When we allow ourselves to listen to the sounds of nature – birdsong in the trees and so on – it affects the bodily systems that control our flight-or-fright and our rest-digest autonomic nervous systems. These have associated effects in the resting activity of our brain. Translated into lay terms, when we tune into the forest sounds, our minds and bodies chill out!
If you enjoyed our Live Webcam Feed to Tsavo East National Park in Kenya the other day, I’m sure you’re going to love this. That Kenyan wildlife feed has an incredibly addictive element to it! One moment, you’re watching the elephants emerging from the trees, heading to the waterhole to cool down and refresh themselves, the next, you’re viewing lions. It can get a bit too exciting and your pulse might rise in anticipation as you watch and wait for the next visitor!
Here’s a great option if you want to slow your heart rate down a touch. It’s especially wonderful if you’re unable to get to any significant green spaces or woodland. The other bonus of our recommendation is it’s available on prescription 24 hours a day.
Click here to immerse yourself in 2 delightful hours of relaxing bird song captured by Petar Paunchev aka The Silent Watcher. The piece was recorded in 2017 in an ancient beech forest, the Central Balkan National Park in Bulgaria.
If you like this video, you’re probably going to love his channel: it’s jam-packed with lots of other sounds from the forest, including nightingale singing, exotic birds in a tropical forest and birdsong in the bluebell woods (my favourite).
Tune in, sit down, close your eyes and it’s not hard at all to imagine yourself there amid the trees. It’s forest bathing from a distance, I know, and whilst it’s not quite the real thing, it still ticks lots of the right (bird) boxes.
NB: Click here to read the paper in Science Daily on The Sound of Nature Helps Us Relax.
