Those who live close to nature have better mental health
Since awareness of the importance of preserving nature has spread throughout the world, so has the idea that being in contact with natural environments is healthy. The contemplative life associated with walks in the woods and rest under the trees. However, it is one thing to believe that walks in nature are pleasant from a subjective point of view, and another is to believe that they can have objective effects on our health and well-being.
A recent publication in the magazine Nature shed some light on the matter. According to their conclusions, walks through natural spaces away from human influence are associated with better mental and physical health, as long as they are long enough.
Humans in nature: more than just a good time
The study, based on questionnaires, included questions related to the frequency of visits to natural environments and their quality (more or less removed from human intervention), as well as four dimensions of health: mental health, social cohesion, physical activity and pressure sanguine. These four dimensions have been linked to the findings of previous studies similar to this one, and it was intended to see if similar results could be obtained.
Regarding the sample used, the group of people studied was made up of 1,538 individuals residing in the Australian city of Brisbane.
A clear improvement in our happiness
The results reveal that people who walk alone in wild environments show a lower tendency to present depression and hypertension (a risk factor for heart disease), in addition to suffering less stress. People who came into contact with nature more frequently also had a significantly higher level of social cohesion.
But nevertheless, the benefits associated with mental health and blood pressure are revealed as long as the duration of nature walks is long enough. Thus, the possible benefits of wandering through virgin areas would be obtained with doses of at least half an hour of walking in nature, and not less. The frequency of these walks could be at least weekly, and could take place in large parks where they can momentarily escape from the surrounding urban environment.
How is this explained?
This is not the first study to link getting in touch with nature and psychological benefits. For example, an investigation relates the integration of schools in green spaces with a better academic performance of their students. But nevertheless, it is important to point out that this study is not based on an experiment, and is only limited to presenting correlations between variables.
Among the ideas proposed by the members of the research team is that if everyone visited a park for half an hour once a week, cases of depression could be reduced by 7%, but the truth is that this is not certain. People who walk through natural areas have less depression, but this does not have to mean that these walks are the ones that produce these improvements: maybe there are some unknown factor that is usually present in the people who carry out this activity and that is what produces the good mental and physical state that has been found in this study. Correlation does not imply causation.
However, there are also explanations about possible mechanisms by which these walks may be the ones that directly improve people's standard of living. Among them, the fact that in natural areas the air is of better quality and is less polluted, that the wild areas have more slopes and crossing them entails doing more physical activity, protection from the sun in shaded areas. All this would translate into better health, related to the appearance of mental disorders.
These possibilities make the conclusions of this study relevant for programs aimed at preventing diseases and reducing their prevalence. Considering how cheap it is to walk in parks, It is worthwhile for both us individually and health institutions to give this option a chance..
