Spending time in nature has measurable health benefits…
If you think of nourishment in terms not only of your body, but also your mind and spirit, then it becomes immediately clear that there is much, much more to nourishment than the food you eat.
A great example of nourishment is spending time in nature, which has been shown to benefit both mental and physical health. How often do you get out in nature? For most of us, the answer is probably not as much as we’d like. But now that research has now found measurable health benefits of spending time in nature, it may be time we re-prioritise our time outdoors.
Here are some of the demonstrated health benefits of spending time in nature:
Reducing blood pressure
Walking for 2 hours in the morning and evening in a forest has been shown to reduce blood pressure - this was a study in which the same participants also walked for the same amount of time in an urban environment as a control. When walking in the urban environment there was no decrease in blood pressure suggesting that it was something about walking in nature itself that had the blood pressure reducing effect (1).
Reducing stress
A major indicator of your level of stress is how much of the stress hormone cortisol you have circulating in your body. It has been shown that a 15 minute walk in a forest significantly reduces cortisol levels, whereas the same amount of walking in an urban environment only slightly reduced cortisol levels (2). So if you are feeling stressed out, a short work in the trees could really help you.
Anti-cancer
Major players in our defence against cancer cells are our natural killer (NK) cells. These are cells of our immune system that seek out and destroy cancer cells. So how great is it that researchers have shown that a day trip to a forest park increases not only the number of NK cells but also their activity, and these effects were still measurable 7 days after the trip! The researchers have partly attributed these fantastic results to phytoncides - chemicals that are released from trees into the forest air (3).
Anti-depression
What about depression? I know my mood is definitely lifted by a walk in nature, but now researchers have shown that where there is a greater density of trees in an urban environment there appears to be a lower rate of anti-depressant prescriptions! (4) And that is just trees in a city, imagine then extrapolating this effect to getting out into actual nature regularly! Still waiting for that study to be done, but I think it would be safe to add walking in nature to your health toolbox while we wait.
So that is what some of the studies say. But realistically, did you need to read all of that to be convinced that getting out into nature is good for you? Probably not! But these studies serve as a reminder to us as we get more and more disconnected with nature to find our way back a little to the great outdoors, and they also help shape policies around protecting our green spaces.
So bottom line, get into nature and reap the benefits! Nourishment comes in many forms…
Nourish yourself every day
Fabia x
References
Li Q, Otsuka T, Kobayashi M, Wakayama Y, Inagaki H, Katsumata M, Hirata Y, Li Y, Hirata K, Shimizu T, Suzuki H, Kawada T, Kagawa T. Acute effects of walking in forest environments on cardiovascular and metabolic parameters. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2011
Kobayashi, H., Song, C., Ikei, H., Park, B. J., Kagawa, T., & Miyazaki, Y. (2019). Combined Effect of Walking and Forest Environment on Salivary Cortisol Concentration. Frontiers in public health, 7, 376.
Li Q, Kobayashi M, Inagaki H, Hirata Y, Li YJ, Hirata K, Shimizu T, Suzuki H, Katsumata M, Wakayama Y, Kawada T, Ohira T, Matsui N, Kagawa T. A day trip to a forest park increases human natural killer activity and the expression of anti-cancer proteins in male subjects. J Biol Regul Homeost Agents. 2010 Apr-Jun;24(2):157-65
Marselle, M.R., Bowler, D.E., Watzema, J. et al. Urban street tree biodiversity and antidepressant prescriptions. Sci Rep 10, 22445 (2020).
