About ‘Walking with Matt’
Join me for immersive walks into nature
If you love nature but don’t always get the opportunity to experience it—if you feel stressed out, or over-stimulated, or you simply enjoy nature-writing—I’m writing this newsletter for you...
I’m Matthew James, I’m a full-time dad who loves being outside and exploring the landscape with my daughters. I’m lucky enough to live on the Isle of Man—a rugged Celtic island nestled in the Irish Sea, bursting with spectacular scenery and a huge variety of flora and fauna.
Join me as we wander the hills, moorland, coastlines and glens, and explore the wild beauty of this landscape, one immersive walk at a time.
Reading about nature can reduce stress
One of the main reasons I began writing this newsletter was to help people who are having a stressful day—wherever they are.
We’ve all heard about the mental health benefits of being out in nature, but even just reading about nature can stimulate positive responses—such as calming the autonomic nervous system, reducing in heart rate and blood pressure, and increasing alpha brainwaves (a sign of relaxed alertness). This is because our physiology rarely distinguishes between real and imagined experiences.
Compare this, for example, with our predilection to doom-scrolling or digital over-stimulation. I wanted to provide a calming counterbalance—something contemplative, quiet and intimate, that you can dip into whenever you need it.
So for this reason, I like to render my walks in a way that feels as immersive as possible. I describe the sensations, the sights, the sounds, the scents, in a way that brings a cinematic flavour to the experience—so you can feel you’re right there with me, looking out to sea as the bank of clouds roll inward, or through the thicket of willow scrub, as the bright eye of a robin looks back at you.
Hoping to inspire
Nature surrounds us, even in urban environments, and it is my greatest hope that my writing might inspire people to venture out more often into nature, and have their own adventures wherever they live.
Sometimes, like many skills, we need to be shown the ropes. In my case, I had always liked nature, but had my eyes opened to just how little I knew, when I first met my wife (in fact her very first words to me were “Would you like to see some frogs!”). She knew the names of wildflowers and trees, she recognised the calls of birds, she knew the constellations in the night sky, and it brought a whole new dimension to the natural world. Later, a friend of ours showed us how to read a landscape in geological terms, relating stories and narratives that spanned aeons.
Slowly, I realised that by understanding what I see when I stride out into nature, it brings a vast richness to the experience that would otherwise remain hidden. It is my hope, with this newsletter, to relate to you some of these beautiful stories that weave themselves throughout the landscapes of my island.
So come with me, once a week, and explore. Experience the salty sea breeze on your face, and the bright, lush greens of the Celtic hills; the leafy hollows and the mountain streams. Experience the gentle passing of the seasons, and the wildflowers as they wax and wane. Listen to the buzzards mewing above our heads, or the liquid melodies of the wren, hidden in the undergrowth. Watch the dolphin mother and her child playing in the bay.
It's all there to be discovered, if you'd like to come along for the journey...
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