Getting Into Nature: What Happens When We Slow Down Enough to Notice?

• 

• 

• 

Recently, I spent several days van camping in Rocky Mountain National Park near the Grand Lake side of the park.

There was no Wi-Fi.

There was no cell service.

And after the initial adjustment to being completely disconnected, I noticed something else happening.

I started paying attention.

Really paying attention.

At night, I looked up and could see the Milky Way stretching across the sky.

During the day, Mother Nature seemed to be changing almost by the hour as the fall colors moved across the mountains. The aspens were turning brilliant shades of yellow and gold against the deep green of the pines.

In the mornings, I felt the cold air against my skin. Later, I could feel the warmth of the afternoon sun.

I heard elk bugling in the distance.

I heard aspen leaves shaking in the wind.

I heard water moving over rocks and pine logs sparking and cracking in the campfire.

And, at about 5:30 one morning, we heard a very determined little creature trying to eat its way into my sourdough bread inside the campervan.

Yikes.

I smelled damp earth, water, pine, campfire smoke, and roasted marshmallows.

Even breathing felt different. The mountain air was so dry that I could almost taste it with each inhale.

When Did We Stop Noticing?

Most of us spend a lot of time moving from one thing to another.

Phones. Emails. Work. News. Family responsibilities. Traffic. Appointments. Lists of things that need to get done.

Even when we are technically resting, we may still be scrolling, watching, reading, answering, or thinking about the next thing.

Nature asks something different of us.

It gives us an opportunity to notice what is already happening.

The sound of the wind.

The temperature of the air.

The feeling of the ground beneath our feet.

The smell of trees after rain.

The movement of clouds.

Sometimes that simple act of noticing can help us shift out of the mental noise that follows us everywhere else.

Shinrin-Yoku: More Than a Walk in the Woods

There is actually a name for intentionally slowing down and experiencing nature through the senses: shinrin-yoku, a Japanese term commonly translated as forest bathing.

The term was introduced in Japan in the early 1980s and refers to taking in the atmosphere of the forest rather than hiking for exercise or trying to reach a destination (Park et al., 2010).

Forest bathing is not really about how far you walk.

You don't need a certain pace.

You don't need a fitness tracker.

You don't even need to accomplish anything.

The idea is simply to be present in the natural environment and engage your senses.

What do you see?

What do you hear?

What do you smell?

What do you feel against your skin?

What changes when you stop trying to get somewhere and simply notice where you already are?

Nature and Our Nervous Systems

There is growing research suggesting that spending intentional time in natural environments may help reduce stress and support emotional well-being.

A systematic review of nature-based interventions found evidence of improvements in stress, anxiety, and depression across several studies, although the researchers also noted differences in study quality and methods (Paredes-Céspedes et al., 2024).

Research specifically examining shinrin-yoku has also found changes in physiological measures associated with stress.

Earlier forest-bathing studies found lower cortisol, blood pressure, and pulse rates, along with changes in heart-rate variability after people spent time in forest environments compared with urban settings (Park et al., 2010).

A systematic review and meta-analysis examining cortisol found that forest-bathing groups generally demonstrated lower cortisol levels than comparison groups in urban environments, suggesting a short-term stress-reducing effect (Antonelli et al., 2019).

More recent research continues to find promising results but also reminds us not to overstate them.

A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis found that shinrin-yoku was associated with lower heart rate and improvements in measures of tension and mood. However, the researchers rated the certainty of much of the evidence as very low because of differences among studies and methodological limitations (Andrade et al., 2026).

So I don't think of nature as a treatment or cure.

I think of it as one more way we can create conditions that allow our bodies and minds to settle.

Maybe Our Bodies Need Less Input

One of the things I noticed most