Forest Bathing – Remembering the Forest
Local memory café groups immerse their senses at Fingle Woods
It’s a beautiful summer’s morning, it feels like it’s going to be a hot one, but for now, here in the shade at the corner of a glade, we’re cool and calm. Sat chatting with Mark and Camilla from Aquafolium whilst waiting for the groups to arrive, I find out what Forest Bathing and memory cafés are all about. I’m excited about how Fingle Woods is using its community engagement activities to link the two, bringing local social groups of people living with dementia and memory loss into the woods for sensory nature connection experiences. Today, after overwhelming demand for these experiences, we’re hosting three local memory café groups to continue on a journey of woodland exploration. Mark and Camilla have been visiting these memory cafés to “bring the forest to people who would otherwise not experience it. This is a forest immersion with the sensory elements of the forest brought to you, it includes visual prompts, native bird song, tactile elements from nature and forests to create an evocative environment.” And following on from the success of those visits out in the villages, it’s now time to bring the memory cafés to the woods! The kettle is on, the seats are set around the fire. Mark and Camilla are looking forward to seeing some familiar faces from their memory café visits.[gallery type="slideshow" size="large" ids="7642,7644,7643"]Eleanor Lewis, the Fingle Woods Community Engagement Officer, was inspired to co-ordinate these sessions and work with memory cafés following her own experiences with her grandmother. As Ellie’s family coped with her grandmother’s memory loss, they realised that a lot of groups and activities aimed at people like her grandmother centred around being indoors and playing board games. Having never been an indoorsy-boardgame sort of a person, it seemed rather forced to Ellie and her family to impose these activities on her grandmother, simply because she was starting to experience some memory loss. Instead, they found experiences based in nature helped her grandmother to feel content and keep her synapses connected. So, walks in woods and trips to farms became key to keeping her mind and body active, and were activities that the whole family could be involved in too.And we saw just this during the memory café visits. Everyone who stepped out of the minibus immediately commented on their surroundings, referring back to “the last time I was here”, or, “I haven’t seen this bit of Fingle before”. The beautiful day, the luscious green trees, and even the exciting bus journey and the thrill of a day out doing something different.
The fire is on, ready to make the obligatory tea, and while we have no need for the heat it creates, the fire itself creates a wonderful centrepiece to the group conversations and introductions. Camilla and Mark share their gentle and lighthearted love for guiding others’ nature immersions and share their own drivers for being here. They feel “nourished” by this experience and share a strong sense of pride in their work and facilitating this day for the memory café groups. Camilla shares some of the science and evidence behind the benefits of being in nature. While we look up at the leaves of the beech and sycamore trees above us, taking in the colours, shapes, patterns, we discover that studies show that people looking at natural objects and scenes (even just photos, but we like being outside even more!) make people more relaxed and calmer than if they’re looking at man-made objects. This natural experience can have the same impact as meditation. Aquafolium are undertaking their own research into the benefits of Forest Bathing, and their research shows that the scientifically-proven benefits are:
- Lowering of stress and cortisol levels
- Lowering of blood pressure
- Elevated mood and reduction in anxiety and depression
- Improved sleep
- Improved energy levels
- Improved immune system and recovery
- It may also improve a number of aspects of your life in terms of relationships with yourself and others, reconnect you to your sense of self and purpose and help give a greater perspective on life and its challenges.
To find out more, see Aquafolium’s page on evidence and research here. But we all feel it don’t we? Blowing away the cobwebs, escaping life’s worries, taking in the beauty around us and getting a little exercise. It’s always beneficial. And never more so than on a beautiful summer’s day, with friends and family beside you, supporting you every step of the way. It seems like it’s the perfect opportunity for carers and family members of those experiencing the memory loss to get out and connect with other carers too.
Drinking tea, chatting, being guided by Mark and Camilla to look around, slow down, feel the breeze, notice the beauty of the natural environment… it brings your senses alive. Each person in the group picked up an item from a tray of natural objects. A leaf, a stick, a stone, a flower. They were invited to touch it and explore it so that they would be able to find it amidst all the other objects if placed down again. Then they were asked to take any worries they were holding and put them into the object in their hands. Once the objects were taken away, so were the worries with them.This left the group free to explore, either sitting comfortably by the fire with a cuppa, or walking gently around the meadow guided by Mark. On the walk, more tea ingredients were foraged, and the visit closed with a tea ceremony. Memories were made, and some older ones were revisited. These groups felt privileged to have been so carefully held and guided, both by Ellie and the Fingle Woods project team’s courage to pioneer such a visit, and by Aquafolium’s expert Forest Bathing.If you or a loved one is experiencing memory loss, and would like to explore the idea of memory cafés, click here to find out more about memory cafés, and perhaps find a local group to join. And next time you’re at Fingle Woods, make a note to stop and bathe in all, and see what benefits these wonderful woods can bring to you.Words and images by Emma Fancett
