Spending time in the nature improves health, according to a study

(CNN) – We are told to eat five times a day, to do 150 minutes of exercise a week – and now a weekly breath of "The Great Outdoors" may one day be one of the recommended recommendations.

A new British study has shown that spending two hours a week impregnating nature, whether in the woods, in parks or on the beach, stimulates health and well-being, both mentally and physically. .

She revealed that among those who had spent little or no time in parks, beaches or in the woods in the last seven days, almost half reported low levels of satisfaction with of life and one in four reported being in poor health.

Of those who have spent at least two hours in the natural world, only one in three is dissatisfied, while only one in seven is unhealthy.

Complex relationship

"The trend was the same in all key groups, including older adults and people with long-term health problems," says the study, led by Mathew White of the Faculty of Medicine of the United States. University of Exeter.

The results are the same regardless of whether the participants are men or women, young or old, rich or poor, living in urban or rural areas, regardless of profession or social class, and whether they regularly or not .

But as a UK-based study, further research will be needed to determine if exposure to nature has the same impact at the international level.

England is a "high-income, largely urbanized society," observes the report, and oddly enough, while exposure to nature had a consistently positive impact on participants who identified themselves as British whites, people of other ethnicities and cultures did not report the levels of safeguarding. .

According to the study, this could be related to the fact that the participants feel a personal connection with the landscape.

"The contact with nature is more than just a complex multisensory experience," he says. "To varying degrees, personal histories and meanings, old cultural practices and a sense of belonging play a role in the benefits obtained, factors that may explain why we have not found the same model for healthy people do not identify as white Britons. "

It did not matter if people took advantage of their two hours in one trip or spread over several sessions. The positive impact is also stabilizing: there has been no increase in benefits for people whose stay in the wild has far exceeded two hours.

The study also measured only time spent in public landscapes, rather than staying in one's own garden.

Passive vs active

Of course, people are more likely to do physical activity when they go out in the wild.

"One of the explanations of our findings could be that time spent in nature is an indirect indicator of physical activity, and that is what motivates the relationship, not the contact with nature itself." , says the report. Although this indicates research on the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, or swimming in the forest, which suggests that "various psychophysiological benefits can be derived from simply passive sitting in natural or urban environments".

"We can not exclude the possibility that the association is, at least in part, due to healthier and happier people who spend more time in nature," the text adds.

Mark Holder, associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, is studying the science of happiness. He told CNN Travel: "Mindfulness experiences in nature seem to improve well-being, and the magnitude of the effect is strong."

"We view our results as an important starting point for discussions aimed at formulating simple, evidence-based recommendations for time spent in natural environments that can lead to significant health and well-being promotion," he says. The report.