Touch grass, literally: Explore why walking therapy is on the rise

Walking is my salvation. Vigorous solo walks through Griffith Park are both my go-to exercise and meditations-in-motion. I regularly “walk the day off” there, or stroll around the Silver Lake reservoir after work to unwind. I don’t listen to music or podcasts or even the news. Instead, I tune into my rhythmic footsteps and the medley of background noise from squawking birds, yapping passersby and whooshing traffic. It’s soothing.

But when a family member’s health took a turn for the worse recently — involving a flight home and endless follow-up tasks — I didn’t have the time to walk anymore, when I needed it the most. Then I learned about walking therapy, or “walk-and-talks,” a mental health modality that’s becoming increasingly popular. I was intrigued.

So it came to be that I found myself walking a lush, wooded trail with psychotherapist Ismary Colón Angueira, an L.A.-based ecotherapist specializing in walking therapy. She agreed to take me on a one-time walk to illustrate how the practice works, particularly how she draws on nature when in conversation with clients (of which I am not one).

Participants are encouraged to touch the natural elements, to promote mindfulness.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“Let’s take a moment,” she said, stopping at the entrance to the Ferndell Nature Trail in Griffith Park. “Just to say hello, greet the trail.”

It was a cool, rainy morning and the trail, mostly deserted, smelled fresh and funky, like wet moss, gloopy mud and damp leaves. An adjacent creek swelled with rushing water. She pointed out enormous lily pads speckled with glistening rainwater droplets.

Colón Angueira’s walks typically begin with this sort of grounding exercise, she explained, helping clients slow down and become more aware of their surroundings. Walk-and-talks are particularly helpful for anxious clients, she says, “especially fast thinkers and fast talkers.”

Walking side by side is key to the practice. “It really takes down the therapist-client hierarchy,” she says. “We’re entering the terrain together.” Clients who might feel “examined” or pressured to talk when face-to-face with their therapist indoors, she adds, often feel more comfortable opening up walking side by side. And being in nature, in general, offers perspective.

“Walking therapy helps with de-centering ourselves a little,” she says. “So much of therapy is about ourselves. But there’s also this healthy invitation to realize we’re a part of something else, this bigger system, and you can see yourself reflected in nature.”

Walking therapy is not new. It’s a type of ecotherapy — or nature-based therapy — which involves working with a trained mental health professional in the outdoors. That could take the form of equine-assisted therapy, working with horses; horticultural therapy, involving plant-based activities; or forest bathing, a mindfulness practice drawing on the different senses while immersed in nature. Or even surf therapy.

There’s ample research on the physical and mental health benefits of both spending time in nature and of walking. Being in nature lowers cortisol levels, reduces blood pressure, increases mental acuity and helps assuage depression and anxiety; walking, a form of bilateral stimulation, also calms the central nervous system, regulates blood glucose, increases heart and bone health, all while burning calories.

Sigmund Freud, considered the father of psychology, used to take his clients for a walk. The practice is on the rise.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

But walking therapy is still considered a novel form of therapy, says psychologist Maz Miller, co-founder of the educational platform walkandtalktherapy.com. However, that’s changing.

“Walk and talk therapy goes back to Freud, the father of psychology — he used to take his clients for a walk,” Miller says. “But he never formalized it as a therapy treatment. Nobody has. Now it’s taking off, it’s definitely rising.”

Miller says the reasons for its rise are twofold: “Therapists were dealing with an increase in mental health issues during COVID at a time when there were strict guidelines about seeing people indoors,” she says. “Also, there’s just a growing awareness of the benefits of being in nature and moving our bodies. Combining that makes sense.”

For Colón Angueira, every walk-and-talk involves three parties: the therapist, the client and Mother Nature. The natural environment is very much an active participant in therapy sessions. Every sight, smell and sound — even felt texture — may shape the conversation, shift mood, or spark an insight.

Sometimes clients find answers to issues they’re struggling with in nature imagery.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

A dead animal seen on the trail might trigger fear; a fallen tree or decaying leaves, grief. A chattering squirrel or darting bunny might distract or call up a distant memory. How clients orient themselves to nature — “how fast can I walk, how many mountain peaks can I conquer?” Colón Angueira says — plays a role, as does the terrain itself. Steepness, for example, may trigger doubt or self-consciousness. It’s also helpful for processing anger.

“How people interact with what’s in front of them often becomes part of the conversation,” she says.

Weather presents both challenges and opportunities. The recent heat waves were difficult to walk in, Colón Angueira says. And there were safety considerations, like making sure clients had sufficient water and a hat. Rain can be problematic, especially considering it’s often difficult to hear each other talk under umbrellas.

“But if a client says, ‘I think this is too hot for me’ and requests a change, we’re then celebrating that they could ask for what they needed. You don’t have to endure hardships.”

Over the course of our walk, to provoke mindfulness, we stroke velvety flower petals; we intentionally inhale the scent of fresh pine, post-rain; we sit on an enormous gnarled tree root, running our hands over the bark — it’s rough, but still holds us.

A stranger passes by, intruding momentarily on our conversation. Privacy is a consideration on walk-and-talks (what if you run into someone you know during therapy?); but the feeling of being exposed can also be an invitation to explore.

“Did you feel something in your nervous system?” Colón Angueira asks, after the park employee passes. “How does that feel?”

Nature may even provide clients with answers they couldn’t find on their own. Once, Colón Angueira was walking with a client who was struggling to define the appropriate distance she wanted with family members. Then she came upon a cluster of plants, spaced apart, and said: “That’s it!”

During a walk-and-talk, everything factors into the therapy, including the weather and terrain.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Colón Angueira seeks out such imagery to probe conversation.

“Oh, look,” she says on our walk, pointing to the entwined branches of a nearby pine and sycamore tree.

We had been discussing blended families, so we take in the obvious parallel.

Then we enjoy a moment of silence. The wind rustles the tree leaves and crows circle above, caw-cawing. The silence feels comfortable in this setting.

“Bringing people back into relationship with nature,” Colón Angueira says, “is the bigger point of all this. In my ideal world, my clients continue walking after they stop seeing me. And they reconnect to this relationship with place. Being in nature is our birthright. It’s something that everybody has access to. And it’s healing.”

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