this shows that biomedical alternatives to treating mental health are valuable and effective,
I think it’s important to point out that regular exercise is one of the strongest indicators of mental health. Going out into nature requires some amount of exercise (you need to get into nature somehow, this often involves moving your body to do so). Also, being in nature pretty much ensures you’re getting some amount of sunlight (also important for some aspects of health). Generally speaking the very act of being exposed to nature (even just seeing pictures of it) is also stress relieving in ways we don’t fully understand yet.
regular exercise is one of the strongest indicators of mental health
I find it very interesting how much regular exercise can help maintain physical and mental health (link for the table of contents). The full text is copyrighted so I won’t post the link in public. While mental health is not limited to the aspects mentioned in the text, or in good physical health in general, it’s still pretty impressive how many things are fine-tuned with the proper stimuli.
Generally speaking the very act of being exposed to nature (even just seeing pictures of it) is also stress relieving in ways we don’t fully understand yet.
Well, depends on what kind of nature you are being exposed to. A hike on a beautiful, mostly unaffected by humans, forest on a mountain can be quite stress relieving … until you encounter a bear with cubs. Which can be quite an experience, but not really stress relieving :P
Joking aside, both the review and the article about the pictures were nice.
to add some clarity to your comment about regular exercise, this is an extract from the summary section of that paper:
Nature prescriptions resulted in a greater increase in daily step counts than control conditions (mean difference 900 steps [790 to 1010]) but did not improve weekly time of moderate physical activity (mean difference 25·90 min [–10·26 to 62·06]).
i’m not too sure what the compounding factors were there, i’m not so good at interpreting these things. but it goes to show that these things aren’t always so straightforward, and that it’s important to work in conjunction with a mental health professional.
I think it’s important to point out that regular exercise is one of the strongest indicators of mental health. Going out into nature requires some amount of exercise (you need to get into nature somehow, this often involves moving your body to do so). Also, being in nature pretty much ensures you’re getting some amount of sunlight (also important for some aspects of health). Generally speaking the very act of being exposed to nature (even just seeing pictures of it) is also stress relieving in ways we don’t fully understand yet.
I find it very interesting how much regular exercise can help maintain physical and mental health (link for the table of contents). The full text is copyrighted so I won’t post the link in public. While mental health is not limited to the aspects mentioned in the text, or in good physical health in general, it’s still pretty impressive how many things are fine-tuned with the proper stimuli.
Well, depends on what kind of nature you are being exposed to. A hike on a beautiful, mostly unaffected by humans, forest on a mountain can be quite stress relieving … until you encounter a bear with cubs. Which can be quite an experience, but not really stress relieving :P
Joking aside, both the review and the article about the pictures were nice.
to add some clarity to your comment about regular exercise, this is an extract from the summary section of that paper:
i’m not too sure what the compounding factors were there, i’m not so good at interpreting these things. but it goes to show that these things aren’t always so straightforward, and that it’s important to work in conjunction with a mental health professional.
i hope i didn’t misunderstand you :p
Yes, they tried to control for some factors, but it’s not a perfectly controlled study.