What Is Rewilding? And how do you know if you need to be rewilded?

In a world that rewards constant productivity, perfection, and performance, many women are silently burning out. You might be one of them. I was. In today’s fast-paced world, many women struggle with chronic stress, burnout, and a profound sense of disconnection. Disconnection to your body, emotions, and even your joy. If you often feel exhausted yet wired, overwhelmed but unfulfilled, or like you’re living life solely in your head, you’re not alone.

This is where rewilding for women comes in. It is a powerful, holistic approach to healing and reconnecting with your natural self.

What Is Rewilding?

Originally a term from ecology that refers to restoring natural habitats and ecosystems, rewilding has become a metaphor and practice for humans, especially women, to return to their natural rhythms and reclaim their innate vitality.

Rewilding your body and mind means:

• Reconnecting with your body’s wisdom and innate cues

• Honouring your natural rhythms, including your sleep, energy, and hormonal cycles

• Slowing down and moving out of chronic stress and “survival mode”

• Letting go of societal pressures, unrealistic productivity demands, and perfectionism

• Engaging with nature and the seasons

At its core, rewilding is about breaking free from the constant grind and rediscovering your authentic self through nourishing, science-backed, and nature-based practices.

Why Rewilding matters: The science

As a Nutritionist I want to support women in creating lasting, meaningful change. Here are some of the key reasons the idea of Rewilding is beneficial:

1. Nervous System Regulation: From Stress to Rest

Modern life overstimulates the sympathetic nervous system and sends us into fight or flight mode. This over prolonged time can lead to elevated cortisol, our stress hormone, anxiety, poor digestion, and hormonal imbalances. Rewilding encourages the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system which is our rest and digest mode, this in turn can:

• Lower cortisol levels

• Improve digestion and nutrient absorption

• Enhance sleep quality

• Support hormone balance

• Build emotional resilience

Through mindful movement, breathwork, nutrition, nature immersion, and behavioural tools, rewilding can support your nervous system to feel safe and calm.

2. Hormonal and metabolic balance

Stress and disconnection often disrupt our circadian rhythms and hormonal cycles, which include both menstrual and adrenal health. By honouring natural rhythms, such as eating intuitively and with the season, sleeping according to your body’s needs, and syncing with daylight, rewilding helps restore:

• Balanced blood sugar and energy levels

• Improved gut health and microbiome diversity

• Better menstrual cycle health and PMS symptoms

3. Intuitive nutrition and gut-brain connection

What you eat affects your mood, energy, and cognitive function. Rewilding encourages a return to intuitive and mindful eating practices that respect your body’s hunger and fullness signals rather than following rules around food or restrictions. Supporting your gut-brain axis with nutrient-dense, minimally processed foods helps reduce inflammation and improve mental clarity.

4. Emotional healing and behaviour change

Modern life often pulls us away from our natural rhythms, disconnecting us from our instincts, emotions, and deeper values. Long-term stress, conditioned habits, and internalised expectations create barriers to meaningful change. A Rewilding approach to behaviour change explores how to:

• Uncover and release conditioned patterns that no longer serve you

• Reconnect with your innate capacity for emotional regulation and resilience

• Cultivate habits that align with your core values

• Recognise and shift unhelpful stress and coping patterns

• Rediscover joy, spontaneity, and creativity as essential parts of wellbeing

• Reconnect with joy, spontaneity, and creativity

How do you know if you need Rewilding?

If you answer yes to any of these questions, then maybe you would benefit from beginning a Rewilding journey:

• Do you often feel disconnected from who you truly are or unsure of what you really want?

• Do you find yourself going through the motions of daily life without feeling much joy, passion, or presence?

• Are you frequently overwhelmed, burnt out, or exhausted from holding everything together?

• Do you tend to put others' needs ahead of your own, even when it costs you your energy or truth?

• Have you lost touch with your creativity or the things that make you feel most alive?

• Do you regularly struggle with self-criticism, perfectionism, or feeling like you’re not good enough?

• Do you feel a longing for more freedom, space, or connection to nature and your instinctual self?

• Do you often ignore or override your body’s signals, such as tiredness, hunger, emotion, or intuition?

Who Is Rewilding For?

Rewilding is especially beneficial for women who:

• Are high achievers, perfectionists, or caregivers burning out quietly

• Experience chronic stress, adrenal fatigue, or hormonal imbalances

• Feel disconnected from the natural world

• Crave a gentler, more nourishing way to live fully

How to start Rewilding today

You don’t need to escape your life or overhaul everything overnight. Rewilding begins with small acts of remembering who you are beneath all the noise, pressure, and conditioning. Here are gentle ways to start reconnecting with your natural self today:

Step outside

Make it a daily ritual to spend time outdoors, whether it’s barefoot walks on the grass, sitting under a tree, gardening, or simply breathing fresh air. Let the natural world remind your nervous system that you belong. Even a few minutes of nature connection can lower stress, regulate emotions, and awaken your senses.

Eat in rhythm with your body

Rather than following rigid food rules, try listening to your body’s natural cues for hunger, fullness, and nourishment. Rewilding nutrition is a return to whole, seasonal, and unprocessed foods that nourish both body and planet. It’s about trusting your body’s wisdom, honouring ancestral rhythms, and choosing nourishment that supports vitality, not just survival. Choose whole seasonal foods when possible, and eat with presence and not punishment.

Unplug

Set boundaries with digital devices. Try a few hours, or if you can, a whole 24 hours without screens. Notice how your mind and body respond when you create space for stillness, boredom, or play. Constant stimulation from our screens dulls your inner voice. Rewilding on the other hand, invites it back.

Journal to hear your inner voice

Give yourself 5–10 minutes a day to check in with yourself through writing. What are you feeling? What do you need? What wants to be expressed?

Rest without having “earned it"

Lie down when you're tired. Nap if you need to. Go to bed early. Cancel something. Rewilding means rejecting the myth that your worth depends on your productivity. REMEMBER, Nature rests in cycles and seasons, you are both allowed to and need to.

Start Small. Stay Honest. Stay Wild.

Rewilding isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about stripping away what isn’t you, and reconnecting with what’s been waiting underneath all along.

Ready to Rewild?

Rewilding is not about perfection or escaping life’s demands; it’s about reclaiming your energy, your joy, and your presence amidst the chaos. And building resilience

If you’re ready to slow down, listen deeply to your body, and restore your natural vitality, join us for the next Rewilding Retreat—a nurturing one-day pause to let go of the busyness and drop into stillness - this is a space to come home to yourself, explore what you need most, and realign with your natural rhythm.

Stay wild

Katie xx