Study Finds a Short Walk in Nature Helps Reduce Depressive Thoughts - The Atlantic

Encounters with nature are the explanatory variable.  The same distance / time walked in an urban area, streetside, did not have the same mental health benefits.



Study Finds a Short Walk in Nature Helps Reduce Depressive Thoughts - The Atlantic:

After some preliminary tests, half the participants walked for 90 minutes through a grassland dotted with oak trees and shrubs (“views include neighboring, scenic hills, and distant views of the San Francisco Bay”). The other half took a jaunt along El Camino Real, a four-lane, traffic-logged street in Palo Alto. The nature walkers showed decreases in rumination and in activity in their subgenual prefrontal cortices. The urban walkers showed no such improvements.