In this video, Nick Kemp explores the healing power of nature and how spending time outdoors can truly transform your well-being. Nick shares his experience of daily walks in the park without distractions—no phone, no music—just the sounds of birds and rustling leaves. He reflects on how this simple act might become as essential as diet, exercise, and sleep in our health routines, envisioning a future where "half an hour in nature" is a health standard.
Spending time in nature boosts your well-being
Nick: I do find myself now wanting to walk every day at a local park and I don't take my phone, I don't listen to music, I hear the sounds of the birds, the leaves rustling, and I'm beginning to wonder at one stage, it'll become like another pillar of health.
So we tend to focus on diet exercise, and sleep’s sort of become recognized as crucial, maybe the most important thing. But I wonder if we'll ever get to a point where they will say you need to sleep for eight hours a day, you need to eat some sort of balanced diet that's appropriate for your needs, and you need to exercise every day or three or four times a week intensely. And you need to spend half an hour, every day in nature.
I'm sure that will have to become a standard because it's such a healing experience to go out to nature and the fresh air and the sensory experience is amazing; you can see beautiful flowers or leaves or sunlight through the trees, and it does make you feel better.
Carly: I love that you take your headphones out and that you're just in the moment and just looking at your environment. Because how many people do you see walking along head down, and they're missing out, they're missing out on this amazing world around them. And even it's just half an hour to experience that, that's going to uplift you, that's going to be the start of a good day.
Nick: That's crazy. I write about that in my book, like it's unbelievable that you go to a nature track; I have this beautiful park where it almost feels like you're in a National Forest, once you enter you can't see the houses around you; there are kookaburras, there's wattle, all these beautiful Australian flora and fauna, and you got people on their phone, it's just like, you want to go up and just rip the phone out of their hands and throw it away.