Factors that make a mindful walking retreat effective include encountering nature, negotiating obstacles, the walk's duration, and walking in silence. The retreat followed a largely unpaved route along a lowland river and estuary in the Netherlands, where participants made their own choices to find their way. Most participants had a history of depression. Interviews, along with diary and questionnaire data, were analyzed through iterative coding to identify these conducive factors. The findings can help design effective walking retreats and support offering mindful walking retreats as a regular part of mindfulness programs.
People from ethnoracially marginalized backgrounds turn to psychedelics such as psilocybin, cannabis, and ayahuasca for psychological healing, cultural reconnection, and as a response to inadequate mainstream health care. Based on 23 interviews and participant-observation in a psychedelic training program, most participants rejected the idea of a 'Psychedelic Renaissance,' instead viewing their experiences as acts of remembering, ancestral reconnection, and spiritual practice. Plant medicines were reported to provide emotional insight, help resolve intergenerational wounds, and foster connection to self and the living world. The study uses the framework of Etuaptmumk (Two-Eyed Seeing) to interpret these experiences within ecopsychological and decolonial contexts.
A retrospective online survey of 236 people who had a meaningful psychedelic experience found that acute effects—mystical experiences, ego-dissolution, and self-transcendent positive emotions (STPE)—predicted lasting increases in both dispositional STPE and feelings of connection to nature. Different patterns emerged for cognitive versus emotional components of nature connectedness, with STPE more strongly predicting changes in cognitive connectedness. Exploratory mediation analyses suggested that acute STPE during the experience may lead to day-to-day increases in these emotions, which in turn may help explain why psychedelics can strengthen feelings of connection with the natural world.