For your psychological health, spend time in nature Why don’t more doctors prescribe nature? They used to do so regularly. The practice gained popularity in the mid-19th century as cities rapidly expanded. In *Your Brain on Nature,* Eva Selhub and Alan C. Logan explain that sanitariums, or health resorts, gained popularity during the Industrial Revolution as concerns increased about overstimulation, noise, and smoke in cities. But in the 20th century, advertisements for sanitariums gave way to the full-page advertisement for the anti-anxiety drug meprobamate,” Selhub and Logan write. While it was difficult to prove the benefits of nature 100 years ago, today the intervention is supported by compelling evidence....Yoshifumi Miyazaki of Chiba University found lower cortisol levels in those who took forest walks when compared with those who walked the same distance in a lab. Qing Li and his colleagues from Nippon Medical School found that visits to the forest (compared with urban trips) can have a long-lasting influence on immune system markers, increasing the activity of antiviral cells and intracellular anti-cancer proteins—and these changes remained significant for a full week after the visit. Even the scent of nature may be beneficial: Chemicals secreted by trees, known as phytoncides, have been linked with improved immune defense as well as a reduction in anxiety and increase in pain threshold.... Children’s ADHD symptoms decreased after they spent time outside. In 2011, research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that those who played regularly in outdoor settings with “lots of green” had milder ADHD symptoms than those who played indoors or in a built environment. Environmental psychologist Nancy Wells has found that views of nature boost attention.
Posted on: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 16:32:01 +0000
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