Why you should spend time outdoors and in nature – it has benefits for your mind and body, happiness and creativity
- ‘There’s almost no health condition that nature time doesn’t make better,’ an expert says – from relieving stress to helping shed unwanted kilograms
- Being in nature makes us healthier, and makes us feel more connected to other people and the world around us. So why not get out there in Great Outdoors Month?
June is Great Outdoors month, time for “a breath of fresh air”.
Who hasn’t used this phrase in response to a welcome change? Yet we don’t get nearly enough of those breaths of fresh air.
The Oxford Dictionary, in an illustrative definition of the idiom, notes: “50 per cent of workers never leave the office for a breath of fresh air.” Surveys suggest that Hong Kong residents spend 85 per cent of their time indoors, and in Europe and the United States, that figure can rise above 90 per cent.
That’s a really bad thing. Because getting out into the open – especially getting out into nature – is really, really good for us.
We are currently living in the largest mass migration – to the indoors – in our history
So good for us that doctors in Canada prescribe time in nature, “not as a sick note”, says Vancouver family physician Dr Melissa Lem, director of PaRx (Park Prescriptions Canada), rather “as a note for better health”.
The standard recommendation, she says, based on the latest research, is at least two hours a week in a natural environment – a park, a beach, a garden – and at least 20 minutes each time.