Believe it or not, a walk in the rain might be the secret weapon you need.
We Brits often moan about the rain. Well, we get a lot of it. But we should learn to love being out in wet weather, says Matt Gaw – it’s scientifically proven to boost your mood
I remember seeing the rain coming. Slipping down the steep fell in sheets, in great greasy ribbons. Undulating. Curving. Rippling over rocks and flashing light and dark, striped like a mackerel. I watched it moving in roving, quick-eyed, hungry-mouthed shoals, closer. Closer.
There was sound, too. A growing shush that reminded me of the murmuration I watch every year over the valley fen; a mass of birds that expand and contract in a billowing black pulse of wing beats and fluttering hearts. So many the air shakes with them. Fizzes.
And then I wasn’t thinking about the starlings anymore. I wasn’t looking at the rain nor listening or thinking about anything – I was in it. I recall that there was a moment of shrinking away from it, of lowering my head, squinting; all the things we do to make ourselves physically smaller and escape the sensation of rain, before I reminded myself that I had come here for just this purpose: to get rained on in the wettest inhabited place in the UK.
Looking back now, I understand that driving for eight hours to Seathwaite in Cumbria to seek out the kind of weather usually written off as the worst thing possible – “well, at least it isn’t raining” – might seem eccentric. I get it. I’ve read the books, seen those films where the skies weep, raindrops stick to windows and slide down the glass like tears. Rain is metaphor for mood and misery. It is damp and dour. Soaking and sombre. It is the rain on our parade; it is the pantomime villain’s sibilant lisp.
There is little sadness in the rain. In fact, it feels like the opposite. There’s a lightness, a joy in experiencing something fundamental about the world.
But, following a summer that never seemed to let go, causing heat to ratchet to record-breaking, spit-sizzling heights and lurk like a physical presence long after sundown, I started to dream of rain and I resolved to not just brave ‘inclement’ weather but to actively seek it out and enjoy it: to explore and understand where weather comes from, how it transforms light and mood, how it shapes landscapes, language and, well… us.
Walking, running and swimming in rain – whether a heatwave-breaking storm, a shower, the downpour over Cumbrian crags, or a drizzle – has shown me that, contrary to cultural tropes, there is little sadness in the rain. In fact, it feels like the opposite. There’s a lightness, a joy in experiencing something fundamental about the world.
It is a feeling backed up by science. Because when the clouds burst, there is something other than water in the air. Negative ions are atmospheric molecules charged with electricity. They are most abundant by rivers, beaches and mountains, where air molecules are broken up by moving water. They are found near breaking waves, by waterfalls and they are there, too, when it rains.
These negative ions, which are breathed in, transferred to blood and brain, have been linked with biochemical changes that impact positively on mental health. A 2013 review of scientific literature published between 1957 and 2012 found that negative ions could have therapeutic effects on depression. In short, while we might associate wet weather with gloom and noir and misery, being out in the rain can actually boost our mood.
They also recognised that to be out when it was raining made it possible to see the transition in weather – to see and feel how everything in this life is changing and dynamic.
Dorothy and William Wordsworth were no strangers to walking in the Cumbrian rain – whether it was ‘yukken it down’ or ‘stotting’ (raining so hard it bounces off hard surfaces). They found beauty in ‘soft rain’ and the movement of showers from hill to hill that was no “less grateful to the eye” than “interwoven passages of gay and sad music”. They also recognised that to be out when it was raining made it possible to see the transition in weather – to see and feel how everything in this life is changing and dynamic.
Perhaps this all feels too Romantic. So there is at least one other advantage of heading out in all weathers – you’ll probably have the place to yourself in all its wild and wet wonder.
Find out more about the healing power of nature
For more inspiration, check out creative ways to connect with nature and Ellie Harrison: how nature has the power to heal. For day’s out ideas, we have guides to the Brtiain’s best poetry walks and Ellie Harrison: How the poetry of the Pennines connects us to wild places. And if you’re a weather-buff, we have a comprehensive guide to predicting the weather forecast using clouds.