E35: Exploring the Healing Power of Nature with Richard Whall

What would you say if I told you that your best therapist might be nature itself? In our latest podcast episode, we sit down with Richard Whall, a lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire, to explore the powerful, healing benefits of nature therapy. From his transition from primary school teaching to promoting physical activity and confidence, Richard's journey is nothing short of inspiring. Join us as we deep-dive into a conversation about the calming effects of nature and its correlation with reduced stress and improved self-assurance.

Ever pondered on the concept of physical intelligence or mismatch theory? Richard Whall unravels these intriguing notions, tying them to our evolution and interaction with the environment. We discuss the paradox of human behaviour, where we often unintentionally create negatives for ourselves, despite believing we have our best interests at heart. We then switch gears to focus on the younger generation, their relationship with nature, and the need for a balance between virtual and outdoor experiences. 

As we near the end of our enlightening discussion, we step into the world of education and its challenges in the face of rapid technological advancement. We examine the efforts being made to integrate outdoor experiences into the traditional education system and the importance of creating positive role models for children. We also look ahead at the future of the Nature Therapy Summit and discuss the necessity of preventative measures in mental health management. So, if you're curious about how nature therapy could transform your life, tune in to our enriching conversation with Richard Whall.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

So welcome, Richard Wall.

Speaker 2: 0:01

Thank you for joining us. How are you Well? Thanks for the invite, charlie and Seb. Yeah, looking forward to it. It was great to meet you whenever it all goes about six weeks ago or so now it was yeah to catch up and carry on the conversations.

Speaker 1: 0:15

What we're going to talk about today is nature therapy, and I'd like to talk about you know, the summit and where this all came from what it can do, so would you give yourself a little introduction for our listeners? Oh, are you a bear super?

Speaker 2: 0:27

Yeah, of course. Yeah, I'm still trying to work that one out. It's a somewhat twisted path to get into this point where I'm at at the moment. So currently I am a lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire. I teach across the sports, pe and outdoors courses as part of the School of Social Work, health and Sport. So a lot of my work is revolved around physical activity and trying to get people more physically active, more confident, competent in their movement. But there's a huge crossover with the mental health aspects of that as well and building their confidence, actually having the confidence to get out and do things and developing their confidence from doing different things. So that's where I'm at at the moment. My background is aligned to that more in health and fitness. I was actually a primary school teacher for five years as well, prior to joining the university. So yeah, I guess my background has generally been in trying to help myself, but through helping myself, helping other people, whether that's educationally or the training side.

Speaker 1: 1:30

Not a trained counsellor or therapist as such when we get into this nature therapy, but very much interested in what being outdoors can offer to people and moving on from there, how this came about is I was at actually in a course home in North Wales and met our friend Arwell, who mentioned the summit, and next thing I got an email about coming to it, which I thought was really good to be fair. So can we ask you one for the? I suppose again for those. Shall we talk about what is nature therapy first, or shall we talk about the summit, both intertwined out there?

Speaker 2: 2:05

Yeah, I mean we. I'll come probably full circle back to the nature therapy summit as such and where that came about and why we run it at the university, in the partners that we work with. But it's very much around, or this certain one that you attended and we met you at was around just the therapeutic benefits of being in nature and a more natural environment, and then we use that to explore various different means of engaging with that natural environment. Sometimes you get that therapeutic benefit, so you get a benefit. You can feel calmer, you can feel like your stress is reducing slightly, you can feel happier in yourself just by being out in those different environments. Not always, not for everybody, you know. For some people actually getting out in nature can be quite the opposite. But for a lot of people, whether that's the sort of the forest bathing type approach is getting quite big. So people going out and literally just walking around and immersing themselves in the sort of the woodland, forest environments the Japanese have done a huge amount of research about it that there is actually a down to a physiological, biochemical component to that and our connection to the trees, or whether that's, you know, just getting out into the fresh air, the sunshine, the grounding, the contact with the earth they're getting out, immersing into or onto the water, just being in these different spaces can have a therapeutic benefit in and of itself.

Speaker 2: 3:40

And then what we tried to do with the summit was looking at in what other things can we combine with that. So if you combine the physical activity in a natural environment, does it have an additive, a cumulative effect from doing both, or is that maybe trying to ask too much? Or if, with our the main partners in the summit, with the mind of a mountains charity group that was founded by Alex Stanniforth, they have a really interesting integrated approach to what they do by combining being out in the outdoors, so usually walking into some hilly, mountainous regions with qualified mountain leaders. So you're doing the walking, the physical activity in a natural environment, and they have trained counselors or psychotherapists within the groups for people that want to talk to them at the same time. So it's that other, a whole other level of the therapy. So are you getting the benefit? More so than yes, you'll get some just from being in that natural environment. You'll get some from potentially being physically active. You'll get some potentially from talking to those different people that are around there and then the social element to that as well.

Speaker 2: 4:45

If you're going out walking in a group, there's potential therapeutic benefits there and that's something we're quite keen on as a university moving forward, trying to research and look at. So there's there's lots of research that supports nature therapy or adventure therapy or therapeutic adventures, and there's lots of sort of different phrases around and there's slight nuances to them, but essentially it's the same thing. There's lots of research that suggests being out in nature is good for most people. There's lots of research that says being physically active is good for most people. There's lots of research that shows that the talking therapy is, the psychotherapy, the counseling, is good and beneficial for most people.

Speaker 2: 5:25

What we're sort of trying to now look at is well, does it add up cumulatively and what are the best ways of trying to integrate this or then getting it out there to those people that might benefit from it? Because you know we've always got to look at both sides that it's not going to be beneficial for everyone in every circumstance, for dealing with every issue. We can't sort of blanket it and go here you go magic pill, just go out into nature, have a little wonder, maybe with a group of friends, have a chat and you'll look, you'll feel great forever. But as part of a bigger, wider approach, there's certainly a lot more we need to understand, but it's definitely going to help.

Speaker 3: 6:02

How do you measure this? How do you measure someone feeling better? Yeah, good one, yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:10

Don't put my spot straight. Yeah, come on.

Speaker 2: 6:14

It's a really good question and it's a question that's from my colleague, so our head of school, brian Jones. At the university he was asked a very similar question by a psychiatrist who was talking about an adventure mind conference. So Belinda Kirk's work, if you're aware of that, really fascinating, really worth looking into what she talks about and her work and others like her. But Brian was asked can you with any certainty say that if you go out and spend a half an hour in nature it will have this measurable impact to like? There's lots of the clinical studies that will demonstrate the effectiveness of various different pills and medicines and various different counseling approaches. That's a little bit easier to measure. So that's maybe why people go that way. But that's partly the challenge that we want to try and help people overcome is by having some form of measurement.

Speaker 2: 7:16

But it's really subjective. You go to the World Health Organization as that body that you would say are the world leaders, the things in it. They would define health as not just the absence of disease but that total well-being in terms of social, emotional, mental and physical well-being. But how do you measure those? You can measure the presence of disease or the potential biochemical levels of different hormones or different substances, whatever that might be. But how do you really get into measure that subjective feeling of well-being? There are plenty of validated questionnaire type surveys that people use and they tend to have, although there'll be different ones, but they'll tend to you just rate it yourself on a scale of one to five, one to ten, or take a happy, smiley face, sad face, whatever. How are you feeling at this present moment? So it's, it is one of the challenges you picked up straight away on.

Speaker 2: 8:24

It's around that if we really want to prove that you know nature therapy can work, how is it that we're proving it? That side of the evidence space, that quantifiable, objective measurement, is one key way in critical way. But there's also the power of people's stories. So Charlie's story is another. It's not measurable per se, but you know if you ask him he'll tell you that certainly that's helped me and there are many, many others who it's helped. So that accumulation of this narrative around how it's helped other people also adds to that evidence pool, if you like, so that when you're maybe another thing we're quite prominent in in the university is social prescribing, and green social prescribing in particular.

Speaker 2: 9:13

So when you're doing things like that you go. Well, I'm going to prescribe or suggest that you go out and try these things. You want to be as informed by the evidence as possible, but it's also important to recognize that that evidence comes in many different forms and it's not just the sort of the gold standard clinical trials. And it'd be great, wouldn't it, if you can just stick this measurement gadget on and it will give you a sudden rating of your health and well-being. But it's not quite as simple as that and I don't know. We'll find that back at Charlie, should we? And ask Charlie, how do you? Is there a feeling that you get in your body? Is there a certain lack of, or presence of, certain thoughts that make you feel more healthy, more alive, more benefit from? Do you just feel like you're smiling more? I thought I was asking questions.

Speaker 1: 10:03

Yes, no, you said this is free flow and feel where we want Free flow and feel where we want?

Speaker 1: 10:10

Yeah, but often it is. We usually sit and listen and learn. But yes, so I mean, if I went back to my story which I've spoke to several, I think you know when you spoke there about what Mind Over Mountains do, all these different elements came in and I basically I was doing it. It was an escapism. And it was escapism from heavy drinking, which is an escapism from my PTSD, and then going out and actually planning to go out and be outdoors and enjoying it then saw me cut down on the alcohol. It saw me getting better sleep, then it saw me interacting with other people socially that weren't involved in basically going out. So, and then you're getting the positive physical effects. And now, all this, many years later, I've got to think, bloody hell, I think I actually did something right. You know it's not often.

Speaker 1: 11:02

I've done many things perfectly right in my life, but for me to get to this point and still be here because that was doubtful at some points is that, yeah, I seem to have followed this path, just by getting back to nature, really, and it's probably by pure chance, rather than just drinking through it, or it was a calling.

Speaker 1: 11:17

If I go a bit spiritual, you know it was a calling to do that.

Speaker 1: 11:21

And now, what I do sometimes notice when I've been away I've been away in the mountains for a week or extended times, or been away climbing, and I come back and you think, ah, here we go, paperwork, sorting, kit out, things like that I do actually feel a little bit, I won't say depressed, it's I want to be there.

Speaker 1: 11:41

That is my go-to mode and that is my preset mode now is hills, mountains, out, climbing trees, and that actually, you know, loving nature and looking for flowers and actually immersing myself in things that I never did, or I did whenever I was a kid, and then got out of it due to life and then got back into it purely by accident. I might have still been there with a warehouse job or a factory job and missing out all this and then just not feeling happy At least I, you know, getting out. I couldn't recommend it enough, but, like I said, is there an explanation for it or is it? It's just all these things come together and I do think the physical health, the physical health and the sleep and the planning, it all comes in. Yeah, but I couldn't give it a score unless it were 10 out of 10, yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:26

There's lots of things. So when you originally sent the email asking if I'd come on the podcast, it was there. Well, what can I really talk about? What's going to be beneficial to other people to listen to? And you've actually you've picked up quite a few real interesting things there and I'll hopefully get to them all at different points, but one of my.

Speaker 2: 12:51

So I'm currently doing a PhD at the moment, so I'd stepped away from study and I was very so when I did do. I did a degree and a master's degree in sports science in Chester back in the late 90s, early 2000s, and I was very scientifically driven and it was very much about the physical fitness and treating the body just as a you know, this physical machine that we need to really fine tune and get working as best as we possibly can, and I didn't fully factor in any of these other components around. Yeah, but you can have this physically fine tuned machine, but if the way you think's not quite right, or the way you socialize with people or the way you're interacting in your environment, these are all also critical to your health and wellbeing. So, through the process of life, that grand school of life, and working in health and fitness and working in primary schools. That's partly what's driven me back to this field now, and I'm fortunate to have the opportunity to study as a PhD. I got given free reign to go wherever I want and I've essentially asked the question what does it mean to be physically educated? And I'm doing this through a lens of physical intelligence, that there is an innate intelligence within our body that helps underpin other intelligences, that health and wellbeing, that vitality around us.

Speaker 2: 14:22

So a lot of my research and the reading that I'm doing I'm fascinated by, is very underpin, very much by evolutionary thinking. So I always talk in circles. You ask the students. I can make any one minute answer last about 20. So I'm finally getting back to one of the points you made, mark, around that. Did you just fall upon this? Was it potluck? But it's actually our evolutionary design, if you like, that different people will believe different theories. So I have to preface some of this stuff that I very much believe in the evolutionary theories, but it is a theory. It cannot be proven 100% on one or the other. Other people will believe other things. That's absolutely fine.

Speaker 2: 15:05

My view is that evolution is our designer and it's designed very multitude of different ways of living on this planet and the human form has been a successful and also a damaging one at the same time. But part of that is our physical intelligence. But we evolved and were designed and shaped by the way we lived in the natural environment over billions of years. You can go back 250, 300,000 years approximately to the beginning of Homo sapiens. But you go back and it can span, depending who you ask or what you read, anything from sort of two to maybe five or six million years to some of the earlier bipedal hominids, so people who would look relatively recognizably human in shape and form and function, the way that they would move. But then you can go back through the primates, through the mammals, through the reptilian, through the fish, the amphibians. You can go all the way back.

Speaker 2: 16:11

We've constantly been shaped by our relationship with the environment and that's been a natural environment as such, not one man made or built or shaped by man. We are one of the few species who has been able to shape the environment in what we believe suits us. But there's a theory called mismatch theory that essentially says actually we've changed our environment so much over the last. Some people will take it back sort of 10, 12,000 years, the beginnings of the agricultural revolution, for industrial revolution, technological revolution. The last 20 years, 50 years, 100 years, it's just been this massive shift that actually our physiological, our biological evolution hasn't been able to keep up. So we're now living, we're mismatched to this environment we're living in. So when we actually go back into these natural places, into the mountains, into the hills, into the woodlands, onto the beaches, into the seas, onto the lakes, wherever that might be, that's actually what our biology we're tuned towards and that's where. So again, stress reduction, attention, restoration theory, some of these theories that underpin why nature therapy can work, why being in the outdoors works, because we're removing ourselves from some of those man made stresses.

Speaker 2: 17:29

We're not designed to live surrounded by the biomagnetic, electrical frequencies around us, by the artificial lights, by being surrounded by four walls and only been able to see a couple of meters in different directions. That's actually a stress and it can be interpreted. So we're going to this physical intelligence. You know, we have this subconscious awareness. That's a protective mechanism. It's like whoa, hold on a minute, I'm confined, I'm enclosed. This isn't right and it's not a necessarily a mental conscious thought, but it's almost a survival mechanism. And but, once you remove those walls and you step out, ah, I can relax, I can see in the distance, I can tell where there's places are safe to go to, where there might be risks to come from, and you can relax that little bit more, although, as we said, it's not for everybody, because that's now becoming a different environment as well, that we're sort of tuned to live within four walls and feel artificially safer within here. So once you actually step out to a place where you don't know, then that's another level of discomfort. So we're in this paradoxical whoa, what's the best thing?

Speaker 2: 18:42

You would like to believe that humans have always had our own best interests at heart. We don't fully appreciate the rest of the world, necessarily, but everything we've done, we've thought, is in our best interests. So we create chairs to make our lives more comfortable. We create vehicles to make it easier to move around. We've got the internet so we can have these fabulous conversations and share information, but we haven't necessarily always seen some of the potential negatives of having done all this to ourselves, and certainly this living within four walls.

Speaker 2: 19:12

There was a fact I'll reach for the book, so I remember his name Desmond Morris. You two are probably not a far off ear. Have you recognized the chap Desmond Morris? So he was a sort of a zoologist in the 1950s, 1960s I think. But he wrote a book and it's very prevalent today. There's your title the Human Zoo.

Speaker 2: 19:32

Have we created ourselves this zoo-like environment? And that's actually what's causing a lot of the stressors in the modern life that we're not really fully designed to cope with, and that's why we want to get out into nature to remove ourselves. You don't see, yes, it's harsh survival of the fittest out in the natural world, but you tend not to see very many obese animals or lame animals who are surviving very much All the challenges where you get overweight animals that tend to be pets or the zoo animals. You see the killer whales who ended up swimming round and round in the same circles and they've got this floppy fin syndrome. It's partly, it could be. We can't ask a killer whale exactly what they're thinking, but there's thoughts that it might be depression and anxiety that's causing it. It could be because of the physical forces, because they're only ever going round in the same direction.

Speaker 2: 20:28

But are we doing the same thing to ourselves by living in our human confined zoo? And that's what's attracting people, that there's this innate? No, innately. We know there's something out there that we'd benefit from getting out under the sunlight, getting contact with the ground, being amongst the trees, on the grass, in the water, and that's what draws us to some of these places. Now, where do most people go on holiday, apart from the city breaks and weekend breaks potential, but most people get and they're attracted to there. But there's natural environments the seaside, the forest, the mountains.

Speaker 1: 21:00

Oh, there's quite a few things that are going through my mind now. It's one of the when I went back, when I go back to my own experience the year after the incident where I got resulted in the PTSD there was because it was an anniversary. It came up. I don't know why I did it, it was just getting very, very stressful and the first thing I did I took myself off and slept in back of my car in Snowdonia and went up here with her, which is Snowdon now, and then I started booking onto bushcraft and survival courses and that's what sort of led me into getting into all that and just being in a different environment, but obviously not understanding at that time. But when I was at the Nature Therapy Summit, I did ask one of the breakout rooms, breakout groups, and I think my mind is slightly rewired through what's happened.

Speaker 1: 21:49

I'd always come up with these sort of reverse psychology questions and one of my questions was should we really be here? Have we gone so far away from nature that we're now having to have these, so that you know, getting all these experts in so that we can discuss getting humanity back to what we're supposed to be? And you know we've gone that far, like you said, we've gone that far from probably a natural path. But where we are now, in society and technology, et cetera, et cetera, I mean it's here to stay and probably develop further, but taking up more of his time and taking us further away from our evolution. So what do we do? Do we go back there?

Speaker 2: 22:26

Well, no, I don't think anyone would suggest we go back there. You know, let's all go back and try and live properly off the land and demolish everything. We need to be aware of the damage that we're doing and try and undo, reverse as much of that at least prevent, you know, making it any worse, if we can. Yeah, clearly not an easy thing to do, but we need to recognise that. You know medical developments, technological developments they have had some massive advantages, you know. You look at average lifespans or you know people dealing with these real acute medical issues. Yeah, absolutely, if something goes wrong, I don't want to go hold on a minute. I'll go back and see what our paleo ancestors did to try and treat it broken, like I want to go and get the best medical support that there possibly is. So there's many, many things. You know that we've been advantageous and we don't want to lose. But it's finding that balance and there's yeah, there is this diametric of, is there's this opposition, isn't that actually some people were being drawn more and more into this technological revolution Klaus Schwab from the Weff would call it this fourth industrial revolution and almost merging humans with technology and Zuckerberg going into the metaverse. You know there could be a future you could envision, and I don't know how far ahead. The way things are traveling, where actually people don't ever have to leave their four walls or their bed because they live their life in this metaverse Now, is that a fully human life? Is it an evolved, another form of human life, who knows? It's not where I want to go, necessarily. But yeah, at the same time I certainly don't want to just throw everything away and say, yeah, go and go and try and survive off my own back, because we're not as resilient and robust and a skillful as some of our ancestors were either, and it is a totally different world. So, yeah, there's some interesting questions there, but that's a lot of.

Speaker 2: 24:26

That is essentially where the nature therapy summit came from. So, going back to the beginning again of where that came from, so my work with our outdoor students at the university there's a very much a traditional dominance of outdoor adventure activities. Outdoor adventure learning is very much around the sort of the traveling expedition in book climbing the mountains, going out into the hill, walking, getting out onto the whitewater, out onto the boats and it's about this bigger adventurous sorts of things. But there had been and there's been this movement for a huge amount of time, way beyond way before us. You know I'm not claiming that that we are the thought leaders in this. There's lots of brilliant work that's gone on, but this nature therapy type of field is a whole other avenue that maybe we're not preparing people for enough.

Speaker 2: 25:22

So what I did? I reached out to Alex Staniforth at mind of a mountain to just ask him if he'd come in and talk to our students and just let our students know that there are employment opportunities to work in the outdoors beyond working at outdoor education centers or being a freelance mountain leader or whatever, wherever they're out to the might go. And then it sort of dawn was all done a minute. Why am I just keeping that to our outdoor students? We've got a whole school of people, a whole university of people, essentially, who could also benefit and contribute to this, and actually what we really want to do is get involved with those people who were probably doing some of this stuff, probably doing it better than we are as well. We can learn from and develop this together. So it sort of went from come and talk to our students for a couple of hours to a full day event in 2022. And we called it a view from the summit at that point, which we're just sort of looking at what are all the different things that are going on in this area of sort of nature therapy, mental health and outdoors and fast forward to this. This previous year in June we held the second summit that you attended, charlie, and we did this one on nature therapy specifically to really start to dig into some of those therapeutic approaches to to using nature in that natural environment, and we're already making plans for next year and hopefully bigger and better again. But part of it is being directed by those people who are benefiting from such approaches, those people who want to work in that industry or those that need to develop that evidence.

Speaker 2: 26:59

Based on going back to Seb's question of how do we measure this, part of that summit is a knowledge sharing. Part of it is a networking and getting people together. So you go no, you're not the only people working in the same, there's lots of us. If we all work together, we can hopefully help progress this further and also asking those questions. You know, what else do we need to know what else is going to help really develop this so that we can help more people access the outdoors safely and in a way that's beneficial, therapeutic to them, if that's what they want as well as those you know.

Speaker 2: 27:33

I'm not saying don't go out and summit the mountains and go and hit whatever you know whitewater rapids. You want to go out into your kayak? If that's what you want to do, go and do them, but do it safely. But there's lots of other reasons to do it and you mentioned, mark and Charlie around your childhood, that part of us you'd had some exposures to outdoor life, that outdoor lifestyle early on. But again coming back to that human zoo perspective, are we really educating our younger generation what the opportunities are out there and how best to and how to safely access some of these opportunities?

Speaker 2: 28:12

We saw it, unfortunately, you know, back under the Covid lockdowns and just after, with lots and lots of people. I'm sure North Wales was the same, as I'm closer to the Lake District and spend quite a bit of time up there. Fantastic to see so many people coming out to the Lake District. But what wasn't quite so fantastic was that people not realising, or just not respectful enough or not caring enough, that actually you're supposed to leave this place the same or better than when you arrived, not use it, as you're dumping ground and it's somebody else's job to tidy up after you, because that's maybe what happens in the street if you drop your cigarette packet, your coke can, whatever on the street, generally it will get swept up by a road sweeper or something at some point. That doesn't happen out when you get a little bit further away from our urban living. So we need to educate people how to look after the land and how to access it and use it safely and appropriately.

Speaker 1: 29:09

So that brings me to. I love this little bit. This is something that always goes around in my mind anyway, because when I'm out working in the mountains we do see litter banana skins, orange peel, like you say, drinks bottles, stuff behind rocks, dog poo, dog poo, dog poo's in bags. What people will?

Speaker 2: 29:27

think in the bags and the bags are the worst things as well and hung on trees.

Speaker 1: 29:30

Hung on trees. What put you know like 500 years.

Speaker 1: 29:32

I'll collect that in a three years time when I go back 500 years time when they look back and they find these trees that have been decorated. So what sort of Christmas was that? You know, anyway, a diverse effect. So we're looking at nature therapy, but have we taken nature away from young people so that they are then needing this therapy? Because there's a lot of academia, I'd say last couple of generations, it's all about academic results in schools and, yeah, schools now and then, also because young people parents are more risk averse, so that in there children go out and also the electronics that children are bothered with. So how can these children fall in love with the outdoors and nature, which then develops into not respecting it?

Speaker 1: 30:21

What I do see is lots of rants on usually Facebook forums about young people dropping stuff and people throwing things out of cars. It wasn't like that in our day, but no, but you used to be outdoors and loving the outdoors. So when I was a kid, back in there before you were born, so that you know I'd be off, I'd be off miles away. My mom would say, right, I'd have a pound. And she'd say, right, and she'd think I would play football in the park and I'd be off on a bus and be all over Yorkshire. She didn't know about that. God rest us all. And I had to be in by the time the street lamps went off. But now we don't get that and kids don't go on off on, yeah, on. By the time the street lamps went on, yeah, it used to send shivers down my spine when street lamp lit up. I thought I have to run. But have we lost that connection Lost?

Speaker 2: 31:10

is quite a strong word, isn't it? I'd say there's certainly less people have the connection. There's a recognition of that and a lot of people trying to reconnect, as it were. But it's a challenge, you know. You go back to that human zoo and you always ask, you know always but a sensible question to ask as well If they're saying no to going outdoors, they're not, they're deciding not to go and play outdoors, what are they saying yes to? And oftentimes it's the electronic devices, their social media, the gaming, the TVs, whatever it might be. That is a more powerful attraction for them and that's that's where they're getting their enjoyment, their social identity, whatever. And that's a big challenge, you know, and these, these companies aren't stupid Nintendo, sony, sky, whoever it might be. You know they spend far more on their advertising campaigns to attract young kids and that generation to do these things, far more so than natural England, the environment agency or whoever else could possibly throw. Advertising Schools is clearly a way to do it. But, as you say, that's essentially why.

Speaker 2: 32:20

Part of the reason why I left primary school teaching was that I unfortunately felt like the system wasn't serving the children the way I thought it could serve children. It was becoming much more of an exam factory and spitting out these, these kids who were good at, you know, answering questions and exams, but not necessarily rounded, educated or even happy, confident children. So the school system there's, some people are trying. I think that the Welsh are ahead of the game a little bit there in terms of what they're trying to do with, with putting the funding behind compulsory educational, residential, outdoor, residential for every, for every pupil. England and Scotland are playing catch up on that a little bit, but there are positive moves to try and do so. Yeah, it's a.

Speaker 2: 33:07

It's a challenge though, isn't it? You know that, that that generational thing. I've fallen into the same trap. I've got three young children. They've in some ways actually inspired me to get outdoors a little bit more because they're interested in getting out and seeing the wildlife and the photography and things. But there are times when, because it's easier for me and I feel safer, I don't go and play out, just go and go and sit and watch TV for an hour while I cook tea and I do this or I do that. So there is definitely that risk of virgin and that's symptomatic of our society. Are we ever going to change it for everyone? Who's to say, actually, that those individuals who are sitting inside playing on the games all day aren't healthy and happy, you know, because if they are, who's to say it's wrong? The statistics generally, though, unfortunately show physical and mental health is deteriorating. So there is a, you know, an awful lot of people. If we can do more preventative work with the younger generations, that would be, that would be great. Are we fighting a?

Speaker 3: 34:02

losing battle. I think the really important thing is to find some sort of balance or introduce the younger generation to a balance. Unfortunately, we'll never get rid of computer games or the virtual experiences, because that's accelerating.

Speaker 2: 34:18

Oh, poor diets.

Speaker 3: 34:19

Yeah, because I've worked things, but like finding a good balance. You know, if you play two hours on a computer game, go outside, ride your bike for two hours you know, through the woods. I think that's the path we actually need to try and explore.

Speaker 2: 34:32

Yeah, definitely, and it's you know there are a groundswell of people now starting to see it. You know lots of university work, academic works going on. There are more and more, you know TV programs actually aim aim towards it. So you mentioned Yolo's going to come on as a guest. Yeah, you know some of the work he does can inspire people to get out and try and visit some of these different places and there's lots of people like that. You know the Bear Grill survival type shows. I know they're a little bit extreme for some people but you know Vim Hof. He's put out a you know a real fascinating series of pros about. You know, try things if you can. We've got to manage the getting out with being respectful for those places and again doing it doing it safely because you know that's, that would be a, you know, a terrible tragedy.

Speaker 2: 35:22

And there have been unfortunate tragedies, haven't there, where people have gone out unprepared and, you know, made things worse for themselves and all others who have had to go out and rescue them or unfortunately haven't come back. So there is that balance. That that's we really need to strike. The educational system, for me, is one of those keys. I'd like to spend a bit more time looking at how the Scandinavians do it, and I was told and I'm only quoting back off of what people told me, I need to check this out, really for myself but there used to be a time in some of the Scandinavian countries where they had a maximum amount of time. They were allowed indoors. So, whereas we have this opposite, yeah, your maximum outdoor playtime is, you know, you've got an hour and a half a day.

Speaker 2: 36:08

They were almost the opposite and going no, no, no you can only be inside for this amount of time of the day. For the rest of the time you've got to be out. And whilst they were, you know, within the school system, that would be brilliant. Forest schools were something that developed in the UK and further afield. That came from some of those Scandinavian practices, the Fulitzlif, that natural outdoor lifestyle, and they can do it in these countries whose climates are slightly more challenging than ours, if we talk about the UK based.

Speaker 2: 36:44

But again, there's that fear. I can relate to this. I've been that primary school teacher. In the playground when it seems it starts spitting, oh no, you better get inside. Better get inside. It's too dangerous. And actually when you reflect, often when I reflected on it, that was a reflection on me off I either I don't trust these children to behave responsibly and safely when it's a little bit wet and slippy, or actually no kids, you get inside because I don't want you getting hurt, because that means I would have to deal with you being hurt and then fill in all the paperwork and deal with the child who's crying and whatever else. So it was a protective thing for me as much as for the children, and we do sort of fall into that trap a little bit more as well. Sorry, go on, seb, but do you think?

Speaker 3: 37:36

if you portray your fear to the children, do you think then you automatically transfer in that fear, or embed in that fear into the children and they're then kind of going to pass that down to their children.

Speaker 2: 37:50

Yeah, and how that continues to work. You know, I don't know if you've spent take this the right way. I don't know if you spent much time in children's playgrounds, but the number of the number of parents who were, you know the parents who were constantly watching over the children and you're kind of shouting be careful, be careful, watch out for the don't do that, hold on a minute. That child's got an innate sense of safety and doing the right thing. But as soon as you plant that seed in their thought of hold on a minute, my mum, my dad, my brother whoever it is who's shouting at it is telling me to hold on. There must be a risk involved here. But they hadn't perceived that beforehand. So now that's changed their thought process and made them a little bit more wary. And we do that in all fields, don't we? It reminds me again there was some real fascinating research, tim Gill, that might be the right. If I've not got that right I'll have to check it out and let you know later on.

Speaker 2: 38:47

But he did some work, or certainly quoted some work that was done in Sheffield in and around the late 90s, early 2000s, I think it was that looked at three generations of child and their right to roam, their freedom to roam. So in and around your where you were, charlie, at the time, and it looked at the granddad who had this freedom to roam and it was around about sort of a 10 mile radius, but essentially wherever you wanted in and around Sheffield and the parents were okay with it the dad of this child that radius had suddenly shrunk to about a mile, but that's still actually quite a good range to go out and play and explore and feel safe. The child himself who was studded, his radius was something like 150 meters. Because again, we've got this whole thing and whether that's through the media exposure, whatever, this fear, no conk, don't go out of sight, don't go and do this, don't go and do that, you're going to get kidnapped, you're going to get whatever is going to happen to you.

Speaker 2: 39:51

We've shrunk that and that generation to generation potentially is getting worse and potentially you could do it the other way around and if we have more and more adult family role models who are going out and enjoying nature and family play would be fantastic to see because they're almost well might reverse some of that. It's another challenge in the school system. I know lots of fabulous teachers. I know some teachers who maybe aren't so great, but that have you got the right role models in the school system all the time.

Speaker 1: 40:25

I just recalled when you were saying that about how far you could roam back in the day. I know my year. He was restricted when my dad was driving past and I was hanging on the back of a coal wagon as it went down the road. But I don't think we had coal wagons, I don't think.

Speaker 1: 40:40

Yeah, they sort of adventures that young people can get involved in are not really adventures. On that, this is the thing. It's all very sterile and, like Seb was sort of alluded to there, if we take all that and like the BMC says, if we take all the risk out on adventure, it ceases to be an adventure. So then there's none of that development and not much of the learning. And when you spoke about the Scandinavia, I think it's mentioned in that book that I mentioned earlier, which was Lucy Jones, lucy Needen, and the young people are out all the time, you know, and it's sub zero, but they're out playing, they're out playing and learning and I believe they don't really get into the exam system until much later on in childhood. You know they're not having to pass these exams but they are learning sort of life skills, although it does actually mention that book.

Speaker 1: 41:33

Yeah, I would actually mention that book that there is a reference to some of these outdoor nurseries that are popping up around Britain. I know there's definitely one in Cornwall and Devon and some places like that, and they just don't have a property. You know, they don't have a base and they're out all the time. Obviously, the parents have got to consent to that. Now are we going to see a development of, but there's more rounded people?

Speaker 2: 41:55

Yeah, it'd be interesting. There's some you're certainly in the UK, I'm aware of quite a few in the forest. School movement tends to be the umbrella within which they fall, and I'm aware of some really fabulous ones that go on and yeah, they're essentially that you go to the school that is in a natural woodland environment and there is minimal shelter other than the shelters that the staff or the pupils themselves have built. Yeah, be wonderful, but it's, yeah, it takes a certain kind of parent to consent to that initially, because we're, you know, again, society seems to revolve around. Now you've got to pass these exams, because each set of exams is the, the keystone to the next set of exams, which eventually gets you into the best job, which eventually gets you the money that you need to earn the living that you want to buy the house and the car and support the family that you want. And we sort of judge success by finance and that economic side. We don't judge it by happiness and health and well being necessarily. So maybe it's. You know there's. There's never going to be one answer to this conundrum. There's going to be multiple little bits. Like you said, charlie, that's helped you along the way. Maybe that's another part of it. Is there a way we can change the way society values health and well being and happiness beyond, just, you know, the financial side of things? The play. There's a another play, researcher, and I'm just trying to think what he was called, peter Peter Gray. So I'm reaching because I've got my bookshelf the other side of the computer guy called Peter Gray.

Speaker 2: 43:41

And if you've heard of Summerhill School, the Summerhill School is worth looking into and it was another set of schools that sort of essentially. They started out in America and it was a few parents and people educators came together and they they almost flipped education on its head in a way, and there's certainly far more to it than I'm about to explain, but the essence of it is that, rather than a government top down prescribing a curriculum and telling kids what they've got to learn and what exams they need to pass, it was flipped the other way around and the pupils came in. They were mixed age groups. They could go anywhere they wanted on the school site, which had lots of outdoor space as well as buildings. Mixed age groups go wherever you want, learn whatever you want. So you arrive on any given day or today I'm gonna. You know, I'm really interested in this. I'm just going to go and explore it.

Speaker 2: 44:32

And the the teachers, were there to support and facilitate and guide their learning. They weren't there to tell them and direct them, they were there to support when they had, when the pupils had questions, and there were no exam systems up to about 15, 16. And lots of these individuals have gone on to lead very successful careers, judged by that standard of economics as well, as you know, through through the health and wellbeing side, gone on to good universities, gone on to good jobs and whatever else. And that's a, you know, a whole fascinating approach. Again, even to the extent and I don't know quite how I'd sit with this one but teachers only ever got a year's contract and at the end of each year it was for the pupils to decide whether that teacher was useful to them and would be re-employed the following year. Imagine that you've. So you've totally flipped to this school system where you know, if you really cynically looked at it, you could say is our education system geared towards actually drilling out any creativity and independence and essentially just creating these robotic beings who are just here to fulfill a specific need in society?

Speaker 2: 45:44

And what this other alternative system that Peter Gray researched and was part of in America and there are schools in Europe that do it as well. Now, was that total opposite of no, you, you learn and you develop organically the way you want to learn. And again, it was based off some of some of Peter Gray's research into. You know, indigenous hunter-gatherer type tribes and well, how do the hunter-gatherer tribes educate their children? You know it's not a formal education in a school building as such, but they've got to learn how to live within their society in some way.

Speaker 2: 46:17

And it was through watching, being in and around the other adults, watching them, imitating what they did and going out and practicing it and following things through for themselves in multi-age groups. So you had the older ones were nurturing some of the younger ones. The younger ones were really good to help the older ones learn and establish a little bit more and they work together. You know there might be these little nuggets that potentially, in different places, could come together and you know the forest school principles are not far off. Some of those same principles it's if you go full fat forest schools they would call. It is essentially, all you know, child-centered. The children do what they want to do, provided it's, you know, within the the remit of the school and it's safe for them to do so they go and work it that way.

Speaker 1: 47:06

Here's a question for you. So I've I do some work in education. You're dreading this already, Richard. I do some work in education intervention. Yeah, and these generally are young people that have it's either behavioural or learning difficulties and they come to us and we basically take them and it's all outdoors, unless it's absolutely biblical and lashing it down, and then we'll go indoor climbing or something like that, but it's water sports. So kayaking, kayaking, paddleboarding, climbing, walking, navigation, nature. Now these people come into us. This is with the TAO activities that I work with, with Dan who's. We're going to get him on, actually speak about this and then with the aim of them getting back into, integrated, back into the school system. So we can't measure it, but some of these people are responding really well and getting back into that system. So why is education intervention mean that people are going out and being rehabilitated sort of not rehabilitated, but they're going into the outdoors, but then it's forgotten about once they get back into the education system, if you follow.

Speaker 2: 48:16

And it's a real interesting one, isn't it? There's a lot of alternative provision is outdoor based, and there's lots of individuals like yourself who work with some of these young people. If you presented the profile of the pupil to them from the school, wouldn't recognise the child. Yeah, exactly, that's not who that child is when they're outside. And just part of that come back to this mismatch that actually we're trying to fit the children into a system for which they're not matched. And actually there's far more children who are not matched to the school system than actually we're led to believe, because lots of children are able to mask it or can just sort of cope, or can just just just get along, and you know they can put up with it until they're spat out at the other end. There's not many children thrive through the education system.

Speaker 2: 49:12

So it's a great way of trying to educate young people. It's almost paradoxical, isn't it? We rehabilitate them in the outdoors and then to get them back into the system which broke them in the first place. Why are we even trying to put them back into that system? Is there not this alternative way? Does that come back again to how society values education? What's the purpose of education? It's to get a good job. If I can only get a good job if I've got the qualifications, those bits of paper so I can tick these boxes that say I'm able to do this, lots of employers, we can't employ the people that we want. We want this creativity, this independence, this passion, and in some ways, education is driving that out of some of our young people Fortunately not everybody, but quite a few or it takes a while for them to refine that. I don't know if I actually answered your question or not, charlie.

Speaker 1: 50:10

I don't think it's one of them that's not answerable, really, is it? It's just that question. It's just that thought of why we're I think you've said it with this one size don't fit all, does it no chance? We see that with the number of young people with mental health difficulties that's caused through pressure of results and being pressured to get results, bless them. Let's get back to the UCLan and the Nature Therapy Summit. What's the future for that? Because I think I definitely. I really enjoyed it. It was really good thought one for network and for meeting other people and talking about subjects and trying some of the workshops. So what's the future with that?

Speaker 2: 50:53

Yeah, we feel that the general outline of it is working. We're already planning again for June next year. We've not got a specific date tied down but that's the intention is to do it in June to run as much of it outdoors authentically as we possibly can. We do have the building space and the toilets and the catering facilities, just in case the weather's not amenable. But there's a few debates Do we run it over a couple of days? Do we just keep it to one day? Do we have an overnight camping session? But it's essentially it's the same thing. It's bringing together people who are working in this space, so using the outdoors for health and wellbeing benefits.

Speaker 2: 51:41

It has been focused more on the mental health more specifically the last couple of years. We're going to broaden that a little bit more, although that is still the key factor. We're very much looking to discuss and share the latest research. So we're hopefully going to be in a position to talk about the work you kind of do with Mine Over Mountains, to build the evidence base for the work that they're doing, which is fabulous. They've got lots of really good anecdotal stories, different individuals with whom it's been beneficial. We're trying to make that more robust. Hopefully we'll be in a position to share that. We'd like to open up a little bit more nationally if possible. We are a little bit north-west focused, but that's local practitioners. But we want to try and increase this reach and this networking so we can start to share with people more widely. So if there's people who've got things to add to what we do that we haven't thought of or there's other experts from slightly different fields that contribute, that would be great.

Speaker 2: 52:39

And we're also looking at that next stage of how do we get this out there, because you look at the NHS being totally overwhelmed with the overwhelmed with the number of people that are seeking support. We're certainly not. If there's real critical issues, nature therapy is not going to help. If you're really at that point of in your depression, your PhD, whatever that, you need some proper serious clinical intervention. That's a whole other thing. But that preventative level, that supportive level, that hopefully we can reduce those and prevent more people getting onto that pathway, that's where we're trying to aim and bring in some of those commissioners of the people who would fund some of the advertising, the promotion, the green social prescribing, to try and get this and make this more accessible to more people.

Speaker 2: 53:34

That's essentially where the sorts of things we're looking at a bit more next year, as well as the opportunity to network and just learn from each other, because there's a lot to be said from sharing some of these ideas that you might have found. You might have come across an individual that you've worked with, who you've tried different things and it hasn't worked, for whatever reason, and actually you can have discussions with other people who you maybe wouldn't meet otherwise and they're oh, actually we've. If you thought about this, if you thought about this, if you thought about this, if you thought about this, you might share those ideas and you might have those success stories to share with other people. And that's. There's lots of things that this, this, the summits around. So that's that's sort of where we're going and trying to attract that little bit more national, maybe media, attention as well.

Speaker 2: 54:18

So maybe this podcast will help with some of that to again try and encourage the families, the adult role models, the children, to pester the mums and dads and aunties and whoever else it might be, to just to try and get them, encourage them, reassure them that it's safe and it's appropriate and it's great for a lot of people to spend time outdoors and address, address that balance. Yeah, with that I mean, charlie, we'll keep in touch. For sure your input's valuable for helping us plan and direct exactly where we go. But if there's people listening others that you know want to find out a little bit more then I can share some of the details as and when they develop, or certainly share them with you, charlie, to to send out on your podcast or mailing list or whichever else.

Speaker 1: 55:09

I'm afraid we're going to have to wrap it up there, because we've been really good, though again where Dave Gallagher in before, who I met on the summit, and that went really quickly as well. Yeah, real, if I wanted to leave it somewhere. Well, first of all, say thank you for joining us, because I know you're a busy man, but if you wanted, like Seb asked about results so I can give you one result from the Nature Therapy Summit, and that was that you managed to get a Yorkshireman to travel over to Preston and have a thoroughly enjoyable day, and I would recommend it to anyone. Any other practitioners that are thinking of possibly going when you, if you invite them next year. So, yeah, thank you for that, thank you for me inviting over there and thank you for joining us tonight.

Speaker 2: 55:51

That's great. Thank you for this, this inviting return. It's been a pleasure to chat and discuss and hope the more people that are in this space and sharing these stories, hopefully, the more people can benefit, and that's ultimately what it's all about. Yeah, thanks for watching Cheers.

Speaker 3: 56:06

Bye, bye.