Greenest Session Room: Heal with Ecotherapy

We have a few questions for you. Please take a quiet place to answer them. When you answer, don’t be quick, don’t be in a hurry.

Here’s the basic question:
What is your daily life like?

To elaborate a bit more…

What do you do from the moment you wake up?
Who enters your life until you go back to bed at night, who do you work with, who do you talk to, what kind of places do you visit?
Do you spend more time indoors or outdoors?
What kind of streets do you pass through?
Are you always in the car or walking?
How do you generally feel?
Which emotions and feelings accompany you?

Calmly go through your daily routines.

All these questions are actually a kind of therapy room questions. When we go to a therapy, we talk about our daily life, the events we have experienced, our relationships with the people around us, our emotions.

Although there are many schools of therapy, there is such a therapy method that is actually as old as the history of humanity, but on the other hand, it is just now making a name for itself in the West.

Yes, we are talking about Ecotherapy.

 

What is Ecotherapy?

As Homo Sapiens, we have lived as a natural component of nature and the ecosystem for a very long part of our evolutionary process.

It is in our deepest knowledge to live without sharp distinctions between us and nature.

Since the foundations of modern life were laid, however, there has been a sharp separation between us and nature.

Many of us have to make special plans to see the forests, the sea, the ocean, the sky.

Nature is now only a part of our holidays.

However, for our human system, being with nature is not a luxury, it is actually the deepest need.

It may not seem so when we look at the life of Homo sapiens today, but the human system knows deep down that it is a part of nature, and it becomes sick both physically and mentally when it lives apart from nature.

 

Our eyes need daylight instead of blue screens; our ears need the sound of birds, waves, wind, tree leaves instead of horns; our noses need the smell of the sea, grass, forest and flowers instead of exhaust fumes.

Based on this most basic of human needs, ecotherapy means being in our oldest home and returning to it instead of artificial urban life.

This visit means handing over our own nervous system to nature, which has a much larger nervous system network than we do.

Walking in the forest, sitting by the sea, swimming in the sea, listening to the sounds of nature have a significant effect on the nervous system.

At the heart of ecotherapy is the idea that nature and human beings are deeply interconnected.

Those who integrate ecotherapy into their lives believe that the earth has the capacity for self-correction, functioning through its complex systems, and that if humanity can harmonise with this healing system, i.e. nature, its mental health will improve.

As many principles of ecotherapy suggest, individual well-being and the well-being of the planet are not separate. Our lives are therefore a natural part of a larger system of interaction.

 

Let’s take a look at the ecotherapy methods:

Walking in the Forest: The unique coolness of entering the forest, the dozens of different shades of green, the sounds of the birds, the sound of the leaves of the trees moving in the wind are almost a feast for the senses. Long walks in the forest with a clear consciousness, camping in the forest with respect for nature, surrendering to the rhythm of the forest have a very strong healing effect on our nervous system.

Work with the Soil: Let your hands get dirty. Our ancestors grew their own food, they had a very organic relationship with the soil. In a very short period of human history we have been shopping in grocery stores. Let alone gardening, even the humble vegetables and greens we will grow on our balcony will make us feel strong, sufficient and productive. Let’s not take it for granted; working with the soil, touching the soil, is healing in itself.

Listen to the Sounds of Nature: Birds, wind, branches, leaves, waves… Open your ears to these sounds. Take time for yourself to listen to these sounds. Nowadays urban life is full of car horns, drills, construction noise and the sound of videos being scrolled on the next table. To cleanse our ears of these artificial sounds, we need to consciously tune in to truly ‘natural’ sounds.

Get in Tune with Your Circadian Rhythm: We can think of circadian rhythm as the body’s biological clock. The biological clock of our body is the same as the biological clock of nature. By observing nature, we can actually understand very well what we need to do. For example, when the sun is up, we can get up, or when the sun is at its peak, our digestive system is at its strongest, so the strongest meal of the day should be eaten at noon…

 

We recommend that you read our blog post on this subject.