It’s unfortunate that it took a pandemic and umpteen lockdowns for us to appreciate the outside. As the old saying goes, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

The waves of Covid in 2020 and 2021 saw us lace up, head out and stomp around. We spoke about the mental health benefits of nature, fake commuted or scheduled lunch breaks to be outside while working from home and used our weekends to picnic among the greenery of our local parks.

Are we still committed to walking as much in 2022? Not quite – I’ve skipped my lunchtime stroll most days this week as I’ve remained glued to my laptop. And I’m not alone; increasingly, work and family are getting in the way of us spending time in nature, according to the People and Nature Survey for England. In March 2022, 16% of people cited those factors as reasons they hadn’t spent time outside, compared to 16% in March 2022.

Why walking in nature is still important for your mental health in a post-lockdown, hybrid world