Bringing the Outdoors Indoor

Please Share The Following Suggestions with Your Elderly and Vulnerable Neighbours (phone call/distance conversation)

With the sun out shining, getting out and about can be difficult in this time of social isolation and distancing, but there are ways you can help people to still benefit. Spending time in green space, your garden or bringing nature into your everyday life can benefit both your mental and physical wellbeing. It can improve your mood, reduce feelings of stress or anger, and make you feel more relaxed.

It’s possible to still get these positive effects from nature while staying indoors at home. You could recommend to try the following:

• Spend time with the windows open to let in fresh air.
• Have flowers or potted plants in your home.
• Use natural materials to decorate your living space, or use them in art projects. This could include leaves, flowers, feathers, tree bark or seeds.
• Arrange a comfortable space to sit, for example by a window where you can look out over a view of trees or the sky, or watch birds and other animals.
• Grow plants or flowers on windowsills. For example, you could buy seeds online or look for any community groups that give away or swap them, share with your street or neighbours.
• Look at photos of your favourite places in nature. Use them as the background on your mobile phone or computer screen, or print and put them up on your walls.
• Listen to natural sounds, like recordings or apps that play birdsong, ocean waves or rainfall. Get as much natural light as you can. Spend time in your garden if you have one, or open your front or back door and sit on the doorstep and listen to nature around you.
• Take part in wildlife spotting from your window, share with others what birds and birdsongs you’ve heard.

If your feeling trapped and enclosed.

• Open the windows to let in fresh air. Or you could spend time sitting on your doorstep, or in the garden if you have one.
• Try looking at the sky out of the window or from your doorstep. This can help to give you a sense of space.
• Regularly change the rooms you spend time in.