The Wild Fix: Anna Deacon on Nature, Wellbeing and Finding Your Way Back to Wild

A photographer, author and passionate advocate for the restorative power of nature, Anna Deacon has been a friend of Meander for many years. We’ve welcomed her for book signings in our store, shared her love of wild swimming and the outdoors, and stocked her beautifully photographed books exploring Scotland’s landscapes, waters and wild places. So, when we heard that Anna was turning her attention to a subject that has been woven through all of her work, the powerful relationship between nature and our wellbeing, we couldn’t wait to hear more.

Her new book, The Wild Fix Scotland: Feel-Good Living Inspired by Nature, brings together ancient wisdom, modern scientific research and Anna’s stunning photography to explore the many ways the natural world can help us find calm, balance and connection. With The Wild Fix Scotland launching earlier this month, we caught up with Anna to talk about her journey from her first book "Taking The Plunge", to her first solo book, why Scotland provides the perfect backdrop for exploring our relationship with nature, and the simple “wild fixes” she turns to in her own everyday life.

I’m a photographer and author and I live in Edinburgh with my husband, two teenage kids and our labrador Willow. I worked in the music industry in London for a long time before switching up to photography and then 10 years ago we moved to Edinburgh to live nearer my parents. I’m a big lover of nature and the outdoors, but also of everything to do with wellbeing. 

In 2018 I was introduced to Vicky Allan, who is a writer at the Herald, as I was doing a photography project on the wild swimmers I was meeting while I was swimming myself. I started taking their portraits while we were in the water together and finding out their stories. Vicky and I then collaborated together to pitch this as a book idea, and in 2019 our first book Taking The Plunge came out. We then had a series of books including The Art Of Wild Swimming Scotland and For The Love Of Trees. 

Throughout these books I was researching the different ways that nature can help our wellbeing, and it was then that a kernel of an idea came about and that research led to my new, and first solo book The Wild Fix Scotland. This is my 9^th book now which is pretty crazy, as before 2018 I had never even dreamed of publishing a book! 

I think it was mostly because I was keen to share different content and not be sort of pigeonholed into only writing about wild swimming. I still love wild swimming of course, but I didn’t want that to be my whole identity as there is so much else I want to write/talk about and share images of. I think its good sometimes to shake things up and make changes even though it can feel quite daunting in the moment. I also knew that my new book was coming out and thought the name could reflect that. 

I’ve always been a real nature lover, and as a child I used to love nothing more than to explore in the Cairngorms, spotting wildlife and making dens and playing outside. Nature is the most amazing playground for a kid! I think over my late teens I fell out of the habit of spending time in nature, but when I moved to London aged 18 I remember feeling extremely panicky one night realising I couldn’t see a horizon or even a tree from my window and it made me crave wild spaces. 

My parents lived in Kingussie in the Cairngorms so I was able to go up and visit as much as possible, and I remember so clearly the feeling of relief getting off the train into that sweet highland air and just knowing I was back to a place where I felt calmer and more aligned with myself. I think having children was another point where spending more time in nature was great for them and for me, I wanted to instill a real love of nature into them too. Over the last few years there has been lots of difficult times and we have lost loved ones, and dealt with a lot of stress, and in those moments I know I need to lean into nature all the more as it is always there that I find my peace. 

I think that it is the book I always wanted to write. Firstly, I love researching the ancient customs and how our ancestors lived their lives so aligned with nature. I also love learning about nature myself and knew anecdotally how much spending time in nature helped me, and others to feel better. But I knew I would need to delve into the science to really explore why this was. So the book is a sort of handbook of all the amazing ways that spending time in nature can benefit us, and how that works. It has loads of images I’ve taken of Scotland over the years, and is sectioned into the elements of fire, water, air & earth. I have all sorts in there from forest bathing, wild saunas, wild swimming, grounding, star gazing, circadian rhythms, gut health, birdsong and so much more. There are also things like little guides as to how to forest bathe and where in Scotland is a good place to go, and how to practice mindful photography etc. Hopefully people will find it a little handbook to wellbeing that is easy to dip in and out of and hopefully inspire them to spend more time in nature. 

I think we are more nature depleted now than ever before, in fact a survey completed very recently by the Wildlife Trust found over half of the adults questioned spent less than 3 hours a week outdoors in a natural setting such as a garden, park or woodland, compared with their childhoods when they were outside more than half of their free time. The same goes for children who are spending less time outdoors in natural settings than ever before which is even more worrying. At the same time we are facing a burnout crisis in the UK, with a recent report from Mental Health UK noting that 1 in 5 workers reported needing to take time off work for mental health issues caused by stress. We are chronically ‘ON’ and have almost forgotten how to switch off, the 24/7 nature of phones, emails and working from home means that it is harder than ever to draw a line and find time to rest and recover. Our nervous systems are designed to go in and out of our sympathetic (fight or flight) state, and parasympathetic (rest & digest) state, but we are living in an age where being constantly on the go means we don’t switch into our calmer nervous system as much as we should. One of the most effective ways to do this is to spend time in a natural setting, although I’m very keen to get across that this doesn’t mean you have to take a whole day to hike a munro and wild camp or something that perhaps isn’t acheiveable, but simply sitting on a park bench and watching a tree, or gazing at clouds for a moment can trigger your body to relax. So I think the idea of the book is trying to suggest ways we can tune into these nature moments in our every day lives to help us find more balance, calm, connection and creativity. I’ve delved deeply into the science behind it all, but also some of our incredible ancient customs and traditions which have so much wisdom that can still be applied today. 

I think it shocked me how little time in general people are spending outside, and actually how so many of us are so disconnected that we are starting to lose our knowledge of nature that has been passed down the generations for millenia. After all, if you don’t know what nature is and can do for you and you for it, why would you feel the need to protect it? I remember reading the beautiful book ‘The Lost Words’ by Robert McFarlane and Jackie Morris which they produced as a response to so many nature words like ‘bluebell’, ‘acorn’ and ‘kingfisher’ being removed from children’s dictionaries and being replaced by words like ‘broadband’ and ‘voicemail’, and feeling galvanised to ensure that I knew as many birds, plants, trees and flowers as I could, and to also teach my children. I realised that as a child, I had spent many many hours reading books about nature, and outside in nature and as an adult much of that had been sort of filed in the dusty enclaves of my brain, so I have been making a real effort to learn more myself and in doing so hopefully inspire others to do the same. 

I have been fascinated by the biohacking trend of tracking and measuring our wellbeing and finding ‘hacks’ to improve our health and wellbeing, red light therapy being one that is super popular with face masks for anti ageing, and red panels to help with pain relief, anti inflammation etc. However this same red light therapy can be found by sitting and watching the sun rise or set, or sitting and watching a fire which is really what our ancestors would have been doing daily. Forest bathing, eating seasonally, grounding, cold water plunges etc, all would have been just the usual day to day for our ancestors but now these are getting some serious scientific research and the discoveries about just how good this is for us is on one hand surprising, and the other hand perhaps inevitable. We evolved after all to live in tune with nature’s cycles and experience discomfort to build resilience, and now in these modern times we don’t observe these cycles and we aren’t really experiencing discomfort or extremes which in a measured way are so good for us. 

Apart from being my home and the place I know and love the best, it is an incredible place to experience nature, and just utterly stunning so provided no end of inspiration for both words and images. We are also so fortunate here with the Scottish Outdoor Access Code in that we really are able to explore pretty much every inch of the land, we really are quite a unique country in that sense. However, although the book is set in Scotland, the content of the book really is applicable to anyone, anywhere. 

I really hope that readers will feel they have learnt at least a couple of things they maybe didn’t know before, and also find some easy ways to incorporate nature into their every day and that it really has a measurable effect on their wellbeing.

I’m an early bird, so I absolutely love an early morning dog walk in nature. I love exploring the wilder places in Scotland, but I also love just wandering the cycle paths and riverside walks here in Edinburgh. Taking my camera with me allows me to slow down and take some photos along the way, and having the Merlin bird app helps me to identify which birds are singing too which is so rewarding. It is a great way to get a decent bit of exercise and headspace before the working day begins and just to appreciate the nature all around us. 

My heart has always been in the Cairngorms, my happiest childhood memories were spent there and it’s a place that has always felt like home, and I think always will. For me there is a deep sense of belonging and calm when I am there, and I find the landscape so utterly beautiful. I love walking along the rivers, through the forests and around the lochs. I couldn’t choose one specific place as there are so many special place there with happy memories attached. 

A big thank you to Anna for taking the time to chat to us and we wish her a massive congratulations on the book. If you'd like a copy of The Wild Fix, you can get your hands on one here. We highly recommend you give Anna a follow on Instagram here if you'd like to keep up with her journey.