Take the green way home

Choose a place you want to be

A path through trees offers a reason to walk that has little to do with distance. Light gathers at a bend, a rough trunk catches the eye, and a gap in the branches opens onto the sky. You can go out simply to encounter these things. The walk can have something to offer even when you have no wish to exercise.

Begin by choosing the setting. Is there a park, a stretch beside a stream or a footpath near a field that you could reach without making a day of it? Pick a place you would enjoy visiting today. A break with somewhere to go is easier to imagine than an empty space between errands.

A small study of walking and repetitive thoughts

In 2015, 38 healthy adults were assigned to a 90-minute nature or urban walk. The nature group reported less rumination afterwards. The comparison of changes between groups remained statistically uncertain (p = 0.07). This small experiment did not test brief breaks or regular forest walks.

Bratman et al., PNAS (2015)

Let the walk have its own interest

Choose a familiar route that feels safe and suits how you move. Leave the training target at home. If the unfinished conversation comes with you, the trees can still be worth seeing. There is no need to empty your head before the walk begins.

When somewhere catches your attention, stay a little longer. It might be a spreading branch or the light at the edge of a clearing. Try a question that the place itself can answer. What colour is the bark where rain has reached it? Where does the sound of leaves underfoot change? These are things to investigate for pleasure, with no problem to solve or decision to defend.

Your green place may be close by

The nature route in the study crossed grassland with scattered oaks and shrubs. It was not a remote, dense forest. For your own walk, start with a place you enjoy being. A bench beneath trees may suit you better than a steep trail, and a familiar park can be a destination in its own right.

On a crowded day, you could take just one green stretch on the way home. That is a separate, shorter suggestion, with no claim that it reproduces the experiment. Choose it because you would rather spend those few minutes there.

Return to a place, rather than a target

A familiar clearing gives the next visit a different pleasure. You already know where the view opens, so bare branches, a fallen limb or the first new leaves have somewhere to belong. After a walk, ask yourself whether you would like to spend time there again. On the next free afternoon, you will have more than an instruction to get outside. You will have a place in mind.