Why ‘Getting Away’ in Nature Is Good for Your Mental Health
It’s intuitive that getting out in nature is rejuvenating, but why? What is it about going over the river and through the woods that helps us clear our heads? This week, Savvy Psychologist Dr. Ellen Hendriksen dives into why our minds love to go green.
Ellen Hendriksen, PhD
Listen
Why ‘Getting Away’ in Nature Is Good for Your Mental Health
We already know eating your greens is vital for good health, but immersing yourself in green space might be just as important. Whether it’s a remote mountaintop or an urban oasis, green space is emerging as a powerful force for good mental health. Exposure to green space can help alleviate depression, ADHD, Alzheimer’s, and more. One particularly astounding study found that green space is nothing less than a superhero: it actually fights crime.
Here’s how that worked: 541 vacant lots in Philadelphia were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. In the first, they were “cleaned and greened,” meaning trash was removed, grass and trees were planted, and the improvements were maintained over time. In the second, lots were cleaned on a regular basis, but no greenery was planted. And in the third, the lots were left untouched. Then, the research team used police reports to track crime in the area. Near the cleaned and greened lots, crime decreased by 13%, including a decrease in gun violence almost 30%—that’s a number that should grab any civic leader by the lapels.
Why is green space so powerful? Why does it make us feel refreshed and relaxed? And how on earth does it have the power to reduce crime and violence? This week, we’ll look at a few possibilities, plus think about how to apply the answer to our lives. Okay, let’s figure this out:
First, Is Green Space Just a Stand-in for Exercise?
Maybe green space makes everybody feel better because it promotes physical activity. It is objectively more pleasant to go for a walk or a bike ride along a greenbelt than a dirty sidewalk, and a grassy field is more inviting for a soccer game than a paved lot surrounded by chain link.
But it turns out that’s not the case. A team of researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research surveyed almost 5,000 Dutch participants about their health and exercise habits, and compared it to the amount of green space in their postal code, making sure to account for demographics and income.
Turns out there was no relationship whatsoever. In fact, people with more green space walked and cycled for leisure less, presumably because in greener, more rural environments, people needed a car to get around.
Second, Is Green Space Just a Proxy for Money?
If it’s not exercise, maybe green space is just a stand-in for socioeconomic status? Maybe greater wealth allows rich people to live in greener, more beautiful environments and afford better mental health care?
Surprisingly, that’s not the case either.
A research team from the UK tracked the mental health of almost 600 people who moved to greener areas and found that even though their income, education, employment, and household size remained pretty much the same, their mental health improved every year for the three years thereafter, with the biggest jump occurring right after the move.
If you’re still not convinced, let’s take moving out of the picture entirely. Consider another study that followed 169 low-income inner-city kids who, with their families, were randomly assigned to live in one of 12 architecturally identical high-rises. What varied was the views from their windows—some looked out on greenery, while others looked out on asphalt.
For boys, who spent less time at home, views of green space from their apartment had no effect. But for girls, who spent more time overall at home, the greener her view, the better her performance on tests of concentration, impulse control, and delay of gratification—all forms of self-discipline key to achieving long-term life goals.
So if it’s not exercise and it’s not money, what could it be?
Why Is Green Space So Good for Our Mental Health?
One possible answer comes from attention restoration theory. Here’s the lowdown: Our modern world demands our attention in ways that drain us. We are bombarded with tasks that make us focus on one thing and screen out everything else, from internet ads to pinging cell phones to graffiti, leading to what’s called attention fatigue.
Attention fatigue basically makes us all look like we have temporary ADHD—we’re more impulsive, more distractible, less able to deliberately direct our attention or inhibit unwanted stimuli.
The way to treat attention fatigue is simply to rest and recharge the parts of our brain that control deliberate attention. To do that, it’s helpful to switch to activities that hold our attention involuntarily. In psychology-speak, stimuli that require no effort for us to pay attention to and are naturally attracting are dubbed fascinating.
Hard Fascination vs. Soft Fascination
Now, some man-made experiences like Fortnite or the Final Four may hold our attention, but they invoke what’s called hard fascination, meaning they suck in all our attention—there’s no bandwidth left over for reflection, contemplation, or renewal.
By contrast, looking at a flowing stream, a sunset, or listening to wind blow through trees evokes soft fascination—we take it all in effortlessly. Plus, there’s room left over. We have the bandwidth to breathe and reflect. And that combo is, perhaps, why nature is so good for our mental health.
Now, man-made environments like museums or beautiful architecture can facilitate this, too, but nature seems to do it best. And without access to nature, the theory goes, we are more mentally fatigued, which makes us less effective, more irritable, more impulsive, and less able to handle stress, all of which can take a toll on our mental health.
ADHD studies bear this out, where even a 20-minute walk through a park, as compared to a residential area or an urban downtown area, was enough to improve attention in kids with ADHD. Likewise, kids’ activities in green, outdoor spaces reduced subsequent ADHD symptomssignificantly more than activities indoors or in built outdoor settings, even when the activities were the same. For example, soccer in an outdoor field reduced symptoms to a greater extent than soccer in a paved lot or an indoor gym. Furthermore, attention improved, not just hyperactivity symptoms, so it wasn’t simply that outdoor activities allowed kids to burn off extra energy. Something additional—and attentional—was happening.
A second hypothesis is perhaps the simplest: evolutionarily, we are meant to be in nature. Our sensory systems evolved in nature over millennia, so when we reconnect with it, our brains simply click. We’re home.
To observe our brain on nature, a team of researchers from Scotland took participants on walks through an urban shopping district, a commercial zone, and a park. The twist? The participants brain waves were monitored on each walk. When walking into the park, their brain waves shifted into a more relaxed state, which reversed as soon as they walked out the park exit.
The good news is that you don’t need an immersive experience. You don’t have to run naked through the woods or live in a tree, though if that’s your thing, more power to you. Instead, take the scenic route home. Position your furniture so you see green from your windows. Fill your cubicle and apartment with house plants. Pass up the treadmill in favor of the path by the river. You can get a dose of green, and the benefits thereof, even if your favorite outdoor activity is going back inside.
Image of people hiking in nature © Shutterstock
About the Author
Dr. Ellen Hendriksen was the host of the Savvy Psychologist podcast from 2014 to 2019. She is a clinical psychologist at Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD). She earned her Ph.D. at UCLA and completed her training at Harvard Medical School. Her scientifically-based, zero-judgment approach is regularly featured in Psychology Today, Scientific American, The Huffington Post, and many other media outlets. Her debut book, HOW TO BE YOURSELF: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety, was published in March 2018.