We are spending more time indoors and online. But recent studies suggest that nature can help our brains and bodies to stay healthy.

I’ve been an avid hiker my whole life. From the time I first strapped on a backpack and headed into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, I was hooked on the experience, loving the way being in nature cleared my mind and helped me to feel more grounded and peaceful.

But, even though I’ve always believed that hiking in nature had many psychological benefits, I’ve never had much science to back me up…until now, that is. Scientists are beginning to find evidence that being in nature has a profound impact on our brains and our behavior, helping us to reduce anxiety, brooding, and stress, and increase our attention capacity, creativity, and our ability to connect with other people.

“People have been discussing their profound experiences in nature for the last several 100 years—from Thoreau to John Muir to many other writers,” says researcher David Strayer, of the University of Utah. “Now we are seeing changes in the brain and changes in the body that suggest we are physically and mentally more healthy when we are interacting with nature.”

While he and other scientists may believe nature benefits our well-being, we live in a society where people spend more and more time indoors and online—especially children. Findings on how nature improves our brains brings added legitimacy to the call for preserving natural spaces—both urban and wild—and for spending more time in nature in order to lead healthier, happier, and more creative lives.

Here are some of the ways that science is showing how being in nature affects our brains and bodies.

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Are you resisting the things in your life that you simply can’t change? And is this resistance a sign of codependency?

The emotions that we stuff deep inside are by definition the emotions that we aren’t allowing ourselves to feel. And trying to control what we feel is rooted deeply in fear and feeling threatened.

World renowned author, spiritual guide, and mental health advocate Deepak Chopra has written the following quiz to help you get a sense of how much you are trying to control your emotional state in what may be an unhealthy way. It only takes about five minutes to do this. 

​What does this have to do with The Virtual EMDR Eye Movement Therapy Program? Nothing directly, but this quiz can give important clues about how we are feeling about ourselves, the overall state of our mental health, and how well we are dealing with our relationships with other people. In fact, a high score may indicate that we are in need of some EMDR sessions, one-to-one talk therapy, or even the support of a treatment group.

Let’s get started.

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At one end of the scale, men continue to dominate.

In 2016, 95.8 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs were male and so were 348 of the Forbes 400. Of the 260 people on the Forbes list described as “self-made,” 250 were men. Wealth — and the ability to generate more wealth — must still be considered a reliable proxy for power.

But at the other end of the scale, men of all races and ethnicities are dropping out of the work force, abusing opioids and falling behind women in both college attendance and graduation rates.
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Since 2000, wage inequality has grown more among men than among women, as the accompanying chart from the Economic Policy Instituteshows.
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I missed the window to buy the cap and gown for graduation.

I don’t know when this period of time started or ended, simply that the time started and has already ended, and I am no longer able to get a cap and gown. As it turns out, all of those emails that read “URGENT: GRADUATING SENIORS MUST READ” in the subject line were urgent, and graduating seniors were supposed to read them.

A stern-faced woman clasps her hands on the University bookstore counter that separates us. “Ma’am, I have no control over who decides the dates that we give out the caps and the gowns.”

“Are you sure there aren’t any sitting in the back? Like, maybe someone who was going to graduate but then had an overdose or death in the family or something?” I flash her my best smile.

“Next time, pay attention to university emails.” She sashays away to another counter, before I have a chance to point out the flawed logic of her “next time” argument in the given context.

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j.g. is a lawyer in his early 30s. He’s a fast talker and has the lean, sinewy build of a distance runner. His choice of profession seems preordained, as he speaks in fully formed paragraphs, his thoughts organized by topic sentences. He’s also a worrier—a big one—who for years used alcohol to soothe his anxiety.
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J.G. started drinking at 15, when he and a friend experimented in his parents’ liquor cabinet. He favored gin and whiskey but drank whatever he thought his parents would miss the least. He discovered beer, too, and loved the earthy, bitter taste on his tongue when he took his first cold sip.

His drinking increased through college and into law school. He could, and occasionally did, pull back, going cold turkey for weeks at a time. But nothing quieted his anxious mind like booze, and when he didn’t drink, he didn’t sleep. After four or six weeks dry, he’d be back at the liquor store.

By the time he was a practicing defense attorney, J.G. (who asked to be identified only by his initials) sometimes drank almost a liter of Jameson in a day. He often started drinking after his first morning court appearance, and he says he would have loved to drink even more, had his schedule allowed it. He defended clients who had been charged with driving while intoxicated, and he bought his own Breathalyzer to avoid landing in court on drunk-driving charges himself.

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Could pursuing meaning be the path to true happiness? 

We at Greater Good have written often about the differences between a happy life and a meaningful life and found that the two are closely related. When we aim for a life of meaningful pursuits, we are likely to feel more sustained happiness and life satisfaction—even if there is some discomfort, sadness, or stress along the way—than if we aim for a life of pleasure alone. In fact, seeking happiness directly may actually backfire, while pursuing meaning may increase our health and well-being.

Now a new book takes a stab at figuring out just what pursuing a meaningful life entails. In The Power of Meaning, journalist Emily Esfahani Smith draws from the texts of great writers and philosophers—Emerson, Aristotle, Buddha, and Victor Frankl, for example—as well as interviews with everyday people seeking to increase meaning in their lives, to try to distill what’s central in this pursuit. The book, though only loosely tied to research, is mostly an engaging read about how people find meaning in life through “four pillars” of meaning.

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Humans have long intuited that being in nature is good for the mind and body. From indigenous adolescents completing rites of passage in the wild, to modern East Asian cultures taking “forest baths,” many have looked to nature as a place for healing and personal growth. 

Why nature? No one knows for sure; but one hypothesis derived from evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson’s “biophilia” theory suggests that there are evolutionary reasons people seek out nature experiences. We may have preferences to be in beautiful, natural spaces because they are resource-rich environments—ones that provide optimal food, shelter, and comfort. These evolutionary needs may explain why children are drawn to natural environments and why we prefer nature to be part of our architecture.

Now, a large body of research is documenting the positive impacts of nature on human flourishing—our social, psychological, and emotional life. Over 100 studies have shown that being in nature, living near nature, or even viewing nature in paintings and videos can have positive impacts on our brains, bodies, feelings, thought processes, and social interactions. In particular, viewing nature seems to be inherently rewarding, producing a cascade of position emotions and calming our nervous systems. These in turn help us to cultivate greater openness, creativity, connection, generosity, and resilience.
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In other words, science suggests we may seek out nature not only for our physical survival, but because it’s good for our social and personal well-being.

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