After the lockdowns and restrictions of learning to live with COVID-19, most people realized the value of just being in nature with its benefits for mental health and physical wellbeing. The Japanese have a term called ‘forest bathing’ (shinrin-yoku) where you just immerse yourself in nature. Remember this isn’t exercise: it is more like a mindfulness activity where you slow down and absorb the experience of being in the forest by engaging your senses. You look, smell, listen and touch; through your senses, you connect to de-stress and relax. Studies show even a two-hour forest bath will help you be calm and stay in the moment.
How does ‘forest bathing’ relate to creativity? When are we at our most creative and innovative? According to our knowledge of how the brain affects how we learn, creativity and innovation are optimized if our brain is in a relaxed state. Our use of technology often hinders our ability to relax as the addiction to checking social media and FOMO impact our actions. Can we use our connection to nature as a strategy to activate our creativity and help us to solve problems?
In our 2020 interview with Dr. Jane Goodall, we raised this very question. Dr. Goodall explains that the power of knowing about and understanding something allows us to begin to care about it: “How could research about nature make me more caring about my environment?” By learning about the amazing plants and animals and their environment and understanding their role in our world we understand the need to conserve them to retain the powerful circle of life (Harbord & Khan, 2020).
Along with conservation, inspiration from nature has always helped humans solve problems, even if we have called this inspiration by other names. One such term popularized by Janine Benyus in 1997 is Biomimicry. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Biomimicry as the imitation of natural biological designs or processes in engineering or invention. A famous example is of the Swiss engineer George de Mestral: while in the woods, he noticed how a weedy annual plant, cocklespur, stuck to his dog’s hair and used this concept to invent Velcro.
Another illustration of Biomimicry is the work of Leonardo da Vinci. Most people think they know something about this great Italian polymath. Some know him for his great artwork while others for his scientific and engineering studies and inventions, but how many…
