Immersion in nature is highly beneficial to our overall well-being. Whether in a small garden, a city park, remote mountains or quiet rural villages, its positive effects seem so self-evident that they hardly require scientific validation. Still, science helps us better understand the relationship between one and the other. “From a neuropsychological perspective, it is known that walking outdoors or simply observing a natural landscape reduces cortisol levels — the hormone associated with stress — and stimulates the release of dopamine and serotonin, neurotransmitters linked to pleasure, calm and emotional balance.” Vera de Melo, Clinical Psychologist, Expresso (17-09-2025)
If the importance of momentary immersion in nature appears largely uncontested, it becomes even more urgent in a time of technological disruption and the resulting acceleration of political, economic and social change. In this context, digital social networks displace our relational universe: the world narrows and contracts, while anxiety and tension intensify, as if an overabundance of stimuli were making our mental space increasingly confined.
Add to this the frictions of professional life — both the familiar ones and those amplified by the insecurities of a time of profound transformation — and we have the perfect cocktail for inevitable psycho-emotional erosion, potentially leading to disorientation, distress, saturation and collapse. In this sense, periodic retreats that allow distance from digital life, professional demands and urban environments seem to be an essential therapy for restoring balance.
In this sense, periodic retreats In the silence of the landscape, the colours of vegetation, the music of birds and flowing water, the light and warmth of the morning sun, the cool, scented air, the gentleness of rain dripping from trees, the mystery of fog, the wrinkles of stones and trunks, and the slowness of time, we find the solitude necessary to reconnect with ourselves. As the mind grows lighter and less subject to constant demands, as the body relaxes, we can step outside ourselves and confront both our certainties and our doubts.
Thoughts gain room to escape confinement and flow freely, clearly and creatively. This is the unsurpassed and irreplaceable magnetism of nature.
