Nature, Nervous Systems and the Places that help us heal

What happens when we step away from the noise of everyday life and enter a space designed to help us restore and reconnect?

For holistic wellbeing expert Ali Oetjen, the answer begins with something fundamental: safety. Ali is founder of Ali Wellness in Australia and an internationally recognised holistic wellbeing expert. Through meditation, breathwork, retreats and immersive experiences, she helps people reconnect with themselves, each other and the natural world. Her work explores personal transformation, nervous-system regulation and the relationship between human wellbeing and the environments we inhabit. Ali creates retreats and workshops designed to help people step out of their habitual routines and reconnect with themselves.

She describes what happens when people leave behind the familiar cues and patterns of everyday life and enter an environment consciously designed for restoration. “They come into a new space and this space is usually designed for safety, for regulation, for healing, for their optimum health,” she explains.

Once those familiar environmental cues are removed, people can begin to make more conscious choices, question old habits and, importantly, reconnect with what they are feeling within themselves. And nature is central to that process:  “Nature is so healing and it really resonates safety within us,” she says. We are not separate from nature, she argues; our relationship with it is fundamental to how we experience the world.

That connection doesn't necessarily require an elaborate retreat or a journey into the wilderness. Looking up at the sky, hearing birdsong, feeling natural materials beneath our hands, noticing the smell of trees or simply walking outdoors can all become sensory reminders of connection.

“Simple things can even regulate our nervous system,” Ali says. Looking up at the sky, she suggests, can send signals to the nervous system associated with the parasympathetic, restorative state. Natural sounds, fresh air and the sensory qualities of the outdoors can similarly contribute to a feeling of safety and calm.

This has important implications for the spaces we design.

Light, temperature, air quality, acoustics, materials, smell and even silence are not merely aesthetic considerations. They form the sensory environment in which our bodies and minds operate. Ali points to natural light as particularly important, both for circadian rhythms and mood, while comfortable temperatures and fresh