Spending Time in Nature Restores Focus

New research from University of Utah psychology researchers supports what American authors John Muir and Henry David Thoreau sought to teach more than 150 years ago: spending time in nature is healthy for the heart and spirit.

Amy McDonnell and David Strayer demonstrate that it is also beneficial to the brain. Their most recent study, conducted at the university’s Red Butte Garden, measures participants’ attentional capacity using electroencephalography (EEG), which captures electrical activity in the brain via small discs affixed to the scalp.

“A walk in nature enhances certain executive control processes in the brain above and beyond the benefits associated with exercise,” concluded the study, published in Scientific Reports. The report adds to the expanding amount of scientific research on how natural environments affect a person’s physical and mental health. The university has just formed a new research group, Nature and Human Health Utah, to investigate these concerns and suggest solutions for bridging the human-nature divide.

Many academics believe that humans have a basic desire for nature that is built into their DNA, and that limited access to outdoors is endangering our health.

“There’s an idea called biophilia that basically says that our evolution over hundreds of thousands of years has got us to have more of a connection or a love of natural living things,” said Strayer, who is a professor of psychology. “And our modern urban environment has become this dense urban jungle with cell phones and cars and computers and traffic, just the opposite of that kind of restorative environment.”

Strayer’s previous research on multitasking and distracted driving caused by cellphone use has received national notice. For the past decade, his lab has studied how nature influences cognition. McDonnell conducted the new research as part of her dissertation as a graduate student in Strayer’s Applied Cognition Lab. She has subsequently earned her Ph.D. and is now a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Utah, where she is working on attention research.

The study, which ran from April to October 2022, examined EEG data acquired on each of 92 people immediately before and after a 40-minute walk. Half of the walk was through Red Butte Arboretum, located in the foothills immediately east of the university, and the other half was through the nearby asphalt-laden medical campus.

“We start out by having participants do a really draining cognitive task in which they count backwards from 1,000 by sevens, which is really hard,” said McDonnell. “No matter how good you are at mental math, it gets pretty draining after 10 minutes. And then right after that, we give them an attention task.”

The goal was to deplete the participants’ attentional reserves before performing the standardized “Attention Network Task” and going on a stroll, which they did without using their electronic devices or conversing with anybody along the route. They are randomly assigned to stroll through the least developed area of the arboretum along Red Butte Creek or through the nearby U medical campus and parking lots. Both routes covered two miles with identical elevation gains.

More information: Amy S. McDonnell et al, Immersion in nature enhances neural indices of executive attention, Scientific Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-52205-1