By now, you probably know that spending time in nature — hiking through a forest, walking through a park, even hanging out on a beach — is good for your health. There has been many a study on how outside time can lower a person’s risk for developing things like Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and can alleviate symptoms of some mood and mental disorders.
Now, researchers have begun to quantify how much time you’d need to spend in nature to see such health effects.
Scientists from the University of Exeter in England and Uppsala University in Sweden surveyed nearly 20,000 British people in a study published Thursday in Nature Scientific Reports. In the questionnaire, participants estimated how much time they’d spent outside in the last week. Specifically, they had to have been in “open spaces in and around towns and cities, including parks, canals and nature areas; the ...
