Interacting with nature is so beneficial for a person’s health, that Canadian doctors are even prescribing it. While numerous studies have examined the health benefits of interacting with nature – mental, physical and dietary – Dahlia Stott, a graduate student in Drexel University’s College of Nursing and Health Professions recently reviewed the studies to identify gaps in the research, next steps for researchers and provide recommendations for how we can best benefit from nature.
Of the thousands of published research articles on the topic, Stott and her colleagues narrowed the review down to 276 research papers on various aspects of interacting with nature. The findings were recently published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
Stott shared some of her findings from the review with the Drexel News Blog.
How do you define the three types of interactions with nature?
Our definition of the three types of interactions with nature was based on work done by Lucy Keniger and colleagues in 2013. Indirect interaction with nature is experiencing nature while not being in nature, such as looking at nature through a window or experiencing nature with virtual reality. Incidental interaction with nature is experiencing nature secondary to the main activity, such as being in a room with houseplants or walking in nature on the way to a destination. Intentional interaction with nature is purposeful interaction with nature, like going to a park, exercising outdoors, and gardening. In our review paper, we were able to identify many papers that examined the relationships between intentional and indirect interactions with nature and health outcomes and behaviors.
When compiling and parsing through the studies for the review, did anything surprise you?
What surprised me the most was the amount of studies that have been conducted exploring the health benefits of interacting with nature. In our review, we looked at 276 papers. Many of the papers that we excluded had to do with the amount of greenspace that surrounds a person’s home such as Geographic Information System (GIS).
I was also surprised with how much work was completed during the COVID-19 pandemic about indirect interactions with nature (specifically looking out a window into nature). While the pandemic certainly had negative effects around the world, it seems like it gave a unique opportunity for researchers to study how views of nature may benefit mental health.
What areas of health (mental, physical, or health behaviors) did you find benefit the most from interactions with nature?
An overwhelming amount of literature has identified that spending time in nature promotes positive mental health, such as increased happiness, satisfaction with life, mood, and wellbeing; and decreased depression, anxiety and stress. We see that this translates into physical health as interacting with nature also decreases physical exhibitions of stress like cortisol levels, blood pressure, and heart rate. Of health behaviors, we saw that most research has explored how interacting with nature is positively related to engagement in exercise.
What are some of your recommendations for future research in this area?
There are several areas that future research can address. We were only able to identify a couple of studies that examined how incidentally interacting with nature can promote health outcomes and behaviors. While these studies begin to explore how passing by nature and having houseplants in the home are beneficial to health, more research is important. By continuing to explore this, we can learn more about the nuances of how incidentally interacting with nature benefits health. For example, we know that experts have recommended that adults spend 30 minutes to 2 hours in nature each week to promote health. Would this same amount of time taking care of or being with houseplants produce similar health benefits? Would having more houseplants (real or fake) promote health?
We also need to understand more about how interacting with nature may promote health behaviors such as sleep and diet. While we know that being exposed to sunlight helps regulate our circadian rhythm (the internal clock that helps us know when to be awake and when to be asleep), limited research has explored if being in nature promotes better sleep patterns. Of studies that have been conducted, we learn that walking in nature for a short period of time has immediate benefits – that night – to sleep quality.
Most of the research that explores how interacting with nature may promote dietary habits centers around gardening, but there are many other ways that people interact with nature. In my dissertation, I am exploring the relationships between interacting with nature and dietary behaviors to fill in this gap. I have asked people the frequency and duration of their interactions with nature and have measured their dietary intake. I will be interviewing a select number of participants to further gain their insights into how interacting with nature may benefit their diet. I hope that my research begins to fill this gap and that we can improve dietary intake by augmenting dietary interventions with nature experiences or augmenting nature interventions with dietary education.
Media interested in speaking with Stott should contact Annie Korp, assistant director, News & Media Relations, at 215-571-4244 or amk522@drexel.edu.
