The healing power of flowers: What it's like to be a natural health practitioner
From reducing stress to boosting mood, spending time surrounded by nature can offer many benefits to our physical and mental wellbeing.
As a child Hayley Merrick would spend hours outside playing with flowers and making her own 'perfumes'.
In her teenage years, she became interested in natural healing but chose to follow a more conventional path by training as a nurse.
Hayley went on to work in intensive care and surgical wards before commencing a career in occupational health nursing.
Working across various industries, Hayley, who lives in Eccleshall, saw many people who were experiencing tension, low mood or stress.
She says she noticed how often they struggled to gain the support they needed from conventional medicine, leading to lengthy absences, which further deteriorated their wellbeing.
When Hayley experienced a stressful period in her own job in 2012, she found herself turning back to natural therapies as a way of unwinding.
"It made me realise I had become disconnected from the things I enjoyed from my childhood like nature.
"I was working a lot of night shifts and 14-hour days and was going days and days without being in nature or seeing the seasons."
Hayley, who now works as a natural health practitioner, trained in reiki and reflexology and began feeling the benefits of the holistic treatments.
