Benefits of spending time in green spaces

IT IS A medical fact: spending time outdoors is good for you.

A wealth of research indicates that escaping to a neighbourhood park, hiking through the woods, or spending a weekend by the lake can lower a person’s stress levels, decrease blood pressure and boost mental health. Doctors around the world have begun prescribing time in nature as a way of improving their patients’ health.

One question has remained: how long, or how frequently, should you experience the great outdoors to reap its benefits? According to a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, the answer is about 120 minutes each week.

The study examined data from nearly 20 000 people in England who took part in the Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment Survey from 2014 to 2016, which asked them to record their activities.

It found that people who spent two hours a week or more outdoors reported being in better health and having a greater sense of well-being.

Spending just 60 or 90 minutes in nature did not have as significant an effect. And five hours a week in nature offered no additional health benefits. “What really amazed us was that this was true for all groups of people,” said Mathew P White, an environmental psychologist at the University of Exeter Medical School, who led the study. “Two hours a week was the threshold for men and women, older and younger adults, different ethnic groups, people living in richer or poorer areas, and even for those living with long-term illnesses.”

Nooshin Razani, a pediatrician at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland, California, has taken to prescribing time outdoors to her patients, who come from lowincome settings. “When you go to a park with your family, there are so many good things that happen,” Razani said. “Children get to play and be physically active.

“They get to socialise, and they get some stress relief.”

Adults experience the same benefits, she added.

In Sweden, friluftsliv, the term for living close to nature, is so ingrained in everyday life from commuting by bike to relaxing in lakeside saunas that there are tax breaks offered as incentives.

In South Korea, the government is establishing dozens of “healing forests” for its stressed-out citizens. |

DOCTORS have begun prescribing time in nature to their patients.