Nature's Cure

Spending time in nature is good for you. Areas with more trees tend to be less polluted, so spending time there allows you to breathe easier. Spending time outdoors has been linked with reduced blood pressure and stress, and seems to motivate people to exercise more. Given our human evolutionary history, it makes sense that being in nature allows us to feel at home, secure, near a source of food and water and being able to enjoy soothing vistas. Studies have shown that even just looking at nature pictures, for example in hospital rooms, can have beneficial effects, like reducing stress and speeding the healing process. But when it comes to knowing exactly how much time is required to be beneficial, up until now we had no way of quantifying it.

A new study by scientists from the University of Exeter involving over 20,000 people aimed to better understand the relationships between time spent in nature per week and self-reported health and subjective well-being. The magic number: 2 hours a week. That, according to the researchers is the low end mark from where on participants noted significantly improved well-being.

The benefit actually peaked at between 200 and 300 minutes a week, with no further gain accomplished with more time outside. Even more noteworthy, the two-hour benchmark applied to men and women, to older and younger folks, to people from different ethnic backgrounds, occupational groups, socioeconomic levels and so on. Even people with long-term illnesses or disabilities benefited from time spent in nature—as long as it was at least 120 minutes per week.

The author cautions that “it’s really just a correlation. Nobody knows why or how nature has this benefit or even if the findings will stand up to more rigorous investigation.”

“I want to be really clear about this,” says the lead researcher. “This is very early stages. We’re not saying everybody has to do 120 [minutes]. This is really to start the conversation, saying, what would a threshold look like? What research do we need to take this to the next step before doctors can have the true confidence to work with their patients? But it’s certainly a starting point.”

Reference: White, M.P., Alcock, I., Grellier, J. et al. Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing. Sci Rep 9, 7730 (2019) doi:10.1038/s41598-019-44097-3