Mindfulness activities to support the planet

With Mindful in May commencing and World Environment Day approaching in June, we’ve looked at some mindfulness activities that you can do outdoors to help clear your mind and clean up the planet.

Mindfulness essentially means staying rooted in the present moment, being more aware and more conscious of your feelings and emotions, which relaxes the body and the mind. For some, just spending more time outdoors can help you to feel relaxed and reduce stress!

Here’s a few simple ideas you could do with family, friends, or on your own to help you feel more positive and give back to the environment.

Join a community garden

A community garden is beneficial to both the environment and to your health and wellbeing. Whilst it gets you outdoors meeting other like minded members of your community and enjoying freshly grown organic produce, connecting with nature can also help you to feel calm and connected. For the planet, it promotes sustainable agriculture by reducing food miles, improving air and soil quality, and can reduce neighbourhood waste through composting.

Litter picking

You can start this simply by talking a walk down a nearby street and collecting any litter that you find and disposing of it properly. To do this safely, ensure you have gloves to protect yourself and a biodegradable bag to place the rubbish in. Doing something good like this is great for your mental wellbeing – you’ll come away with a sense of achievement, and feeling better for having taken a walk!

Get crafty

Crafts are already a well known mindfulness activity, but there are some great crafty ideas you can do to help support the wildlife around you. You could try making your own butterfly feeder and hang it in a tree in the yard (butterflies love overripe leftover fruit!) or create a bee shelter out of upturned or broken plant pots, or even look into creating your own bird feeder! Creating these will help your mind relax, and help you to feel positive knowing you’ve done something to help the animals around you.

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