Pause for a moment and think about a favourite place that you associate with nature – maybe somewhere local or maybe somewhere you’ve been on holiday. Just think for a moment about the sounds…, the sights… maybe even the smells of that place, and about what you like about it. Sit with that for a little while – not less than 20 seconds.

Next think of a memory from your childhood of seeing some wildlife – maybe a particular bird or animal (wild creatures not pets or farm animals), maybe a special tree or a wildflower, a butterfly perhaps, even a bug or a fungus. Just focus for a minute of the strongest memory that comes into your mind of a specific thing from nature in your childhood, and try to relive the detail of that experience.

Again, sit with that for a while and find as much detail as you can.

How easy was that? Did you struggle to think of a place you like where there is nature?

Did you feel a sense of calm while you were thinking about it?

It’s a known thing that nature makes us feel better. Humans evolved in nature. As part of it, those connections are deep rooted within all of us. People in hospital recover more quickly if they have a view of trees or nature, or even a picture of it on the wall. You felt calmer just by thinking about it, in a few seconds. So the first point, which we’ve just proved by your own experience rather being told, is that nature is good for us. Of course, we need natural resources and processes actually to survive and live – clean air, water, growing food, but nature is also good for our wellbeing. Even the health value of physical exercise has been shown to be greater when it’s done in a natural setting compared to indoors.

And the second thing, your childhood memory. This shows how we bond with nature when we’re young. But there’s another part to this – whatever you remembered seeing when you were young – do you see it now? When did you last see it? Do you see that thing less often now? Around half of us probably do. That may be because our lives are different and we spend less time in nature than we used to, and that’s an issue in itself. But it’s also because nature is in trouble. When we think about it, we can all probably see that there is less of it than there used to be. It could be hedgehogs, song thrushes, barn owls, all of which I see less than even 10 or 20 years ago. If you’re old enough you will remember 20 or 30 years ago all the insects stuck to the headlights and the front of the car after a long journey in summer. They seemed like a bit of a nuisance at the time, but insects are a vital part of our ecosystem, our web of life, and they’ve declined massively over just a few decades. So our own experience tells us that nature is in trouble.

Doing these brief thought exercises reminds us is that nature isn’t just for experts - it’s for all of us. Yes, there is technical stuff and lots of names of species and so on. It can be good to understand more about nature, but we can still have a connection and care about it however much we know. I think about this like a person you may see regularly when you’re out and about, whose name you don’t know. You may pass them in the street. If you see them frequently, you probably notice things about how they look and behave, when that’s the same, and when it’s different. You might even smile or wave at them. Yes, if you knew their name you could get to know them better, but even without that you have a connection, and one which can mean something to you, and probably to them too.

The University of Derby’s Nature Connectedness Research group has lots of resources to help you reap the benefits of connecting with nature:

Other resources for parents (or grown ups who want to tune in to experiences in nature):