University Scientists Use Brain Scans to Show that Getting Outside Helps with Mental Illness
Four Stanford academics and one from the School of Community Medicine in Tulsa endeavored to challenge the claim that spending time in nature brought forth improvements in mental health. While mental health issues range in their symptoms and severity, one commonly linked sign of faltering mental health is rumination. The study describes rumination as “a maladaptive pattern of self-referential thought that is associated with heightened risk for depression and other mental illnesses,” essentially the tendency to get trapped in the same negative thoughts about oneself. Rumination allows these negative thoughts to fester and grow, causing a further decline in mental health over time. Brain scans show that certain areas of the mind will be repeatedly activated during periods of rumination which allows the researchers to measure changes in one’s mental health. Less of this brain activity over time = less rumination, which correlates to better mental health.
By this point we’ve already begun to understand how exercise can positively affect mental health, but the researchers wanted to know if there was more to the equation. Nineteen subjects were given a 90-minute walking route which followed busy streets and crossed four-lane traffic, and another nineteen subjects were asked to walk a 90-minute route in Stanford’s greenspace. Though artificially designed, the greenspace’s naturesque environment provided subjects with a self-proclaimed decrease in rumination. While some of the other nineteen subjects who walked through the busy city also claimed to have a decrease in rumination, brain scans of all the subjects showed that the ones who had their walk in the greenspace had significantly less rumination-looking brain activity than those who walked downtown.
While the scientific community at large does not yet understand why it is that being in nature causes such an improvement in mental health, it certainly shows that it does, and thanks to Stanford University, at least nineteen people are better off for it.
Ready to get outside?
Adventure On!
-JGM