Contact with nature has many health benefits. It can help to alleviate or prevent risk factors and improve outcomes for people with heart disease, depression, high blood pressure, diabetes, loneliness and lack of sleep.
Professor Thomas Astell-Burt of the University of Wollongong said contact with nature has well-documented mental, physical and social health benefits.
“Our national survey indicates 72 per cent of physically inactive Australians aged over 45 years with cardiometabolic diseases would accept a nature prescription from their doctor.
“People are more likely to start and maintain lifestyle change if it aligns with their intrinsic motivations and can be conducted in settings that empower them to adopt the new behaviour.”
Professor Xiaoqi Feng of the University of New South Wales’ (UNSW) School of Population Health, said: “Nature’s green and blue spaces – parks, forests, lakes, rivers and beaches – offer a largely underutilised, low/no cost opportunity in chronic disease management that can both attend to people’s interests and provide attractive settings for sustained increases in physical activity and reductions in stress and loneliness.
“An increase time in nature in an acceptable, sustained, scalable, and cost-effective way for people with high potential to benefit from being more physically active.”
Nearly 20 per cent of Australian adults regularly don’t get enough sleep. Professor Astell-Burt’s research found people with ample nearby green space are much more likely to get enough sleep than people in areas with less greenery.
Associate Professor Jennifer Atchison of the Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society and Space says trees are vital for human health and wellbeing; they improve air quality, help with climate mitigation, offer shelter and shade, provide habitats for animals and biodiversity.
“It is clear that we need more plants in our cities. However, not everyone feels the same and many urban trees are being lost through expansion and conflict. We urgently need to understand how people who protect and care for trees form connections and attachments to them,” she said.
Other benefits of time outdoors is exposure to phytoncides, chemicals emitted by trees as part of their defence mechanism against bacteria, fungi and insects. When we inhale air rich in phytoncides our bodies produce more natural killer cells that fight tumours and cancers and there’s a surge in activity amongst the immune system cells that we already have. This makes our immune system becomes more effective
Being out in nature also switches on the body’s parasympathetic nervous system, or ‘rest and digest’ mode so the body can then have the time to allocate resources to areas that have long-term good health outcomes, such as the immune system.
Could time in nature be a doctor’s prescription? In Korea doctors often prescribe contact with nature for patients.
Nature prescriptions can feature a range of natural settings and activities. A University of NSW study also found that nature prescriptions can improve physical and mental health.
Lucky for us, we don’t need a doctor’s prescription for time outdoors to be able to take advantage of the health benefits associated with time in nature.
Professor Astell-Burt said the improvements from exposure to nature are interlinked.
“You go out for a walk out in a green space which helps with fitness – that also helps to improve your mental health, reduces loneliness, improves sleep, and can also help to reduce one’s blood pressure. These outcomes aren’t independent of each other.
“It’s good for mental health, good for physical health and good for keeping active,” he said.
