said:

Choose your 6-week module:

Evidence-based effects

of connecting with nature

  • Health

    Stronger immune system

    Lower blood-sugar levels

    Lower blood pressure

    Lower stress hormones

    Lower pulse rate

    Less perception of chronic pain

    Faster recovery from illness

  • Mental Health

    More energy

    Better sleep quality

    More resilience to stress

    Less anxiety

    Less symptoms of depression

    Less focus on daily concerns

    Better mental clarity

  • Happiness

    Better memory

    Better concentration

    Better mood

    More open free-thinking

    Better problem-solving

    More self-knowledge

    More creativity

  • Community

    Feel more compassion

    Feel more generous

    Feel more kindness

    Feel more time-rich

    More co-operative spirit

    Feel own problems less

    See more beauty around us

Hi, I’m Jan. I began working in Nature Connection in the 1980s, taking city children into the woods to meet and become comfortable in the natural world. I fell in love with this work, as it brings together my care for people’s health, nature and our astoundingly beautiful planet.

During Covid, I combined my training and experience in healthcare, teaching, and Nature Connection, in creating this practical online course, to support people isolated in their homes.

I believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to develop a direct personal relationship with their local nature, for the sake of their own health, the future of society, and the natural world. When we connect with nature we fall in love, and what we love, we protect.

I live in the UK, and when I’m not working as a physical therapist or nature guide, I’m often to be found in my vegetable garden, walking, cooking world food or making willow baskets.

Physiotherapist, Bowen therapist and tutor, International Forest Therapy Guide.

Questions people ask

  • No problem! This course is intended for everyone from total beginners to experienced Nature Connection guides. We will guide you step-by-step, whatever your starting place. As the learning is based on your own unique experiences, you will have something to contribute from day one.

  • Each week the new course content is released on Monday and you can take part in your own time to suit your lifestyle. You have a week to practise the activity and share your experience with our online community. If you have a busy week, no problem, each week's content is stand-alone so you cannot fall behind, and you can return to anything you missed later on.

  • Once we start to look around with a Forest Bathing mindset, we realise nature is everywhere. The course walks you through a series of fun activities to unearth this fresh way of noticing what is around us in our daily lives. By practising these activities in your own neighbourhood, you will come to see it in delightful new ways.

  • The course was created during Covid Lockdown, so most activities offer a Hometime Variation for people who cannot leave their home. If we are unable to go outside, we can connect with nature while sitting at a window.

    As well as the multiple health benefits of simply being in nature, much of the value for our physical and mental health comes from the mindful attention we sink into when we engage with these activities — calm, relaxed and alert.

  • Students who complete the 3-month CPD Professional Development Course will receive an official certificate for 30 International Learning Credits (through the CPD Certification Service).

Scholarships

I want to be part of the solution to our urgent global problems. One way I do this is by supporting people who are working towards a peaceful, fair and environmentally regenerative world.

A percentage of the course places are gifted as scholarships to individuals and organisations who are actively working for a thriving future, for people, communities and the natural world.

If you might be eligible for this opportunity, or know of an organisation that could benefit, you can find out more below.

By the end of the course, you will have:

  • Learned delightful ways to connect with the beauty of your local nature

  • Built stress resilience and improved your health and wellbeing

  • Discovered a deeper sense of belonging in the natural world

  • Developed the skills to become a confident, independent Forest Bather

  • Begun an adventure that will continue deepening for the rest of your life