Body & Nature Connection
for People Who Care
with Dr Hannah McNeilly
“…Tell me: what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?”
(Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day”)
Are you a healthcare professional, educator, or in other ways providing care and supporting others’ wellbeing?
Chances are that you, like many others, have felt exhausted, alienated, and stressed. I felt like that when I worked as a doctor, but I kept going because I cared about my patients, felt responsible for them, and didn’t want to let my colleagues down. Being stressed was seen as normal, as part of the job.
Chronic stress and burnout are, of course, rampant among people who care. And they are not signs of weakness, but they show that structural pressures push people beyond their limits. Especially people who not only care for but care about those they work with.
Care work has been undervalued for too long, and yet it is the bedrock of our society. Having left medicine, I now support people who care to feel good and to reclaim their wild and precious lives. Because you matter.
You deserve rest, you deserve time, you deserve respect and gentleness.
This is not a luxury, it’s an existential matter.
But what can you do about it? A wellbeing webinar or a lunchbreak activity can be nice additions to the day, but they won’t usually have a lasting effect. If you want to make space for living more fully and bringing back your spark after years of exhausting care work, then I have something to offer to you:
1.) Bring nature into your work!
Feeling more energised is not only about working less, but also about making your time at work more enjoyable and replenishing. My ethnographic PhD research explores the practice of Circular Care, a form of caring that ‘fills the caregivers cup’ instead of draining it — caring as a source of joy and strength.
If you enjoy being in nature, one way of cultivating Circular Care is bringing nature into your work - or your work into nature. In my certified Nature Connection CPD course, you can learn to design and lead nature connection activities. This is an effective strategy to support the wellbeing of the people you work with, as well as your own. From experience I can say that leading nature connection activities is utterly delightful and refreshing work.
2.) Connect with your body
When working under pressure and making sure that other people’s needs are being met, we often neglect our own. Have you ever skipped a lunch break, gone to work when you didn’t feel well, or pushed through your tiredness with coffee or energy drinks?
Feeling tired, in pain, or tense are messages from our bodies that are often ignored. Yet they can guide us towards a more regenerative and joyful way of living.
My online somatic movement sessions (1:1 or in groups) help you to get back into your body. By way of gently sensing and moving our bodies we can recognise and respond to our own needs in a healing and helpful way. After the sessions, people often say that they feel lighter and happier.
3.) Connect with nature
If you want to experience nature’s health and wellbeing benefits for yourself, we can do this in online nature-based coaching sessions. Together we will develop strategies to make space for nature connection in your everyday life and have meaningful conversations about the insights you gain through being in and with nature. I offer 1:1 nature-based coaching sessions online.
…and if you are interested in my 12-week group programme (which is currently paused), please get in touch as I am planning to re-open it in the future.
“It is not only that I feel lighter physically but also emotionally. So powerful.” (Andrea, Researcher, after a somatic group session)
Working in healthcare or education and being responsible for others (be they clients, patients, students, teams, or children) can be extremely draining and has burnt out many. When rushed and trying to get through the day, our most vibrant aspects - our rich inner lives - often are disregarded and may be forgotten. Yet they’re at the core of our strength and vitality, and are usually what brought us into doing our work in the first place. Together we can unearth the treasures that lie beneath the surface.
Nature connection + Bodywork =
Feeling alive, grounded, and free.
Nature Connection and Somatic Movement empower you to break free from the daily grind and create a life you enjoy. I offer nature connection courses, somatic movement, and nature-based coaching.
Nature Connection is an immersive practice to connect with nature and improve health and wellbeing. It is a science-based method that has been proven to reduce stress and prevent burnout. My practice is based on the Forest Therapy (FT) Hub Method to design mindful nature-connection activities promoting health and vitality.
Somatic Movement is a technique that helps you to reactivate your senses, move your body with ease, and recognise your internal healing resources. I have trained in Physio-Mentaler Entwicklung (PME)/Physio-Mental Development with Dieter Rehberg (Austria), a holistic client-centred method to improve physical and mental wellbeing.
In combination, these methods help you to heal from stress and suffering and support you in making meaningful changes.
What I do not offer: I do not provide psychotherapy, spiritual teaching, or medical treatment.
Rewild yourself!
When large parts of our work and social lives take place in non-natural environments, on screens, and under time pressure, shutting down our sensory awareness is a common (and often necessary) adaptation strategy. It helps us to block out the discomfort of getting through the day with lack of sleep, sitting at the computer for long hours, not eating well, and focussing on everyone else’s wellbeing except our own. To me, this feels like stepping into ‘robot mode’. In effect, we numb ourselves to get the daily job done. And it works. We work. Until we don’t. In the long run, we lose touch with the most precious force we have, our vitality.
Rewilding yourself is a radical step to come back to your senses. It allows you to slow down and perceive what usually goes unnoticed… The beauty of the cracked bark of an oak tree. The tenderness of a young snail with a body still half-transparent. The calm rhythm of your breathing. Rewilding yourself is a return to what has always been wild within you - that spark that could not be extinguished in higher education; that deep need for rest that remains even after a holiday; and that zest for life that cannot be expressed in a board meeting. It’s what reminds us that we are more than alienated work machines. We are living beings, fierce and delicate, woven into a wonderful glimmering web of life.
Evidence-based practice
It is not surprising that healthcare professionals and academics are experiencing record levels of chronic stress and burnout. Staff shortages, long work hours, increasing administrative tasks, and the repercussions of the pandemic are taking their toll on physical and mental health, work performance, and life satisfaction. In the UK, 45% of NHS staff reported having felt unwell due to work-related stress in the past month, and 57% said that they came to work in the past three months despite not feeling fit for work (NHS staff survey 2022). And in a recent survey, over half of academic staff in HE showed signs of depression (Wray and Kinman 2021). The roots of the problem are structural, and the symptoms manifest on all levels - from systems and institutions to teams and individual bodies.
Nature Connectedness has been shown to have significant positive physiological and psychosocial effects that counteract stress and burnout (systematic review Rajoo et al. 2020). Mindful forest walks significantly reduce cortisol levels (systematic review Antonelli et al. 2019), improve cardiovascular function (Farrow et al. 2019), and promote positive mood while reducing anxiety (Chen et al. 2018). Physiological effects of somatic movement have been less researched, but the profound effects of mindfulness on physical activity and health-promoting behaviour have been widely documented (Roychowdhury 2021).
Curious? Any questions? Let’s have a chat: info@coille.scot
