Introduction by Jim Parums

Contributors: Mila Wood, Joel Young, Claire Bates

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I have always maintained that foraging is for everyone. Much like any outdoor pursuit, it should be possible for people from all backgrounds, ethnicities, abilities and age to take part in what is fundamentally about finding food but in reality so much more - I have waxed lyrical about how good foraging is for mental and physical wellbeing, and I find that people for whom gathering wild food has become their passion do it because they enjoy the mindful nature of what they are doing. It’s less about the plate and more about the process. Personally, I find myself drawn to the hedgerows and coastlines in the same way a runner or meditator might need their daily fix, feeling the need to reset, align one’s thoughts and generally clear the head.

It is with this notion that I have put this piece together. It would be very easy for me to produce another article based on my own experiences, but what about hearing from those whose brain perhaps does not function in the same way as mine? It has long been a running observation in the professional foraging world that there are more ADHD and neurodivergent diagnoses per capita in our little sector, so why are so many ‘neuro-spicy’ (not my phrase!) people drawn to foraging? To find out more, I asked three Forage Box tutors to write down their feelings on the matter. 

What you are about to read is three very personal accounts from three excellent human beings. I have deliberately not edited, tweaked or even suggested what the content should be (I’ve not even edited the format they sent their contributions in, so as to maintain authenticity) beyond hoping that each individual shares their thoughts on the relationship between neurodivergency and foraging. I hope each account offers you an interesting perspective, whether you are neurotypical, neurodivergent or not quite sure.

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Mila

‍www.instagram.com/milasapothecary

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I was drawn to foraging because I realised when I’m exploring in the woods and fields I can just exist. There are no unspoken social cues to pick up on or hours spent afterwards agonising on what I did or didn’t say. So much of my life has been spent masking in social situations and feeling so drained afterwards, trying so hard to have the “right” facial expression or body language, and becoming overwhelmed in certain spaces due to sensory overload. Being surrounded by trees, mushrooms, plants, insects and birds was, and still is, a balm for my brain. 

When I’m foraging I can get into that flow state and my brain switches off. Being a respectful (and safe!) forager means picking one leaf or flower at a time instead of grabbing fistfuls of plants. This slow, intentional, repetitive action calms me down, the otherwise never-ending chatter in my brain ceases and I get lost in the task. It’s like meditation for me, a practice I could never get to grips with previously. 

I’ve spoken with my fellow ADHD foraging friends before about how finding a mushroom in the woods is a natural high, just as rewarding as other dopamine-seeking behaviours. The heightened risk of addictive behaviours amongst people with ADHD has been well studied, we may struggle more with impulse control and seek out easy, quick dopamine hits because our brains may have lower levels of dopamine. With foraging it’s a continuous thrill when you find what you’ve been searching for. No matter if it’s my first amethyst deceiver or my hundredth amethyst deceiver, the pure joy and novelty of discovering one doesn’t wear off. 

There are definitely advantages to having ADHD as a forager. I’ll never want to stop educating myself about plants and mushrooms because these topics never get boring for me, and when I hyperfixate on something, I really go down the rabbit hole of learning more about it. I notice patterns easily which is good for my ID skills, I pick up on the finer details so I often spot something curious in the distance to go and investigate, and I’m always up for a treasure hunt so it’s a hobby I stick to consistently. 

In terms of my ADHD being a hindrance, it can feel like I’ve already received the reward before I’ve finished the task or activity. Getting back home from a foraging walk and realising I need to wash, dry, chop and cook a plant can end up feeling like a chore I can’t complete. It’s impossible to leave it till the next day because I know the plants will end up festering in the fridge, out of sight, out of mind. I always have so many ideas and I want to try them all, but is it realistic for me to turn what I’ve found into wine, pickles, cake, herbal remedies, sauces and dinner too? Probably not. So I’ve learned to harvest little and often and pick one or two ideas to try out, except on the rare days when I have the capacity to transform kilos of nettle tops into everything you could possibly imagine. 

I remember when I was at uni my male housemates would invite guys over to our living room sofa to play videogames and I was so envious of how they could bond in a social situation without any pressure. Back then if I wanted to make friends it meant going out for drinks, which typically left me feeling so depleted. Now I ask like-minded people if they want to come foraging with me! Thanks to social media and running walks with Forage Box I’ve found other people in the foraging community to connect with, both online and in person. It can be as easy as commenting on someone’s post or sending them a message and building up a relationship that way. I became “instagram friends” with a forager and one day she invited me over to forage in her local woodland and make mugwort beer, I ended up staying at her home for three days because we got on so well. 

There seem to be a lot of neurodiverse foragers and that doesn’t come as a surprise to me, given how our brains seek out rewarding, exciting, spontaneous and nervous system regulating activities - everything that foraging can be. I often tell people on my foraging walks that learning to forage was the best thing I ever did, and I really mean that. 

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Joel

www.instagram.com/letsgoforaging

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Growing up I would have considered myself neurotypical. My younger sister did not speak

until she was four. A diagnosis of Autism was given early on and suddenly the repetition of the same film 50 days in a row and sensory meltdowns in the rain, as water touched her skin, suddenly made sense. Growing up together, I felt very lucky in how I saw the world.

She hated change whereas I found novelty in something different. Too many voices were overwhelming, rather than a spread of focus points to dip in and out of. Compared to my sister growing up, struggling in a loud and bright world, I felt lucky. It was a while into my schooling days that I reflected on this more and found that whilst I was different from my sibling, my mind also worked very differently from the apparent ‘normal’ of my peers.

A lime tree boulevard lined the street outside my primary school. Wafting bright green tipped arms outside of the window, I have various memories of being asked the same thing in different ways: was the squirrel darting between the branches outside more important than what was being taught on the board? I would agree consciously, knowing my learning and time in class was important. But as soon as a flash of grey jumped its branch again, my head would turn similarly quick, hooked automatically by the vibrancy of life in motion.

Disappointed glances from the teacher would be met with my own frustrated inability for

sedentary learning. I indeed could focus but never on one thing; it would always spread out to other stimuli passed what it should have been centred on. I felt inadequately unlike my friends. My mind darted about like the squirrel from branch to branch and it rarely found a place in classrooms that valued attentiveness and efficiency.

There was one place I found ease though. Outside in the garden, woods or fields it felt like I was allowed to let my mind wander and for my brain to snag on one thing after the next. I was never told off for noticing. Organic moments and sounds that vowed for my attention unfolded unashamed against where my mind ‘should’ have been. I felt like an evolutionary misfit. These natural potentials for investigation always registered more like opportunities in a way the modern world’s beeps and screens never did. At first it frustrated me; the contradiction that I could not pick out key details from my school books but would always be first to spot the mushroom ahead on a walk, unable to think of anything else before it was properly investigated. I remember even as a youngster wishing hard that I could somehow bring my ‘wood walk’ frame of mind to the rest of my wider life. Eight thoughts all at once are rarely useful in day to day life. However, weighing up observations, memories from past seasons and similar environments as well as habitat differences and recent weather influences concurrently could be very useful when I wanted a handful of the juiciest blackberries on offer during summer.

As I got older I learned more about ADHD. A formal diagnosis felt pointless when each friend or family member I brought it up to proclaimed, without hesitation, that they thought that “I knew already”. It frustrated me that I had been unaware and so I learned more. I learned about the role of dopamine in the ADHD brain and how information was processed. I was reassured somewhat, as amongst many other things, it made sense of the afternoons where time melted away as I went between plants and mushrooms, time drifting like it never did elsewhere. Keen to explore novelty and seek rewards, this was not some dreamy ‘flow state’ but my own experience of hyperfocus - the flip side to inattentiveness. The oversensitivity I had punished myself for in the past was exactly the same thing that made me instantly aware of the twig snap underfoot or distant bird bursting into song. Whilst outdoors, rather than pulling me away from the moment I experienced, individual occurrences contributed to a greater sense of the whole as chaotic as that may be. My gaze may shift to the canopy rather than the route ahead and before I consciously name it Oak, excitement floods my chest as memories of Boletes around tree bases, from years before, spark their possibility automatically in the recesses of my mind. These points that could be considered distraction instead highlight the interconnected potential of unforced lateral thinking, rather than the usual barrage of the abstract and unconnected. A sensory hyper awareness feels advantageous when the constant navigation through a plethora of inputs has the potential to lead you to some tasty dinner.

As I have met more and more people who share this love of the natural world, I have noticed a shared sense of relief in foraging as an activity. A ‘scattered’ mind can be cast like a net rather than an encumbrance to the experience of searching for wild foods. It is in the woods and wild places our brains can find peace amidst the onslaught of awareness and like the squirrel jumping from branch to branch, the ADHD mind may dart around freely.

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Claire

www.instagram.com/tiliayogandnature

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Neurodivergence, Foraging & Finding My Path Back to Nature

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Why is it important to talk about neurodiversity? Well, let me share my story.

Only about 18 months ago, I received an ADHD diagnosis. It was a lightbulb moment — suddenly, so many things made sense. Why I struggled with admin. Why I found it almost impossible to sit still indoors. Why I was constantly bouncing between jobs that never seemed to fit.

I never imagined I’d end up leading foraging walks, guiding others through the hedgerows, sourcing wild food, connecting with the land. That would have sounded so far removed from the life I thought I was supposed to live — the one with a "proper" career after university.

But looking back, the signs were always there.

I studied video and broadcasting at university — a creative degree that suited my dyslexic, imaginative brain. For my final project, I chose to make a film about youth conservation. And while I told myself it was about the documentary, what really lit me up was being outside, filming young people working with nature. I kept making excuses to be out there. That’s when something clicked.

What was it about nature that drew me in so much?

It was sensory. It was primal. It was grounding.
The smell of earth.
The feel of bark under my hands.
The rhythm of conservation work — chopping trees, laying dead hedges, rebuilding dry stone walls.
I was learning about habitat management, but more than that — I was remembering something ancient. I was reconnecting with something wild and true.

After university, I volunteered with conservation charities while struggling to hold down paid work. Minimum wage roles came and went — gym receptionist, admin assistant. I did my best, but people quickly grew frustrated with me, and it broke my confidence over and over again. At the time, I didn’t understand what was happening. I just thought I was useless.

But there was one place I didn’t feel judged: nature. And so I kept volunteering, learning, growing. Eventually, I did a BTEC Diploma in Countryside Management and started applying for community traineeships. After 10 interviews, I landed a role at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh.

Ironically, it was the one I least wanted — the most intimidating. A world full of scientists, botanists, people who seemed nothing like me. But I took the leap.

I was lucky to have an incredible mentor, Max Coleman — a PhD botanist who welcomed me without judgment. It wasn’t easy. I struggled with the academic content and didn’t finish the botany course. It knocked my confidence again. But I never gave up — because I loved nature too much.

And then something magical happened.

John Wright and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall came to the Botanics for a wild food cooking roadshow. I was blown away. Their joy, their passion — I could feel the fire inside me light up. I saw food being picked and prepared right there in the gardens. It felt ancient and alive and right.

Later, another forager, Miles Irving, visited — funnily enough, from my own hometown in Kent. We went out picking wild food and preparing breakfast from the land. I was hooked.

From there, I began collecting books on wild herbs, learning their medicinal uses, working with local communities (like the Nepalese community in Edinburgh) to connect them with the plants around them. I didn’t even realize how much I was absorbing — I was just following my curiosity.

That’s the thing about ADHD — when something grabs your interest, it grabs you. My hyperfocus on nature, plants, healing… it grew and grew. Every year, I’d get obsessed with something new: birds, waterfowl, native herbs. I didn’t know it then, but I was becoming an expert, slowly and steadily.

Lockdown was the tipping point.

Suddenly, everything slowed down. And I realized — I had been foraging for over a decade. Why wasn’t I sharing this? So I invited some friends for a foraging walk. I combined it with forest bathing — a meditative practice of slowing down and connecting with nature.

And that was it. The beginning of a whole new chapter.

So, what is forest bathing?
Forest bathing — or Shinrin-Yoku — is a Japanese practice of immersing yourself in the forest atmosphere. It’s about slowing down, engaging your senses, being fully present. It's not hiking. It's not exercise. It’s deep rest for your nervous system.

When I learned about the hunter vs. farmer theory, it all made sense. The idea is that the ADHD brain is the hunter — always scanning, always sensing, ready to move. We thrive in dynamic, stimulating environments. We’re the problem solvers, the responders, the adventurers.

We are more animal.
We are movers.
We are the innovators and the change-makers.

Sure, we might be the "oddballs" to some. But we’re also the ones helping others step off the hamster wheel — to remember that life doesn’t have to be 9 to 5, screen-based, rushed, and disconnected. Our brains are interest-driven. We need passion, purpose, and meaning in what we do.

It’s not a luxury. It’s survival.

Today, I run retreats, lead foraging walks for Forage Box, and teach forest bathing in beautiful wild places. I cook, I learn, I share, I connect. I get paid to live a life I love.

But don’t be mistaken — it came from years of struggle. Years of feeling worthless. Of low-paid jobs. Of being let go again and again. The difference now? I’ve dropped the shame. I’ve embraced the way my brain works. And I’ve built something from the very thing that once made me feel broken.

If you're neurodivergent and wondering where you fit in the world — please know, there is a path for you. It might not look traditional. It might not look linear. But it will be yours.

Nature accepts you. It always has.

If you’re curious about foraging, forest therapy, or just finding a life that lights you up, reach out. I'd love to help you explore your path — whether it’s wild food, outdoor art, eco-healing, or simply learning to slow down.

This is more than a job. This is my medicine.
And maybe, just maybe, it can be yours too.

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