As part of the Trust’s Exploring Anxiety social impact project, Kelly Tyler contributes an update on the project’s work over the last year, and the positive effect of connecting with nature and community.
Anxiety is no longer a marginal issue. It is a growing and complex thread running through modern life, shaped by social isolation, economic uncertainty, climate anxiety, political instability and the possible lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Exploring Anxiety Project was developed by the Psychosynthesis Trust in direct response to this need — offering an accessible, community-based and holistic approach to supporting people living with anxiety through psychosynthesis-informed activities held in nature.
This article reflects on the key outcomes of the programme in 2025 and situates them within a wider body of emerging research that highlights the vital role of nature connection, belonging, and meaning-making in supporting mental health and wellbeing.
The Exploring Anxiety project was created to support individuals who are at risk of being marginalised, disadvantaged or excluded due to mental health challenges, socio-economic circumstances, identity or life events. Drawing on psychosynthesis principles, the programme recognises anxiety not as a fixed identity or pathology, but as a mind–body response that can be understood, worked with and transformed.
In 2025, the programme was delivered across community gardens and social farm spaces in Southwark, Bristol and Camberwell, where one hundred participants to date have taken part in Exploring Anxiety programmes, with additional tailored cohorts launched specifically for people living with cancer and for members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Alongside participant programmes, 18 facilitators have been trained to deliver Exploring Anxiety Programmes within wellbeing centres, local charities, refugee organisations, corporate settings and community gardening initiatives & social farms— strengthening local capacity and long-term sustainability.
The programme’s impact is evaluated using established psychological assessments, including GAD-7 (Generalised Anxiety Disorder) and PHQ-9 (Depression) scales. On average, participants experienced an 11% reduction in anxiety and depression scores by the end of the 10-week programme, with some individuals achieving significantly greater improvements.
Beyond symptom reduction, the programme fostered meaningful social outcomes:
- 70% of participants continued volunteering at community gardens after completing the programme
- Participants reported increased confidence, reduced isolation and a stronger sense of belonging
- Many maintained relationships formed during the programme, extending support networks beyond the sessions
These outcomes reflect the programme’s theory of change: that sustained improvements in mental health are most likely when individuals feel connected — to themselves, to others and to their place in their world. To read more about the project and hear directly from participants, please read our Social Impact Report Here.
Why Nature Matters: What the Wider Evidence Tells Us
The success of Exploring Anxiety aligns strongly with a growing evidence base showing that nature exposure and nature connectedness play a crucial role in mental wellbeing.
A major 2025 population-level study published in ‘People and Nature’ examined how nature exposure and nature connectedness relate to wellbeing across England. The researchers found that both how often people spend time in nature and how emotionally connected they feel to nature were independently associated with higher wellbeing.[1]
Importantly, the strongest benefits occurred when both exposure and connection were present. This suggests that simply offering access (parks, green spaces) may not be sufficient — programmes must also encourage meaningful engagement, to significantly enhanced mental health outcomes: noticing wildlife, reflecting, connecting emotionally and building a sense of belonging to the natural world.
This echoes broader calls to treat nature as a stakeholder, not simply as a resource in urban design, planning, and public health, aligning with the “X-Model” critique of modern socio-economic disconnection.
This finding strongly supports programmes like Exploring Anxiety, which combines time in natural settings with guided reflection, group dialogue and experiential practices that help participants build a deeper relationship with nature. This complementary perspective draws on global data from over 57,000 people across more than 60 countries. This work highlights that nature connectedness is often lowest in wealthy, highly urbanised, business-oriented societies — including the UK.[2]
The authors describe four interrelated forces contributing to this disconnection:
- Urban form and access: limited or degraded natural spaces
- Socio-economic systems: prioritising productivity and growth over wellbeing
- Loss of spiritual or existential meaning in relation to nature
- Over-reliance on technological solutions, reducing embodied and emotional engagement with the natural world
These forces mirror many of the underlying drivers of anxiety described by participants in the Exploring Anxiety Programme: overwhelm, disconnection, lack of meaning and a sense of being “cut off” from self, community and environment.
From a psychological perspective, there are several well-established mechanisms through which nature supports mental health. Natural environments are known to reduce physiological stress, support emotional regulation and restore attentional capacity, a concept often described by Attention Restoration Theory[3]. Compared with built environments, nature provides “soft fascination”: sensory experiences that gently hold attention without cognitive overload, allowing the nervous system to settle.
When combined with mindfulness, breath awareness, creativity, and relational group work, as in the Exploring Anxiety Programme, these effects are amplified. Participants are not only calmer in the moment; they also develop tools to recognise anxiety responses, identify with them in order to be able to disidentify. This creates the opportunity to respond with greater choice and self-compassion.
One of the most significant outcomes of the Exploring Anxiety Programme is its impact beyond individual symptom reduction. The high proportion of participants who continued volunteering in community gardens demonstrates how mental health support, social connection and environmental stewardship can reinforce one another (promoting good will). This echoes findings from the England study, which showed that people with higher nature connectedness were also more likely to engage in pro-environmental behaviours.
In this way, Exploring Anxiety contributes not only to individual wellbeing, but also to stronger communities and healthier local environments, an approach increasingly recognised as essential for sustainable mental health support.
The combined evidence from our 2025 Social Impact report and recent research suggests several important principles for future mental health programmes:
- Mental health is relational and ecological, not solely individual
- Nature-based interventions work best when they foster connection, meaning and belonging, not just access
- Community settings reduce stigma and encourage sustained engagement
- Evaluation should include wellbeing, connection, and participation, not only symptom scores
By holding these principles, Exploring Anxiety is well placed to continue developing as a model of good practice in community mental health.
The Exploring Anxiety Programme 2025 demonstrates that when people are met with compassion, practical tools, community support and opportunities to reconnect with nature and each other, meaningful change is possible. Participants leave not only with reduced anxiety, but with greater confidence, connection and a renewed sense of belonging.
In a world where anxiety is increasingly shaped by systemic and ecological pressures, the evidence underscores a powerful truth: anxiety is not only a personal or clinical issue, but a systemic, social and ecological one. Programmes such as Exploring Anxiety offer a hopeful, evidence-based alternative, one that recognises our deep interdependence with each other and with the natural world.
References:
- https://repository.derby.ac.uk/download/8b5a24a901889cb4cb6ee247802643652f040adcec198c6d6104e15c0226d4b7/1587943/People%20and%20Nature%20-%202025%20-%20Alcock%20-%20How%20are%20nature%20exposures%20and%20nature%20connectedness%20related%20to%20well%E2%80%90being%20and.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
- https://findingnature.org.uk/2025/11/03/four-forces/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
- https://positivepsychology.com/attention-restoration-theory/
[1] https://repository.derby.ac.uk/download/8b5a24a901889cb4cb6ee247802643652f040adcec198c6d6104e15c0226d4b7/1587943/People%20and%20Nature%20-%202025%20-%20Alcock%20-%20How%20are%20nature%20exposures%20and%20nature%20connectedness%20related%20to%20well%E2%80%90being%20and.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
[2] https://findingnature.org.uk/2025/11/03/four-forces/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
[3] https://positivepsychology.com/attention-restoration-theory/