The Prescription: Take a Walk on the Wild Side
Spending time outside makes you happier, healthier, and smarter.
Updated January 29, 2025 | Reviewed by Davia Sills
“Go play outside” was something I heard often as a child. No matter the weather, my mother thought it was good for my brother and me.
It seems that Mother knew best about Mother Nature! In “Why Trees Can Make You Happier,” published in the University of California, Berkeley’s Greater Good, researchers attribute this effect to “ biophilia ,” an automatic positive attachment to nature that has been hardwired into human DNA over millennia of evolution in natural settings. Worldwide, recent medical studies bear this out.
Since the 1980s, the Japanese have engaged in Shinrin-Yoku, or “ forest bathing ,” propagating urban forests as therapy for body, mind, and soul to improve blood pressure, cortisol levels, immunity, and nervous system activity related to both stress and relaxation.
The Greater Good article reports the converse is also true. Women in areas affected by tree loss have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease than those in unaffected areas.
Research shows qualitative differences in the benefits of outside settings. In New York, people living near trees report better overall health than those living near green, grassy spaces.
A study in Chicago quantified the health effects of trees, finding that having 10 more trees in a city block, on average, improves health by as much as a $10,000 increase in income or being 7 years younger. Not only that, but the number of trees in a neighborhood links to reduced crime rates so effectively that tree numbers can track crime rates.
For every 10 percent increase in tree canopy cover in Chicago, the crime rates reduce by 11.3 percent for assaults, narcotics, and robbery and 10.3 percent for battery.
Natural Settings Are Best
Meanwhile, students at Kings College Institute of Psychiatry and Psychology Research in London have developed smartphone software, dubbed Urban Mind, to assess how exposure to natural features affects mental well-being.
In a 2024 study using the Urban Mind process, King’s College researchers broadened outdoor studies to include the biodiversity of trees, birds, plants, and waterways. Their research included real-time reports on mental well-being and natural diversity from nearly 2,000 participants, finding that biodiverse environments are associated with greater mental well-being than environments with fewer features.
King’s College researchers believe diversity of outdoor features could explain nearly a quarter of the positive impact of nature on mental health, lasting up to eight hours. Research Assistant Ryan Hammoud suggests that moving away from heavily curated, monocultural pockets and parks of mown grass with low biodiversity towards spaces that mirror the biodiversity of natural ecosystems can maximize the benefits of nature for mental well-being. An earlier Kings College study showed that exposure to trees, the sky, and birdsong has a time-lasting beneficial impact on momentary mental well-being, which is even more pronounced in individuals with strong tendencies to act without thinking and without considering potential consequences.
Use Nature to Get Brainier
Neurologists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany, find day-to-day variations in brain structure within hours of exposure to nature. This supports increasing evidence of short-term alterations of brain structure, known as plasticity. They document an association between spending time outdoors and brain structure plasticity in a study called Day2day, a six to eight-month assessment of changing brain structure evidenced in more than 280 serial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans in six young healthy city-dwellers.
The scans show increases in positive mood and brain gray matter over short periods outdoors, even without other known health factors, such as physical activity, fluid intake, free time, hours of sunshine, or whether participants were raised in rural or urban environments.
These changes appeared in the front part of the cerebral cortex, the area of the brain associated with behavior and mental wellness. This part of the cortex is involved in planning and regulating actions and cognitive control. Psychologist Jill Suttie, author of the Greater Good article cited previously, explains that the areas showing increased gray matter most likely affect concentration , mood, the psyche (the totality of elements forming the mind), and working memory . The researchers say this finding is important because most psychiatric diseases are related to brain atrophy.
Notably, gray matter increased even if mood did not immediately improve. The 3 percent increase aligns with many studies of other interventions known to be beneficial for the brain, such as physical exercise or cognitive training, where gray matter gains are usually around 2 to 5 percent. The researchers note that it is remarkable to find similar effects in an exercise as simple as a walk in the park, suggesting that “outdoor” prescriptions might help counteract neural atrophy and improve mood.
An Israeli study finds that routine urban walks directing eyes to green elements like trees rather than gray buildings significantly reduces anxiety and boosts restorativeness. This subtle shift in attention towards nature can substantially improve daily well-being, cognitive flexibility, and working memory linked to the prefrontal cortex.
The Planck researchers believe these benefits may appear even when the outdoors is brought indoors via photos or videos. For that reason, nature photos are included with this piece, with the hope of sending readers away happier than when they came upon this article.
Kardan, O., Gozdyra, P., Misic, B., Moola, F., Palmer, L.J., Paus, T., & Berman, M. G. (2015). Neighborhood greenspace and health in a large urban center . Chicago, IL. Scientific Reports .10.1038/srep11610.
Hammoud, R., Tognin, S., Smythe, M., Gibbons, J., Davidson, N., Bakolis, I., & Mechelli, A. (2024). Smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment reveals an incremental association between natural diversity and mental wellbeing. London, UK. Scientific Reports . 10.1038/s41598-024-55940-7 .
Kühn, S., Mascherek, A., Filevich, E., Lisofsky, N., Becker, M., Butler, O., & Gallinat, J. (2021). Spend time outdoors for your brain – an in-depth longitudinal MRI study. Berlin, Germany. The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry , 23(3), 201–207. https://doi.org/10.1080/15622975.2021.1938670 .
Reid C.E., Clougherty, J.E., Shmool J.L.C., & Kubzansky, L.D. (2017). Is All Urban Green Space the Same? A Comparison of the Health Benefits of Trees and Grass in New York City. New York, USA. Int J Environ Res Public Health . doi: 10.3390/ijerph14111411.
Whitney, F., Rizowy, B., Shwartz, A. (2024). The nature gaze: Eye‐tracking experiment reveals well‐being benefits derived from directing visual attention towards elements of nature. Bangor University. Wales, U.K. People and Nature , 2024; DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10648 .
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Debbie Peterson is the author of The Happiest Corruption: Sleaze, Lies, & Suicide in a California Beach Town and has a BSc in Communications.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.