Nature [blog 6]

Pick one of therapeutic benefits of nature and link them to research in one or more of the following areas: Abnormal, Behavioral Neuroscience, Cognitive, Developmental, Learning, and Social

     As I was reading Chapter 5, it was very easy for me to make connections from the reading to my personal life. I also started to wonder how nature and adventure therapy relates to neuroscience and what is happening in our brain when we are exposed to and experience the outdoors and also how it changes the way we feel. I came across an article that talks about how spending time in nature makes people feel more alive, this was found through a series of studies published in the June 2010 issue of the Journal of Psychology. Richard Ryan, lead author and a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester said, "Nature is fuel for the soul" (Spending time in nature makes people feel more alive, study shows). According to the article there have been numerous experimental psychology studies that have linked exposure to nature with increased energy and heightened sense of well-being. Even more closely related to Adventure Therapy, the studies show that people report feeling more alive and healthy after going on a wilderness excursion. 

     Here is an excerpt from the article that explains something we were looking at in class... 

What is novel about this research, write the authors, is that it carefully tests whether this increased vitality associated with the outdoors is simply the feel-good spillover from physical activity and people-mixing often present in these situations. To tease out the effects of nature alone, the authors conducted five separate experiments, involving 537 college students in actual and imagined contexts. In one experiment, participants were led on a 15-minute walk through indoor hallways or along a tree-lined river path. In another, the undergraduates viewed photographic scenes of buildings or landscapes. A third experiment required students to imagine themselves in a variety of situations both active and sedentary, inside and out, and with and without others.

Two final experiments tracked participants' moods and energy levels throughout the day using diary entries. Over either four days or two weeks, students recorded their exercise, social interactions, time spent outside, and exposure to natural environments, including plants and windows.

Across all methodologies, individuals consistently felt more energetic when they spent time in natural settings or imagined themselves in such situations. The findings were particularly robust, notes Ryan; being outside in nature for just 20 minutes in a day was enough to significantly boost vitality levels. Interestingly, in the last study, the presence of nature had an independent energizing effect above that of being outdoors. In other words, conclude the authors, being outdoors was vitalizing in large part because of the presence of nature (Spending time in nature makes people feel more alive, study shows).

     To relate this to a few parts of the reading from Chapter 5, I want to include a quote from the text. This comes from the beginning of the chapter and says, "Going to the mountains is going home...mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as the fountains of life" (Gass, Gillis, and Russell 2012). Even through my own experience I find that the more separated I feel from nature the more likely I am to feel stressed or anxious. It is interesting and amazing how calming nature can be. As I said in class it is helpful to take yourself out of the situations you are so used to being in and put yourself outside. It gives you a certain clarity and different perspective when thinking about your life. "Nature elicits deep-seated and automatic responses by individuals in the absence of extensive information processing. Restoration derives from the reduction of stimulus and arousal due to nature's calming effect, which elicits positively toned emotional states and blocks out negatively toned feelings" (Gass, Gillis, and Russell 2012).

What kind of ways can experiences in nature lead to changes thoughts or behaviors? Do you think people who rarely choose to spend time outside would still feel rewarded by spending time in nature? 

Leslie Weaver

Citations

Gass, M. A., Gillis, H.L., Russell, K. C. (2012). Adventure therapy: Theory, research, and practice. New York, Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.

University of Rochester (2010, June 4). Spending time in nature makes people feel more alive, study shows. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 19, 2013. from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100603172219.htm