14 DAY TRIAL // The fact that nature has a marked influence on our bodies and the way we feel is undeniable. This is obvious during warm and sunny days, when people feel like going out or socializing. When it's cold and rainy, or on the contrary too hot, we stay indoors, and generally feel a bit down. But, overall, spending time in nature is on of the best things you can do in order to boost your vitality, and feel more alive, scientists say. Being outside buildings and the concrete jungle as a whole may have more health benefits than originally thought, including reduced stress levels.
A series of new studies, published in the June issue of the renowned scientific Journal of Environmental Psychology, researchers argue that being outside has health and mood benefits other than the ones usually associated with our trips “into the wild.” Generally, we tend to go out to exercise, or to connect and socialize with friends. These activities have health benefits of their own, but these are apparently augmented by others, more “primordial” ones as well. “Nature is fuel for the soul. Often when we feel depleted we reach for a cup of coffee, but research suggests a better way to get energized is to connect with nature,” explains University of Rochester professor of psychology Richard Ryan, who is also the lead author of the journal entry.
“Research has shown that people with a greater sense of vitality don't just have more energy for things they want to do, they are also more resilient to physical illnesses. One of the pathways to health may be to spend more time in natural settings,” the expert adds. He says that experiments have revealed that more than 90 percent of people report feeling better than they did before, when placed in outside settings. The participants also say they have increased levels of energy, and that they feel more vitality. General feelings of happiness and health are also boosted, the Rochester research team says.
For their experiments, the investigators accounted the influence that physical activity may have had on their results. As such, they devised a cunning way of teasing out the health effects of sports from that of nature itself. Some 537 college students were placed in five separate experiments, some of which were placed in imaginary contexts, and others were actually carried out in nature. “We have a natural connection with living things. Nature is something within which we flourish, so having it be more a part of our lives is critical, especially when we live and work in built environments,” Ryan concludes.