Ok so I admit it! festivals may not be the most physically healthy place in the world!
Sleep deprivation, lack of food and boogieing until your legs give up does take its toll on the old bod!
However we must take a moment to recognise that wellbeing festivals are on the rise which is amazing to see more people converting from seshing to wholesomeness!
I know that festivals have a positive effect on your mental health and are a gift for the soul because I have experienced it first hand, but I decided to go on the hunt for raw proof 💻 to back me up.
✨ So here's 7 reasons why festivals are good for your mental health… ✨
- Community- A place with an actual community is hard to find these days and festivals create that space so well. 🤝
They teach us something new about our neighbors and strengthen our relationships by bringing people together from all walks of life. The need to gather and experience collective cultural joy feels stronger than ever right now!
💻 Article from ukri.org -
“There is profound symbolic value in the opportunity to experience something together as communities. The value and importance of collective joy or shared euphoria are aspects that are not properly encapsulated within economic impact analysis frameworks. Economic analysis will help us understand how cultural activity may lead into job generation or tourism development but not how it leads to happiness, wellbeing, belonging or creative inspiration. Festivals offer such a platform by condensing our exposure to cultural activities over a specific time and place. This means that festival participants must be present and engage in culture simultaneously with others, which in turn will result in meaningful, often life-defining shared memories. Festivals also offer the opportunity for this collective experience to take place among people that may not otherwise meet or believe they have things in common.”
Ziggy Marley - “festivals can benefit the collective wellbeing, festivals allow us to celebrate & embrace differences. Love doesn’t pick sides, love embraces differences.”
- Music - We all know that music is a healer & the health benefits of listening to live music are shown in studies... 🔊
💻 "We found that going to concerts significantly reduces the levels of the stress hormone cortisol," says Daisy Fancourt, associate professor in epidemiology at University College London.
Julie Ballantyne, of the University of Queensland, has studied the effects on people's wellbeing of music festivals in Australia…
They took saliva samples from people attending a classical and a pop concert to compare stress levels. Both groups were biologically calmer afterwards. That suggests it's more about the event rather than the type of music.
"The experience of being separated from everyday life prompts people to reflect and spend time on themselves and this is important for their wellbeing," says the associate professor of music education.
He says transformational festivals support personal and community growth, offer workshops and health practices and often having a non-religious, spiritual side.💫
- Nature - They say if you spend 20 mins in nature you’ll begin to see a change in your physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing, so a whole weekend outside in the fields/ nature does wonders! 🏕
Grounding refers to the discovery that bodily contact with the Earth reduces inflammation, pain, and stress, improves blood flow, energy, and sleep, and generates greater well-being. 🌲
Being connected to earth actually neutralizes electrical potential, so it decharges us from the busy lives we live. Just like walking barefoot on earth does.
💻 The Japanese art of shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, has been extensively studied. It involves taking in nature through your senses: listening to the sounds, touching natural textures, observing the environment, and smelling a bright floral note or earthy mushroom on the forest floor. 🍄 Research has found the practice can help with everything from depression and anxiety to fatigue and blood pressure.
- Hope - Festivals are a great set up to vision how we could live sustainably, they help us to see a future, a feeling of hope, invoking new ideas to heal the collective after a wholesome weekend. 💭
Even down to the lack of people wanting to shower because they are simply just having too much fun enjoying life, it is a lesson to be learnt and a help to the planet.🌏
Over the past decade, many festivals have been striving to cut their emissions and become more sustainable environmentally. …
And if it's embedded into the mentality of attendees, it can also create a really clean and beautifully kept festival site. 🌲
💻 See in this article how Glastonbury's carbon footprint is actually - 1278 tonnes of cO2
To put this into perspective, if these punters didn’t go to Glastonbury, those same 200,000 fans would, in five days, produce 27,397.26 tonnes of CO2e. 🌱
Shambala Festival absolutely boss 🕺 their leave no trace policy and have won all these awards ⬇️
🌱 The Innovation Award at the 2018 UK Festival Awards, in recognition of pioneering sustainability practices.
🌱 Chris Johnson (Co-founder) was awarded the Green Pioneer 2018 award at the P.E.A Awards – the UK’s leading sustainability awards.
🌱 Creative Green 5 Star Rating 2017 & 2018
🌱 Creative Green Awards 2017 – Best Festival
🌱Creative Green Awards 2017 – Outstanding Achievement Award
🌱 European Festival Awards 2016 – Green Operations Award
🌱 International A Greener Festival Award five times to date
5.No Phone Zone 🚫📱 - If you're lucky enough to have battery left at your festival you probably won't have any signal and definitely no internet!
I know we hate to admit it but we ARE addicted to our phones and most of our self doubt comes from comparisons online so time away from the phone is sacred in itself.
‘Meet at the lake’ is the new ‘meet at the phonebox’🏕
💻 Article from itstimetologof.com -
‘Often you can miss out on having fun with friends because you are too absorbed in your smartphone. When we switched off we found we laughed, talked and even raved far more with our mates, and just generally had a far better time.’
‘Without a fully charged phone, you also can really connect with nature and your surroundings and throw yourself into the whole camping and outdoors experience. It’s also rather nice to feel in a bit of a ‘bubble’ where, just for a few days, the outside world can’t bother you.’
6. Creativity 💫 - The creativity and inspiration that festivals cultivate is incredible, from the music, psychedelic culture, and the weird and wonderful arts installations around the site. To the unique styles of the goers who are just not afraid to be out there. The inventory of some of the festival attire people come up with is an inspiration in itself!👘 It’s fair to say you will leave your festival armed with glitter and heaps of new creative ideas!
💻 Article from veywellmind.com -
“Creativity helps us perceive the world in new and different ways. It helps us create works of beauty, problem solve, and refresh our bodies and our minds. It's fun, and when you are having fun, you are positively impacting your health. Expressing yourself through artistic and creative activities is like a prescription for your mental health. Turning to creativity has been proven in extensive research to relieve both stress and anxiety. Creativity also helps lessen the shame, anger, and depression felt by those who have experienced trauma. Creativity puts you in a flow state. This is an excellent and often euphoric state to be in. In this state, we are more mindful and relaxed. This allows us to feel more positive and brings a sense of accomplishment. People who experience flow report higher levels of creativity, productivity and happiness.”
7. FREEDOM - For us festival junkies it's our freedom, a moment to escape from the real world, our opportunity for liberation, a world outside the confines of day to day life.
💻 Shambalafestival.org -
“ We are 100% independent and will always be so. This means being free of any external agendas or demands, advertising and branding and mindless consumerism. Being independent means we can concentrate on making unbiased decisions that will benefit our community and, hopefully, society as a whole.”
So there we have it, Raw proof that festivals are fabulous for your mental health and well-being!
📿 What I love about the principles that festivals bring to our wellbeing is that they are very similar to the principles of yoga philosophy. 📿
Every time we practice YOGA we are strengthening those principles, bringing that soul hugging festival feeling to life outside of festival season ✨
