Spending 20 minutes in nature

Most people welcome time in nature and green space. After all, taking a few moments in the outdoors offers a much-needed break from the chaos of everyday life. And it can also have positive physiological benefits, including lower stress levels, lower symptoms of depression, and even lower mortality rates.

Still, despite everything, they know about the connection between nature and well-being, they are able to improve mental and physical health.

A new study, published Thursday in Frontiers in PsychologyThis article presents the answer to the question of how to deal with the question of how much time it takes to spend 10 minutes per outing, 3 times per week, over the course of 8 weeks. The researchers found that people who are immersed in their "nature experience" for at least 20 minutes per week experience a significant decrease in their levels of stress hormone cortisol.

The study's authors wrote that they envisioned developing a "nature prescription" – or "nature pill" – which health care providers can offer to their patients as a low-cost, preventive mental health treatment. (The "pill" is the time spent outside.)

This research is the first step toward that goal, says MaryCarol R. Hunter, the study's lead author and associate professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan.

That's because the subject is tricky and expensive to study. If they are trees, grass, water, or plants – trigger the benefits of being outside. It is also difficult for them to study in the field of clinical trials. In a study about exposure to nature, it is usually obvious to both the scientist and their subjects.

So Hunter and her colleagues tried an "adaptive management" approach instead. They let their 36 attendees freely decide where, when, and how long they go on the ground. They could not use phones or internet-connected devices to browse social media or the internet, and they could not make calls or read during their designated time outside. Their nature experience also could include aerobic exercise. The researchers have collected saliva samples that, in addition to cortisol, measured the hormone amylase, which can be influenced by physical activity.

"You could go to the tree and just be with the tree, that could do it for you."

"They could pick any place they wanted," says Hunter, "but when they went to the place they actually had to resonate to nature, they were connected to it. The same person could go to the city of the noise of traffic. "

Peter James, an assistant professor in the department of population medicine at Harvard Medical School, says the study's approach highlights the trade-off of participants. Whereas it is possible to research it, they become difficult to know if they are having a personal inclination, because they are having a great time – or some other factor unknown to the researchers. It's also hard to know the characteristics of the participants' nature experience.

"This is a consistent problem in the literature," says James. "What is a nature experience? Is it looking at trees, grass, going on a hike, walking in an urban park? It's one of the vexing problems in this area of ​​research."

Hunter says that people's changing perception of nature is at the heart of this challenge. Winding into a wilderness area might be relaxing and restoring for one person, but terrifying for someone else Doctors who want to prescribe a nature experience to their patients should not focus on a standard experience but rather encourages them to go where they feel most connected to the outdoors, Hunter says.

She also plans to release additional research based on the data collected in this study. In particular, Hunter wants to look at the self-reported information gathered from participants about their mood, stress, and energy levels to correlate with the decrease in cortisol.

While intriguing, there are limitations to broadly generalizing the findings. The size of a young person, with a mean age of 46, who responded to the question of spending more money. That group does not reflect the population at large. Some research, however, does suggest that exposure to nature and green spaces has strong health benefits for low-income populations.

Hunter knows that 20 minutes in nature may be out of reach for many people. It may be difficult to reach the green spaces or they can not commit to that much time. In his own personal experience with friends and family, Hunter has recommended just five minutes per outing to start. It's a number that seems manageable and can quickly turn into more time.

"To be practical," says Hunter, "it's just something they can do easily."