Mindfulness and Nature as Medicine: Rewilding Health through Caritas Consciousness
Amber L Vermeesch, Mary Rockwood Lane
Mindfulness Across Disciplines [Working Title] October 15, 2026 DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.1017462 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key points | Proposes a 'rewilding health' framework through Caritas Consciousness, arguing that healthcare should move from fixing disease to restoring wholeness by integrating mindfulness, bodyfulness, and Nature as Medicine into a pathway from awareness to embodiment to belonging. The authors contend that human health and planetary health are inseparable and that this transdisciplinary model can support practitioner well-being, nervous system regulation, and ecological belonging. |
Abstract
Contemporary healthcare systems are technology-driven, protocol-centered models that disconnect practitioners and patients from healing. There is growing recognition across nursing, medicine, and environmental health sciences that well-being requires restoring the human relationship with the living world. This conceptual-integrative chapter proposes the rewilding health framework through Caritas Consciousness, offering a theoretically grounded, practically actionable, and transdisciplinary model for whole-person healing and ecological belonging. The chapter employs a conceptual review methodology, synthesizing five bodies of literature: Caring Science philosophy/contemplative practice, mindfulness research, neuroscience/polyvagal theory, environmental health/forest bathing research, and phenomenology/ecological philosophy. The analytical process has three stages: theoretical sources, conceptual synthesis, and practical implications. Mindfulness cultivates present-moment awareness; bodyfulness deepens through full sensory body inhabitation; and Nature as Medicine extends both into ecological relationships and belonging. Together, these practices form a proposed heuristic pathway – from awareness, to embodiment, to belonging. The chapter introduces rewilding health as a transdisciplinary paradigm recognizing human health and planetary health as inseparable. Rewilding health offers practitioners a theoretically grounded and practically actionable framework for transforming healthcare. The framework is proposed to support practitioner well-being, foster nervous system regulation, cultivate Caritas Consciousness, and invite a fundamental paradigm shift – from fixing disease to restoring wholeness – with implications for nursing practice, healthcare education, public health, and ecological stewardship.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cites 2
- A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Nature-Based Mindfulness: Effects of Moving Mindfulness Training into an Outdoor Natural Setting International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health September 2, 2019
- Effects of a Body-Based Mindfulness Program on Alexithymia, Dispositional Mindfulness, and Distress Symptoms: A Pilot Clinical Trial. Behavioral Sciences January 8, 2025