By Paige Waskow
Welcome to the Get Outdoors blog series!
This series will come out weekly for five weeks. As mentioned in the last post, we are going to cover the human desire for nature as well as why we are so obsessed with it. In this post, we are going to look at why humans need nature or at least, our mental connection to it.
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How many times have you felt stressed? Probably a lot considering that you are a college student or perhaps a professor or really, if we’re all honest, a human. The world is full of solutions to stress, not being able to get work done, and feeling tired. Maybe people have told you to try a new diet, start running four times a week, or have a you day where you relax and watch Netflix. All of these things can work, and often do, but are we really addressing what’s bothering us? How many times have you had to repeat those tasks for a feeling of control? How many times have you bought that one thing and still felt anxious or over worked or simply tired? The media creates a system of buying to feel better, but I think we are overlooking something that defines our mental health and happiness: the great outdoors.
Many of us live in cities, apartment buildings, or dorms. We then go to class or work, inside, and stare at computers or lecturers as we sit and watch the time go by. Perhaps all we do is homework and then rush to practice before then hanging out with friends. As humans, and especially during this age, we value productivity and immediate gratification. Things have to happen fast and well in order for us to feel successful. But then we complain about how miserable we are and how busy our lives are and how we NEVER get a break. We start to lose hope in our efforts and excitement about what we are doing. But what would nature have to do with that?
A recent 2015 study by researchers at Stanford University, and covered by the New York Times, looked at how walking in nature versus a busy urban city affected brain stimulation and the thought processes of everyday people. The research was a simple process. Have half of a group walk outside in an urban area and the other half walk in a local nature park and monitor their brain activity before and after their walks. The people who walked in the urban area had high amounts of blood flow to the front of their brains, like they did in the pre-walk brain scan. This, according to the researchers, would indicate high levels of brain activity.
On the contrary, those who walked in nature had lower blood flow to that part of the brain after walking than their pre-walk test. Although the researchers indicated that more research needed to been done, they suggested that nature has a positive effect on brain activity and how stressed the subjects were. According to the New York Times and head researcher, the results, “‘strongly suggest that getting out into natural environments’ could be an easy and almost immediate way to improve moods for city dwellers, Mr. Bratman said,” (Reynolds 2015).
Although this is only one study, many websites and sources indicate that nature truly affects us mentally. In Japan, for instance, “nature bathing”, going out into nature to de-stress and engage the senses, is a decently common practice. Florence Williams, a editor for Outside Magazine, reported on Japanese forests in 2012 and documented both her experiences in the forests and with locals as well as fruitful studies looking at the human outdoor experience. According to Williams, one study, by a researcher named Miyazaki, found positive correlations with spending time in nature and mental health. She writes:
“To prove it, Miyazaki has taken more than 600 research subjects into the woods since 2004. He and his colleague Juyoung Lee, also of Chiba University, have found that leisurely forest walks, compared with urban walks, yield a 12.4 percent decrease in the stress hormone cortisol, a seven percent decrease in sympathetic nerve activity, a 1.4 percent decrease in blood pressure, and a 5.8 percent decrease in heart rate. On subjective tests, study participants also report better moods and lower anxiety,” (Williams 2012).
Williams continued to document, in her article, that nature is a key part of happiness and sense of connection to ourselves and our world. Beyond this, studies are only growing in the correlation of nature and positive mental health. Of course many things can affect our mental health, but perhaps some of our struggles could be due to our lack of connection with nature and our urban, indoor lifestyles.
So, how do we connect this to academics and doing well at Coe? Of course, lower levels of stress and anxiety often help performance and being able to get work done. In addition, taking breaks and moving around while working can be incredibly beneficial. By spending time in nature, you may, according to a 2016 Mental Floss article, perform better on tests and be able to focus better than you otherwise would. The study the article covered observed high school students' academic success. Taking time just looking at a natural landscape outdoors in between activities allowed for students to reflect and perform better than students who did not.
“After the initial tasks, all the students performed equally, but when given ten minutes to stare out the window and relax, the students with a green view seemed to recover more easily from their stressful experience. The students who looked out the window to see green space scored better on the attention tests and were quicker to recover from the stressful educational tasks than their peers who looked at buildings or at a blank wall,” (Ferro 2016).
Taking even a few minutes to recover and step outside could be helpful to both your mental and academic health. You could perform better on tests, relax, or even just take away some stress so you can get back to studying. While there are many options that proclaim results, nature is free! So what do we do with this information? How do we connect with nature? Perhaps you, like me, new to Cedar Rapids and want to get involved in nature but aren’t really sure how. Maybe you want to simply do something besides classes and want to get off campus. Whether it be local, like going on to a park, more of a trip, like going camping, in the community, or at Coe, there are many opportunities to get outside. Over the next few weeks, posts about how to get outside around Coe will be up and hopefully, you will be inspired to get out in nature.
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If you have any questions, please leave them below. Also, be sure to check out the resources (and additional reading) for this article below.
Happy nature-ing!
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Citations and Resources:
New York Times, Stanford Study
Reynolds, Gretchen. “How Walking in Nature Changes the Brain.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 22 July 2015,
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/how-nature-changes-the-brain/action=click&pgtype=Homepage®ion=CColumn&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&WT.nav=MostEmailed&src=me&_r=0
Florence Williams, Japanese Study
Williams, Florence. “Take Two Hours of Pine Forest and Call Me in the Morning.” Outside Online, Outside Magazine, Dec. 2012,
https://www.outsideonline.com/1870381/take-two-hours-pine-forest-and-call-me-morning
Mental Floss, Nature/Academics
Shaunacy Ferro. “Looking at Nature Improves Kids' Academic Abilities.” Mental Floss, 3 Feb. 2016, mentalfloss.com/article/74787/looking-nature-improves-kids-academic-abilities.
Nature/Academics Study
Li, D., & Sullivan, W. C. (n.d.). Impact of views to school landscapes on recovery from stress and mental fatigue. Elsevier. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291148332_Impact_of_views_to_school_landscapes_on_recovery_from_stress_and_mental_fatigue.
Business Insider, Benefits of the Outdoors
Loria, Kevin. “Being Outside Can Improve Memory, Fight Depression, and Lower Blood Pressure - Here Are 12 Science-Backed Reasons to Spend More Time Outdoors.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 22 Apr. 2018,
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-spending-more-time-outside-is-healthy-2017-7#with-all-this-its-not-surprising-that-outdoor-time-is-associated-with-a-lower-overall-risk-of-early-death-12
