Nature and Mental Health: What Spending Time Outdoors Does for the Mind

What the Research Actually Shows

The idea that nature is good for the mind is ancient, but its scientific investigation is relatively recent. Over the past few decades, researchers in environmental psychology, public health, and neuroscience have built a growing body of evidence examining what happens — biologically and psychologically — when people spend time in natural settings.

Several strands of research are well-established. Studies consistently find that people report lower stress, improved mood, and greater feelings of calm after time spent in parks, forests, or near water compared to equivalent time in urban built environments. Physiological measures support this: exposure to natural settings has been associated with lower levels of cortisol (a key stress hormone), reduced heart rate, and lower blood pressure in multiple controlled studies.

A notable line of research comes from Japan, where the practice of shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) has been formally studied since the 1980s. Japanese scientists found that forest walks, compared to urban walks of similar length and intensity, produced measurable reductions in cortisol, blood pressure, and sympathetic nervous system activity — the biological signature of the stress response.

For attentional capacity, Attention Restoration Theory — developed by environmental psychologists Rachel and Stephen Kaplan — proposes that natural environments engage what they call "involuntary attention," allowing the directed, effortful attention we use for work and problem-solving to recover. This framework has received considerable empirical support, particularly in studies involving people with attention fatigue.

It is worth noting that the field is not without methodological limitations. Many studies are relatively small, rely on self-report measures, or cannot easily control for confounding factors like physical activity or social context. The overall signal across the literature is positive, but individual responses to nature vary and the exact mechanisms remain an active area of investigation.

The Rumination Effect: Nature and Negative Thinking

One of the more specific — and practically useful — findings in this area concerns rumination: the repetitive, self-focused negative thinking that characterizes worry, anxiety, and depression. A Stanford-led study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2015 found that participants who walked for 90 minutes in a natural setting reported significantly less rumination and showed reduced neural activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex, a brain region associated with self-referential thought and depression, compared to those who walked in an urban environment.

This finding matters because it begins to identify a plausible neurological pathway — not just a mood effect — through which nature may influence mental health. It also suggests that even a single nature walk could interrupt patterns of negative thinking that, when chronic, are associated with worse mental health outcomes.

Reducing rumination also appears to be one mechanism behind the well-documented link between green exercise — physical activity undertaken in natural settings — and improved psychological wellbeing. For more on how movement itself affects mood, see how exercise influences mood.

Practical Ways to Apply This in Everyday Life

The evidence doesn't require dramatic lifestyle changes to be actionable. Here are some approaches that align with what research supports:

• Prioritize regularity over duration. Frequent, shorter exposures to natural settings appear more beneficial than occasional long trips. A 15-minute walk through a local park several times a week is more accessible — and potentially more effective — than a single weekend hike once a month.
• Reduce phone use during outdoor time. Some research suggests that cognitive engagement with devices may reduce the restorative benefit of nature exposure by maintaining directed attention. Treating outdoor time as a partial digital break may amplify its effects.
• Combine nature with other mental health practices. Outdoor time pairs naturally with mindfulness practices, social connection, and physical activity — all of which have their own evidence base for supporting mental wellbeing.
• Consider your environment honestly. Not all outdoor spaces feel safe, comfortable, or accessible for all people. Choose settings that feel genuinely restorative to you, and recognize that individual responses to different environments vary.

If you are navigating significant stress or managing a mental health condition, nature exposure can be a useful complement to professional support — but it is not a substitute. For context on a broader range of approaches, see stress management approaches that may fit different circumstances and lifestyles.

Access to green space is not equally distributed across communities, which means the mental health benefits of nature are partly a public health equity issue. Access to parks and green space is worth considering both individually and at a community level.

“Nature is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, as vital to our lives as water or food.”

— Edward O. Wilson, Biologist and naturalist; originator of the biophilia hypothesis

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or mental health advice. If you are experiencing mental health symptoms or concerns, please consult a qualified healthcare professional.