Houseplants and Hikes: How Nature Helps Our Brain

Nature impacts our physical wellbeing, but studies have shown it affects our brains as well, lifting our moods, resting our attention, restoring our focus and even helping us heal faster.

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Look up and scan your field of vision for a “nature check.” How many potted plants are around you? Can you see a patch of grass or a tree through a window? Any paintings or photographs of waterfalls or the sky?

If you’re like most people, there might not be much nature in sight. In today’s urbanizing world, more than 50% of people live in urban areas, and this proportion is growing, projected to hit 70% by 2050. Yet studies show that city dwellers who have little access to green spaces are at higher risk for stress, depression, and anxiety.

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Nature has immense mental health benefits, and luckily, you can manipulate your environment to increase the amount of “green” around you without changing your lifestyle too much.

The benefits of being in nature

Studies show that nature can put us in a good mood, increase our capacity to pay attention at work, recover from physical maladies, and more.

What’s fascinating about this is you don’t have to physically be out by a stream, sitting on a log, to reap the benefits. Seeing trees and grass through a window improves your mood and more, even indoors. One study showed that office workers liked their jobs more, had better health, and even reported higher life satisfaction when they had a view of nature through a window.

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No window? No problem. Looking photographs and other simulations can do the trick. In a number of studies, researcher Terry Hartig showed nature-depicting pictures, videos, and immersive virtual reality experiences to his subjects and measured improved mood and decreased stress. Another study showed that posters of natural landscapes in office conditions decreased feelings of stress and anger in men.

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Hartig also investigated nature’s restorative effects on our attention. In one study, subjects completed 40 minutes of attention-draining tasks, and then spent 40 minutes doing one of three activities: going for a walk in nature, going for a walk in the city, or sitting and reading magazines and listening to music. Sitting and listening to music might sounds quite relaxing, but the nature walk was actually the most effective to restore attention; when they came back, they performed the best on a standard proofreading task (and reported better moods).

Getting into nature — or bringing it to you — also has medical benefits. In a famous study from the 80's, patients recovered from abdominal surgeries faster if they were lucky enough to get a hospital room that faced trees. Compared to those who got a room that looked out on a brick wall, the vegetation-facing patients had on average, 1 day less of recovery time, fewer complaints, and less need for pain medication than their counterparts. And in a Swedish hospital study by the same researcher, rooms with pictures of natural scenes helped heart surgery patients reduce anxiety and the need for pain medication (compared to abstract art or a blank wall).

For children, studies have shown that homes with more nature — like a backyard or lots of indoor plants — may help buffer children from the stresses of life and home dysfunction. Meanwhile, children with ADHD exhibit more calm, focused behavior in natural environments compared to man-made ones. Even sitting inside in a naturally-decorated environment was more calming than playing outdoors in a man-made area, like a cement playground without trees or grass in sight.

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Why it works

Scientists are still investigating the mechanisms that underlie nature’s positive effects, but a study early in a new line of research showed that walking in nature helps us reduce “brooding” and ruminating on what’s going wrong with ourselves and our lives. This was accompanied by reduced bloodflow to an area in the brain called the subgenual prefrontal cortex.

Another theory, the theory of restorative environments, describes how nature lets us rest our attention. While cities demand our “directed attention” (with traffic, strangers, and signs to read), nature doesn’t make the same demands; it is generally calm and doesn’t engage our direct attention nearly as much. We can rest, yet at the same time, there’s plenty to occupy our minds if we want to engage them, because nature attracts our “involuntary attention” with non-threatening yet rich sensory experiences: the wind rustling the trees, the refreshing smells, a trickling brook.

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So, how will you get your dose of nature this week?

Try one or more of these tips:

1. Go for a walk in a park after work
2. If your work environment permits it, find a view of trees, grass, or plants near a window
3. Buy a house plant (or four)
4. Decorate your room with photographs of nature