

How Walking in Nature Changes the Brain - joshrotenberg
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/how-nature-changes-the-brain/

======
leeoniya
Nature is, without a doubt, something you simply cannot afford to miss in this
short life. I try to travel as frequently as I can to hike, mountain bike,
snowboard and scuba. I was in Switzerland for several days recently and it was
just jaw-dropping. [1][2][3][4][5]. Being away from crowds/touristy areas, the
concrete jungle, light/noise/air pollution really puts a lot of your life and
problems into perspective.

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/ETu4tsr.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/ETu4tsr.jpg)

[2] [https://i.imgur.com/EsppCVS.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/EsppCVS.jpg)

[3] [https://i.imgur.com/WwqmZjJ.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/WwqmZjJ.jpg)

[4] [https://i.imgur.com/aWJxEZf.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/aWJxEZf.jpg)

[5] [https://i.imgur.com/zJRh5tm.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/zJRh5tm.jpg)

~~~
stinos
_I try to travel as frequently as I can_

me and my wife used to as well, until we started realizing that sometimes it
is complete madness to do so: there are of course the ecological and
economical reasons, but the main reason is we figured we don't have to travel
to get into nature. A couple of years ago I started hiking around the city
where we live and discovered a whole wealth of beautiful nature of different
kinds I never even knew was there. Which made me feel stupid and enlightened
at the same time. Stupid because of not knowing it was there and being sucked
into the 'you must travel at least x times a year to visit nice stuff' which
lives strong amongst many people I know. Enlightened because of knowing it was
just there for us to visit whenever we feel like.

We took this idea a bit further and instead of travelling abroad we set our
minds on discovering all beauty around us by simply taking the bike and doing
a short trip (say 20 or 30km) to an area we've never been before. It is simply
amazing what we found already.

Granted, this is not for everyone, for starters because not everyone lives in
an area where there actually is easy to reach countryside/rural area, but I
highly suggest to look at sattelite images of the area around you, look for
green spots and ask yourself if you know what they look like. And go figure it
out if you don't.

~~~
lelandbatey
Absolutely. I live in Washington state, and I feel like there's more nature in
just this statethan I could take in over a lifetime. Driving across the state
means going from a desert following the Columbia, through a shrub-steppe, into
the Cascade foothills, up to the evergreen covered Cascade range, then down
into the rainforests of the PNW, then on to the Pacific.

I think I could spend a lifetime experiencing it.

~~~
will_work4tears
My wife and I moved to the Puget Sound area in 2009, and I've not regretted a
single moment. We moved from the KCMO area and it's like night and day. People
simply seem to care more about nature and outdoor activities than in MO. When
we had a son, my parents moved out here to be nearby as he grows up (and watch
him while we work); they don't regret a thing either, they love it here as
well.

Even if you don't travel around going to the state and national parks, there's
a ton of regional parks with trails, trails all over for biking and walking
and a lot of nature all around.

I mean... it rains here all the time, and, and, earthquakes and volcanoes,
it's probably a bad idea to move here. ;)

------
RIMR
Is there any reason to believe that urban hiking has a similar effect? I don't
go on nature walks very often, but learning to walk my way around my city has
given me an entirely different outlook on where I live.

Seattle has a lot of greenery, but walking around is a pretty urban
experience.

I think that there is also a lot to be said about regularly moving your body
(walking 5-10 miles a day), and the effect it has on your mental state. I
wouldn't be surprised if your surroundings play a minimal role compared to
simply engaging in physical activity and changing your surroundings regularly.

~~~
nether
> We show in healthy participants that a brief nature experience, a 90-min
> walk in a natural setting, decreases both self-reported rumination and
> neural activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex (sgPFC), whereas a 90-min
> walk in an urban setting has no such effects on self-reported rumination or
> neural activity.

[http://www.pnas.org/content/112/28/8567.abstract](http://www.pnas.org/content/112/28/8567.abstract)

~~~
arrrg
Walking next to a busy street is unnerving and stressful to me (to me it seems
as though the noise is the biggest problem), so I can easily imagine there
being no positive effect. However, walking down a quiet alley with no cars
(audible or visible) has to me nearly the same meditative effect as walking in
nature. Not alle urban settings are the same, so I could imagine there being a
positive effect in some. (Structurally some small pedestrian-only alley from
Renaissance times in the town I grew up in actually feels very similar to
nature.)

~~~
Symbiote
Could the noise be the main factor?

My office is directly underneath the flightpath to London Heathrow Airport,
and my house is under the secondary approach path. There's a landing about
every 90 seconds for most of the day (average 1290 flights per day, maximum 15
between 23:00-0600). Planes tend to be < 2000ft overhead, and Heathrow has
lots of big planes.

I don't need to go to the countryside to notice the peace and quiet, and feel
much better rested. Hotels in the centres of Sheffield and Birmingham have had
the same effect.

[http://www.flightradar24.com/51.48,-0.46/12](http://www.flightradar24.com/51.48,-0.46/12)

------
nether
If urbanization makes people depressed and anxious, why do millennials seem to
prefer cities? How does this jive with the "safety in numbers" feeling young
people usually use to explain why they want to live in cities?

I'm starting to think that the desire to live in cities in our newest
generation has been implanted by marketers. Keep humans in a constant state of
rushing and anxiety, then quell them with gastropubs and single-origin coffee
and other urbane pleasures, in order reinforce a permanent state of
discontent. The goal is to have an insatiable working class that will do
_anything_ to afford their $1,500/month Brooklyn closet, without realizing
that you can be much happier and more relaxed anywhere else.

~~~
optimusclimb
Googling defines millennials as 18-34 for me.

Reasons I think people in that age range would prefer to live in a city: 1 -
More people, more events and places to socialize == more opportunities to find
a mate

2 - Since people in those age groups right now are sacked by debt, or working
jobs lower on the totem pole (or even super low paying internships)...living
in a city means they can avoid car ownership

3 - This might sound ridiculous, but...along with point 1, socializing
frequently means drinking, and in suburbs, that usually goes hand in hand with
drunk driving. Not an issue in the city.

Honestly modern suburbs just make you feel isolated.

------
lingben
Japanese concept of 'forest bathing':

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_bathing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_bathing)

there may also be a biochemical process here involving the inhaling of
phytoncides

we don't really _need_ another reason to respect and protect trees and nature
but there is ample evidence that we need them much more than they need us

------
thebouv
Being in a wooded area triggers my anxiety. I'm constantly itching, scratching
and worried about ticks (as others have mentioned here). Obsessively to the
point of not being able to relax. I have no affinity for flowers or trees or
any such thing -- I'm just not built that way.

But there are other ways to enjoy Nature -- the beach for instance. It doesn't
have to be a stroll through the woods or a hike. It can be just as freeing and
relaxing to be on a beach.

Well, except I'm a pseudo-ginger (red beard, blonde hair, pale and freckled).
So I'm usually under a giant umbrella, coated in the strongest SPF blocker I
can be. And a big straw hat to boot.

Hell, now that I think about it, the Outside is trying to kill me. I should
stay home more.

~~~
rsync
May I suggest ditching the sunscreen in favor of a very lightweight,
breathable synthetic "workout" shirt ? You know, the kinds that runners often
wear ... long sleeve.

And then a decent 4" brim hat. OR (outdoor research) makes a very good, highly
rated one. Or just military surplus model.

Makes it much faster and simpler to just get outside than having to deal with
sunblock. If at beach/swimming, you can substitute the shirt for a longsleeve
rashguard. I swim/surf in the ocean with my hat on. No problem.

------
krohling
Another interesting side effect of the outdoors that I've noticed is the
impact on human social interaction. I ride the train into SF every day and
throughout the week I sit next to countless other people without speaking to a
single one of them. I went backpacking through the Lost Cost Trail last
weekend and had a conversation with literally every human being that I passed.
Not just a "hi, how you doing?" but a genuine conversation about where they
were from, what part of the trail they started on, where they were going, what
they had seen. In fact, I would get people waving and saying hi from 100 yards
away across a stream. It felt genuine and easy and I'm pretty sure they all
felt the same.

~~~
WalterSear
That's not nature, that's how people behave in a leisure enviroment, and in
other locations where they feel some commonality with the people around them.

------
seizethecheese
> the scientists randomly assigned half of the volunteers to walk for 90
> minutes through a leafy, quiet, parklike portion of the Stanford campus or
> next to a loud, hectic, multi-lane highway in Palo Alto.

So waking through a particularly beautiful part of Stanford campus leads to
better mental health than waking along a noisy highway. No shit.

~~~
hrnnnnnn
Yet, until these things are empirically verified, they're "common sense", not
science.

~~~
crander
Are we really still at the point in "Landscape and Urban Planning" research
that we need to verify that walking in the woods chills you out and helps you
focus more than walking down a busy street?

~~~
calibraxis
It's about looking at the underlying mechanisms.

Lots of science is about looking at "no shit, Sherlock" phenomena. The hope is
you can find principles beneath the commonsense aspects. Ideally, you see the
commonsense and allow yourself to get puzzled by it.

For example, physicists can't tell you much about what goes on outside your
window; it's too complex. They isolate little things in highly controlled
environments which remove as much as possible. ("Experiments".)

~~~
crander
Yeah. And I thought this experiment was too stupid. I can't beleive how petty
Hacker News has gotten to mark me down on this.

Unsubscribe.

------
coldcode
I visited my cousins in a little town in Germany recently that is surrounded
by walking paths all through town and in the surrounding hills. The town is
filled with clinics that Germans get to go to to recover from surgery and
other health issues because the walking and nature is so peaceful. Wish I
lived there :-(

~~~
chrismealy
What's the name of the town?

~~~
cgb_
Don't know about the OP, but I visited Bad Kreuznach a few years ago which has
a reputation for health/spas. They have public Saline Graduation Towers which
offer a place to sit and breath in the mineral rich water droplets. Very
soothing.

------
ricogallo
However I'd like to point out this nice dissection of the article, where a lot
of serious flaws had been found. For instance: missing significance.
[http://neuroconscience.com/2015/06/30/a-walk-in-the-park-
inc...](http://neuroconscience.com/2015/06/30/a-walk-in-the-park-increases-
poor-research-practices-and-decreases-reviewer-critical-thinking/)

~~~
ashurbanipal
Thank you for that link. I am not expert on statistical methods - is the
reference to the F-stat in the link meant to indicate that the p-value was
only 7%?

~~~
ricogallo
Yes, traditionally you need the 5% of error, or even 1%. Also the partial eta-
squared is the ANOVA measure for the size of the effects studied, which
happens to be very low too: 9%.

------
deadbeef404
I'm not sure how anyone could think that walking next to a loud highway for an
hour and a half (without a distraction such as a friend or music) would be a
great idea.

~~~
nether
Someone who just considers it beneficial as physical activity might, like this
guy:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9933248](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9933248)

------
hooch
Nature by its movement breathes impermanence.

Urban structures maintain the illusion of permanence.

~~~
hrnnnnnn
It's odd that we feel this way when the opposite is closer to the truth.
Citites change so much, but the forest near my house where I grew up is
probably almost the same as when I left.

~~~
maxerickson
A couple years ago I walked a trail that the US Forest Service had developed
several decades prior. There were quite some signs discussing the beautiful
views out over the river valley and a lot more trees completely obscuring
those views.

------
fungi
I just got back from a walk in Nature for my lunch brake.

A Kookaburra stole my sandwich and now i'm stressed as fuck and angry at the
world.

/anecdote

------
rsync
May I put forth a pet theory ? Indulge me ...

Nature, and being in nature, is soothing and palliative because your
sophistication/environment ratio goes to infinity.

At any point, you can be in an environment (city, highway, coffee shop) and
you have a certain level of sophistication, and no matter how sophisticated
you are, there's a ratio to the environment you are in. Quiet main street in
your home town ? Very high ratio. Formal wedding in a foreign country
surrounded by strangers ? Low ratio. Stress. Uncertainty.

But in nature, no matter how unsophisticated you are, the "nature" you are in
is (essentially) zero complexity (at least in terms of technology and cultural
sophistication). So the ratio goes to infinity. No matter what.

That's probably nice for a brain...

------
ajuc
I walk 20 minutes to and from work through park each day. I like it, but I
kinda associate that park with my job at this point, and immediately start to
think what I have to do the next day.

I also like to go on a few hours long photo-shooting trips through my city and
it relaxes me more, no matter the relative lack of nature. I think the point
is - it makes me focus on different things, after a while I'm in the "flow"
and forget about daily problems.

------
mendelsd
Highly recommended for those living in London:
[http://www.walkingclub.org.uk/book_1/index.shtml](http://www.walkingclub.org.uk/book_1/index.shtml)

All those walks start and end at rail stations. You'll need a compass, but no
sophisticated orientation skills are required.

------
ENTP
Grew up in Snowdonia, North Wales. Nature made me feel both privileged and
insignificant at the same time. It truly is amazing that there is so much
variety and depth to nature. There is so much life in there, you just need to
open your eyes and ears. I highly recommend the area as a traveling
destination.

------
alanh
For an extra boost of that natural feeling, take your clothes off in the
elements.

~~~
lastofus
Even better in natural hot springs

------
mfringel
I made the decision that no amount of benefit from nature walks is worth the
gamble of being screwed-for-life by Lyme Disease.

Clearly, that math works for some people, and good on them. I just can't make
the odds work.

~~~
arikrak
You should never leave your room then; coming near people is more dangerous
than going into nature. As long as it's not caught too late, lyme disease is
curable.

~~~
ashurbanipal
the tick has to stay attached for 24 hours in the first place. If you let a
tick stay on you for 24 hours, you have a lot of other issues beyond Lyme.

~~~
jmnicolas
Are you sure about the 24 hours thing ? From memory it all depends on the
tick.

And if you remove it in a non optimal way you can still be contaminated.

On French websites you can still find the wrong advice to use ether to make
the tick sleep. In fact it makes it sick and it can throw up in your
bloodstream thus contaminating you.

