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Taking at least twenty minutes of your day to walk around or sit in a place where you feel in touch with nature will dramatically reduce your stress hormone levels. This is the conclusion of a study that established for the first time the most effective dose of an urban nature experience. Health practitioners can use this discovery, published in Frontiers in Psychology, prescribe "pills for nature" knowing that they have a real measurable effect.
"We know that spending time in nature reduces stress, but until now, we did not know what is enough, how often to do it, or even what kind of experience in nature we will benefit, "said MaryCarol Hunter, associate professor at the University of Michigan and lead author of this research. "Our study shows that to get the best results, in terms of effectively lowering the levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, you have to spend 20 to 30 minutes sitting or walking in a place that gives you a glimpse of nature . "
A natural and free remedy for stress relief
Pills for nature could be an inexpensive solution to reduce the adverse health effects of increasing urbanization and indoor lifestyles dominated by on-screen display. To help health practitioners find evidence-based guidelines on exactly what to do, Hunter and his colleagues designed an experiment that would provide a realistic estimate of an effective dose.
Over a period of 8 weeks, participants were asked to take a pill for nature lasting 10 minutes or more, at least 3 times a week. Levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, were measured from saliva samples taken before and after a pill for nature, once every two weeks.
"The participants were free to choose the time of day, the duration and location of their experience in the wild, which was defined as being outside of what, in the participant's opinion, gave them the opportunity. the impression of having interacted with nature, the constraints to minimize the factors known to influence stress: take the pill for nature in broad daylight, do not do aerobic exercise, and avoid the use of social media, Internet, phone calls, conversations and reading, "says Hunter.
She added: "The personal flexibility of the experience has allowed us to identify the optimal duration of a pill for nature, no matter when or where it is taken, and in the normal conditions of modern life, with its unpredictability and busy schedule. "
To account for busy lifestyles, while providing significant results, the experimental design was also innovative.
"We took into account daily differences in a participant's stress status by collecting four snapshots of cortisol change due to a pill for nature," Hunter said. "It also allowed us to identify and take into account the impact of the continuous natural decline in cortisol levels during the day, thus making the estimate of the effective duration more reliable. "
Nature will feed
The data revealed that a twenty-minute nature experiment was enough to significantly reduce cortisol levels. But if you spent a little more time in a nature experiment, 20 to 30 minutes sitting or walking, cortisol levels dropped to their highest rate. After that, additional de-stressing benefits continue to add up, but at a slower pace.
"Health practitioners can use our findings as a factual rule of thumb to determine what to put in a pill prescription for nature," Hunter said. "It provides the first estimates of the impact of nature's experiences on stress levels in the context of normal everyday life." He breaks new ground by addressing some of the complexities of measuring an effective dose of stress. nature."
Hunter hopes this study will form the basis of further research in this area.
"Our experimental approach can be used as a tool to assess the influence of age, sex, seasonality, physical abilities and culture on the effectiveness of nature's experiences on This will help prescribe pills for nature-tailored and better understand how to design cities and wellness programs for the public. "
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