If you feel stressed...Time outside with a Nature & Forest Therapy Guide
helps you cope with life's ups and downs, and re-connect with Nature within and without. |
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BenefitsNature & Forest Therapy is an evidence-based practice. Studies show that slowing down in nature reduces stress levels and blood pressure and boosts our immune systems. It improves mental health and enhances brain power and creativity. Indigenous peoples have long taught that a strong bond between humans and the more-than-human world is essential for the health of all life. Modern science is now catching up with this ancient wisdom.
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Why go with a Guide?
A Forest Therapy Guide gently offers a path to awaken to the gifts of nature. A specific sequence of invitations helps us shift from our stressed state brought on by the demands of modern life, to a place of calm aliveness, where healing and new insights can arise.
Walking with a guide and a group can give us a sense of freedom to linger and explore in ways we may not do on our own. |
What to ExpectA walk is 1.5 to 3 hrs long. We move slowly and pause often. The guide offers "invitations" to help you rest your mind, slow down, and awaken your senses to each moment unfolding around and within you. Participants branch out for short explorations, solo or in pairs, and then circle up and have an opportunity to share stories. We close our time together with wild-crafted tea, from plants on the trail where we've been walking.
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Time among the trees
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"A Forest Therapy walk is perfect to calm you, centre you, re-calibrate how you live life.
It is a joyful and easy approach to mindfulness, which has always eluded me because
my mind is always too busy to be mindful."
- Diane, Ottawa, ON. A repeat participant with Forest Therapy Ottawa.
Forest Therapy Ottawa gratefully offers this work within the traditional and unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe.
We seek to honour the lands and waters and all beings, and the people who have cultivated right relationship through countless generations.
I have been a nature enthusiast for a very long time, but after one walk with Andrea I learned how to deepen the experience
into something that shifts my centre of gravity from my head to my body. I’m more present now. I use all my senses.
I stop a lot more, just to pay attention to the miraculous life that pulses all around if you give yourself time to tune in.
- Gabrielle, Toronto, ON