New for 2023
Join me on a Cotswold Natural Mindfulness Walk & Forest Bathing Session/Course/Retreat at the Notgrove Estate in Gloucestershire.
These mindful walks/experiences in nature take around 1.5 to 3 hours and are available from April to November 2023. These are gentle, immersive, wellbeing walks allowing us to escape into nature along beautiful countryside foot paths and secluded woodlands.
Walking in the Cotswold area of outstanding natural beauty, helps us begin to become fully present and aware of the natural world and our relationship with it. Using natural mindful and contemplative practices, we deepen our awareness of our connection with nature and our inner selves, our true nature.
Sheltered within one of Notgrove’s peaceful woods, we practice Natural Mindfulness while bathing in the atmosphere of the forest, tuning into the health benefits of Forest Bathing and intuitive life lessons from the natural world. This simple yet powerful practice can energise a tired body, relax a busy mind and lift a weary spirit.
These walks/experiences are held in pre-arranged, small, intimate groups or as private or group individual experiences.
Prices: From £25 per person and include a free copy of Ian’s Natural Mindfulness Guidebook & Journal (RRP £9.99).
To find out more and to book, please email [email protected] or call 07812 675549.
The Notgrove Estate
The Notgrove Estate is a 1500 acre family farm high up on the Cotswold Hills. Like many others it has diversified and welcomes day guests and provides a selection of holiday and retreat accommodation on the farm. Our Natural Mindfulness walks and Forest Bathing sessions allow you to escape the world of busy and rediscover the freedom to just be while we wander through beautiful landscapes and soundscapes appreciating the beautiful scenery that changes with each season. The farm has wonderful wildlife, and Notgrove Village with just 32 cottages is the same size now as it was in the Doomsday Book of 1086.
Visit Notgrove Holidays Website for details of accommodation and booking.
ACTIVITIES & ADVENTURES AT NOTGROVE
There are lots of things to see and to do here at Notgrove to keep both adults and children entertained including:
- Foraging walks and dry stone walling courses
- Clay pigeon or rifle shooting
- Electric quad bike adventures
- Tennis lessons and bike hire
- Cycling and walking routes around the estate
- Beauty treatments
- Bee keeping courses and bee experiences
- Forest bathing and nature walks
- Forest school and falconry experiences
- Art, yoga and fitness classes
- Photography workshops & tours
- Sponsor a tree
- Making friends with our alpacas, donkeys, pigs, highland cows, sheep and goats
- Playing in the games room, football or on our wooden clamber stacks
Find out more about our activities and adventures here.
The estate also has it’s own meeting hub – The Nuttery Cafe that serves superb coffees, cold drinks, breakfasts, lunches, snacks and delicious homemade cakes. All my walks and Forest Bathing sessions start from and finish here.
The Village is a 25 minute drive from Cheltenham Spa just off the A436 road to Bourton on the Water.
Here is a video I made just before the covid pandemic arrived to launch my Natural Mindfulness walks & Forest Bathing Courses here in the Cotswolds. As a result of those challenging few years, there is now an even greater need to offer opportunities like this to practice more mindfulness based therapeutic wellbeing walks and courses in nature. I hope this short introductory video gives you a better idea of what to expect when, or if you choose to join me.
What is Forest Bathing?
Forest Bathing is a translation from a Japanese word Shinrin-yoku. Rather than taking a bath, a better description is “taking in the forest atmosphere through all your senses”. The practice was developed in Japan during the 1980s and has become a popular approach to preventive health care and healing in Japanese medicine. There is a robust body of scientific literature on the health benefits of investing time under the canopy of a living forest. This new research is helping to establish Forest Bathing and other forms of forest and nature connection therapies throughout the world.
The idea is very simple, yet profoundly powerful: if a person simply visits a natural area and walks in a relaxed, mindful way there are calming, rejuvenating and restorative benefits to be achieved.
Humans have always known this instinctively and intuitively. But in the last few decades there have been many scientific studies that are demonstrating the mechanisms behind the healing power of nature connection.
(some of this research is available here). For example, many trees give off organic compounds that support our “NK” (natural killer) cells that are part of our immune system’s way of fighting cancer.
The scientifically-proven benefits of Shinrin-yoku include:
- Boosted immune system functioning, with an increase in the count of the body’s Natural Killer (NK) cells.
- Reduced blood pressure
- Reduced stress
- Improved mood
- Increased ability to focus, even in children with ADHD
- Accelerated recovery from surgery or illness
- Increased energy level
- Improved sleep
Just as impressive is the feedback we get back from people who walk regularly with us in nature:
- Deeper and clearer intuition
- Increased flow of energy
- Increased capacity to communicate with the land and its species
- Feeling more alive and connected to my true nature
- Deepening of friendships
- Overall increase in sense of happiness
- Opening our senses to nature develops a sense of awe
- Contact with nature makes me want to protect nature
Nature connection approaches such as Forest Bathing are increasing as people are becoming more conscience of how seperate we have become and feel a longing to re-connect to what we have lost and are losing.
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home. Wilderness is a necessity.” John Muir
All of my Mindfulness Based Nature Therapeutic walks, courses and sessions combine leisurely walks on gentle paths with guided activities to help you open your senses and sharpen your intuition. We learn natural life lessons from and experience a connection with the natural world, our true nature and each other, as we discuss and share what we are experiencing in nature together.
Click Here to Learn More about MBNT Nature Care/Nature Therapy