Why Your Nervous System Craves the Woods
Last week we went camping. As we arrived, I immediately reached for the activity box to keep the kids entertained while we rushed around to set everything up as fast as we could. Before I could even take the lid off the huge box … I paused and noticed the kids were already drawing in the dirt, collecting flowers for a ‘potion’ and exploring the trees and sticks around our site. They didn’t need any of the distractions I was about to offer.
The frantic toddler energy was gone, the constant “mummy, mummmy…. muuuuuuuummy ” was on pause and the two sisters worked as a team to explore, collect and imagine, together. They were happy, settled and having good fun, so I didn’t need to disturb. Soon after, two other kids stopped by to say hello and they all became firm friends, fast.
With the girls happily playing, I could turn my attention to picking the perfect campsite for a comfortable stay and making our caravan quaint and cozy - which makes me feel incredibly happy and fulfilled. I didn’t need to stress or hustle or rush. I could take my time and actually enjoy this moment. I started to absorb our new surrounds amongst the trees and fields.
The Nervous System Nobody Taught Us About
We talk about stress like it's a mental problem requiring mental solutions. Think positive thoughts. Practise gratitude. Reframe your perspective. All useful, certainly. But we're missing something fundamental: stress isn't just in your head. It lives in your body, specifically in your autonomic nervous system.
Dr Stephen Porges's Polyvagal Theory explains this beautifully. Your nervous system has three primary states: social engagement (calm and connected), fight-or-flight (mobilised for danger), and shutdown (immobilised, collapsed). Modern life keeps most of us ping-ponging between fight-or-flight and shutdown, rarely accessing that calm, connected state where we actually thrive.
The sympathetic nervous system, your accelerator, stays perpetually pressed. Emails. Notifications. Deadlines. Traffic. News. Your body perceives these as threats, and it responds accordingly: elevated heart rate, shallow breathing, muscles tensed for action that never comes.
Then we collapse into our sofas, scrolling our phones, wondering why we can't relax.
Here's what researchers are discovering: your nervous system doesn't regulate itself through thinking. It regulates through sensing. Through specific environmental cues that signal safety to your primitive brain.
… And nature is a masterclass in those cues.
What the Forest Does to Your Body
When you step into a forest, something remarkable happens at a physiological level. Japanese researchers studying "forest bathing" (shinrin-yoku) have measured it precisely.
Within fifteen minutes of being amongst trees, your cortisol levels drop. Your heart rate slows. Your blood pressure decreases. But it goes deeper than that. Studies show that natural killer cells, part of your immune system, increase by 50% after a forest visit, and stay elevated for up to a month afterwards.
Dr Qing Li, one of the world's leading experts on forest medicine, explains that trees release phytoncides - organic compounds that protect them from insects and decay. When we breathe these in, our bodies respond with reduced stress hormones and enhanced immune function. We're literally inhaling the forest's pharmacy.
But the nervous system benefits go beyond biochemistry. They're about sensory rhythms.
The Rhythm Your Body Remembers
Think about what you encounter in nature: the irregular pattern of leaves rustling, the fractal geometry of tree branches, the varied birdsong, the unpredictable movement of clouds, the gentle sound of water over stones.
Now think about modern environments: the harsh right angles of buildings, the monotonous hum of air conditioning, the rhythmic flicker of fluorescent lights, the predictable ping of notifications, the flat glow of screens.
Research in environmental psychology shows that natural environments contain what researchers call "soft fascination." They gently capture your attention without demanding effort. The movement of leaves, the play of light through branches, the meandering path of a stream—these things engage you whilst simultaneously allowing your mind to rest.
Dr Rachel Kaplan's Attention Restoration Theory demonstrates that this kind of gentle engagement allows the prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain exhausted by constant decision-making and focus, to recover. Nature doesn't demand anything from you. It just is.
Your nervous system recognises this. At a primal level, it knows these are the conditions under which humans evolved. These rhythms, these sounds, these visual patterns all signal to your ancient brain: you're safe here.
Why Children Become Different Humans Outdoors
Watch children in nature and you'll see the nervous system shift happening in real time.
Hyperactivity slows down. Anxiousness settles. Overstimulation turns to focus. This isn't coincidence; it's neurobiology. The natural environment is simply the greatest regulator.
Dr Stuart Shanker, a leading expert on self-regulation, explains that children's nervous systems are developing, learning to modulate between states. Modern environments overwhelm these developing systems with too much stimulation, too quickly. Bright lights. Loud sounds. Screens. Schedules. Their little nervous systems never get a chance to find baseline.
Nature provides what he calls "restorative niches". These are environments where the sensory input is complex enough to be interesting but gentle enough to be calming. The sound of wind through trees, the sensation of grass underfoot, the visual complexity of a forest floor, and so on. These things engage children's senses without the overwhelm.
And here's what I noticed with my daughters: they weren’t being entertained. They were absorbed. There's a profound difference.
The Family Nervous System
Whatsmore, families have a collective nervous system. When one person's stress level rises, it affects everyone. Pause and take that in. Your toddler’s tantrum triggers your own stress response. Your partner's overwhelm activates yours. We're constantly co-regulating - or co-dysregulating - each other.
Dr Sue Johnson, developer of Emotionally Focused Therapy, describes this as "attachment sync." We're wired to attune to the nervous systems of those we're bonded to. In our daily lives, this often means we're syncing to each other's stress.
Camping changes this dynamic entirely and hits reset on the regulation between you. When you're all in nature together, you're collectively downregulating. The parent who's been running on adrenaline for months starts to soften. The child who's been bouncing off walls finds their rhythm. The teenager who's been locked in their room emerges more curious.
You're not just near each other; you're regulating together. Building a fire. Cooking simple food. Walking without destination. Sitting in companionable silence watching the sky change colours or the stars come out.
Research from the University of Essex shows that group nature activities create what they call "green exercise" benefits. The combination of physical activity, natural environment, and social connection produces effects greater than any single element alone.
What Camping Does That Walking in the Park Doesn't
I love a good park walk with the dog or bikeride with the kids. But camping offers something qualitatively different: immersion over time.
Your nervous system doesn't fully shift in an hour. It needs sustained exposure to natural rhythms to recalibrate properly. Studies on wilderness experiences show that the most significant psychological and physiological benefits appear after 72 hours in nature.
Dr Craig Anderson's research on awe demonstrates why: prolonged nature exposure doesn't just reduce stress; it fundamentally shifts perspective. People report feeling more connected to something larger than themselves, more aware of beauty, more appreciative of simple things.
This isn't mystical thinking. It's neuroscience. When your threat-detection system finally stands down after being hypervigilant for months, your brain has space for different kinds of processing. Wonder. Curiosity. Presence.
On day three of our camping trip, I found myself utterly absorbed in watching the flames of the campfire dance. I noticed how the embers sparked off the flames, the crackle was loud, the smoke smelled sweet. I had nowhere else to be and nothing else to do. No phone signal. Kids sleeping. I had the capacity to rest in the present moment.
A natural lesson
On our second afternoon, my daughter found a tiny, colourful bird. I heard “look Mummy! I’ve got a bird in my hand” she proclaimed, and I peered out of the hammock to see her holding this sweet little injured finch with what looked like a broken wing or perhaps a damaged tail, we couldn't be sure.
I watched her crouch down, her movements suddenly slow and careful. She'd been running wild for hours, but now every gesture was deliberate, gentle. She cupped her hands around the bird with tenderness.
For ten minutes, she sat completely still, the bird resting in her palms. She tried to offer it water from her fingertip. She found a small bug and placed it near the bird's beak. She spoke to it in whispers, reassuring it, telling it everything would be alright.
Then she did something that surprised me: she recognised her own limitations. "I think he needs space," she said quietly. She placed the bird carefully in a sheltered spot near the roots of a tree and walked away to give it room to recover. She checked on it from a distance as she started to build him a new “nest”.
Twenty minutes later, when we returned, the bird was gone.
At home, this would have devastated her. She would have cried about not getting to say goodbye, worried she'd done something wrong, mourned the loss. But here, in the woods, with her nervous system regulated and her perspective shifted, she just smiled.
"He flew away," she said with certainty. "I hope he found his family”.
This is what nature teaches that we cannot: patience, acceptance, the understanding that our role isn't always to fix or control, but sometimes simply to offer gentle support and then step back. That healing happens in its own time. That letting go can be an act of love.
Research on children's emotional development shows that experiences of effective helping, where a child's actions produce a positive outcome, significantly boost self-efficacy and emotional resilience. But it goes deeper when that experience happens in nature. Environmental psychologist Dr Louise Chawla's work demonstrates that meaningful childhood experiences in nature, particularly those involving caring for living things, create lasting environmental stewardship and a sense of interconnectedness.
Nature provided the lesson and my daughter listened and took it all in.
The Practical Magic of Campfire Evenings
There's something primally soothing about sitting around a fire. Anthropologists suggest that humans have been doing this for at least 400,000 years—gathering around flames as darkness falls, sharing food, telling stories.
Dr Christopher Lynn's research on fire and stress reveals that watching flames reduces blood pressure and promotes relaxation. The flickering light produces what neuroscientists call a "hypnotic effect" - a gentle, rhythmic visual stimulus that entrains brain waves toward slower, calmer patterns. “It makes me woozy” my daugher said one night as she snuggled on my lap watching the flames burn brightly.
But beyond the fire itself, there's the ritual. Collecting the wood. Starting and maintaining and stoking the fire. The conversation that meanders because there's nowhere else to be and nothing else to do. The occasional shooting star (or sattelite) seen overhead.
SLEEPING BEAUTIES
Camping is also a great sleep re-set. Research from the University of Colorado Boulder explains why: natural light exposure, especially morning sunlight, resets your circadian rhythm. When you're camping, you get intense morning light and darkness that's actually dark (no streetlamps, no screens, no ambient glow).
Dr Kenneth Wright's studies show that just one weekend of camping can shift your circadian clock earlier by nearly two hours. Your melatonin rises when it should. Your cortisol peaks at the right time. Your body remembers its ancient rhythm.
But there's also the physical tiredness that comes from actually moving your body all day - not gym tiredness, but the gentle fatigue of walking, setting up camp, chasing kids, gathering wood, exploring. Your muscles are pleasantly spent.
Sleep researchers call this "good tired" as opposed to "wired tired." Your nervous system can actually power down instead of staying vigilantly alert.
Why We Resist What We Need Most
If nature is so beneficial, why don't we do this more often?
The excuses are familiar: it's too much effort, too expensive, too uncomfortable, too complicated with kids, too hot or cold or unpredictable with the weather.
But I think the real resistance runs deeper. When your nervous system has been running on stress for months or years, the thought of slowing down or disconnecting feels threatening. Your body has become addicted to its own stress hormones. The idea of withdrawal, even brief, feels unsafe. What if you’re needed urgently or you miss something important?
Dr Gabor Maté writes about this paradox: we avoid the very things that would heal us because healing requires feeling what we've been running from. The quiet reveals what the noise has been covering.
Home sweet home?
Here's the hard part: after all that, you come home.
The nervous system regulation you achieved over three days in the woods starts eroding the moment you hit traffic on the freeway home at peak hour. The emails have piled up while you were out of reach. The schedule resumes. The screens call. The news blairs.
Research shows that the benefits of nature exposure do fade without regular contact. But here's what doesn't fade: the memory that you felt different. That your children were different. That your family was different.
That memory becomes a compass. It points you towards what you need.
Maybe you can't camp every weekend. But you can seek out smaller doses of the same medicine. Weekend walks that last hours, not minutes. Midweek evenings in the garden without devices. Regular visits to that patch of woods near your house.
Dr Ming Kuo's research demonstrates that even brief, regular nature contact produces cumulative benefits. Twenty minutes in a park three times a week. Lunch eaten outside. Walking meetings. These aren't luxuries; they're interventions for a dysregulated nervous system.
The Invitation Nature Extends
My daughter still talks about that bird she found. Not with sadness, but with quiet pride. She tells the story to anyone who'll listen: how she found it, how she helped it, how it flew away when it was ready. In her telling, she's part of nature's healing process and had something important to do.
Going away is an escape of sorts, but it’s also the healing reset we need as business owners, as parents, as humans.
Nature isn't entertainment or distraction. It's recalibration. It's the baseline your nervous system has been trying to find through every meditation app, every self-help book, every wellness trend.
Your body already knows how to regulate itself. It just needs the right environment to immerse itself and hit the reset button.
When did your nervous system last experience true quiet?
What would it feel like to give your family that gift?