I love me a nature walk but this does not pass the smell test. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles... - ThreadSky

michaelhobbes.bsky.social • 315 days ago

I love me a nature walk but this does not pass the smell test.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8953618/

Comments

How does one establish a control group that eliminates the "are they happy to spend hours walking through the woods getting lectured at?" issue?

I suspect that for people looking for relief in a nature walk, providing the nature walk can brighten their week. I don't think the walk is the hard part.

waterwalkindancer.bsky.social•315 days ago

Definitely seems like it should get put through some AI checkers

hadespuppy.bsky.social•315 days ago

I'm not sure I can even dig into the data, the grammar sounds like something a computer wrote.

stephenbaines.bsky.social•315 days ago

All your nature walk are belong to us.

dietaryfat.bsky.social•315 days ago

as a longtime depression/anxiety sufferer, I think you're dead wrong.

michaelhobbes.bsky.social•315 days ago

I'm very glad that you enjoy nature walks and they help you! But that's very different than a generalizable rule about treatment of depression and anxiety. Personally I get a massive mental health boost from going on urban bike rides but that's not fun for everyone!

racheleklein.bsky.social•315 days ago

I also fear that studies like this that generalize regarding the benefit of non-medical behaviors expected OF the patient take the onus off of doctors/pharmacies/etc to DELIVER care. It’s the “Have you tried losing weight?” of depression care.

greyson.bsky.social•315 days ago

Yeah, it’s so hard to write for all audiences. There’s a difference btw something statistically associated w improvement in a group of ppl & a treatment/cure for an individual. This is a language problem kinda like “risks” in epidemiology (that can sound negative/victim blamey to general public).

greyson.bsky.social•315 days ago

@michaelhobbes.bsky.social I’m a social scientist (info sci) & public health prof & would be happy to talk w you sometime abt health comm challenges like this! Oft well intentioned researchers are so deep in their sub disciplines they don’t think abt how the public would interpret their words.

greyson.bsky.social•315 days ago

Further, while we in medical research are increasingly training in “knowledge translation” (to communicate w different audiences) I have literally never seen discussion in those rooms about how our (oft open access now) scholarly pubs are read by non-scientists/ppl w/o expertise in our areas.

greyson.bsky.social•315 days ago

(Exception being the early moral panic about open access medical journals & “Dr. Google.)

d6bass.com•315 days ago

Exactly the same when people say 'go to the gym'. It has worked for me, but I know loads of people where it hasn't. Lazy generalisations harm everyone.

gpike.bsky.social•315 days ago

Going to the gym makes me feel measurably worse - probably because there's always tvs playing news channels at the gym - and plus I'll be exhausted for the rest of the day. But nature walks work great for me!

d6bass.com•315 days ago

Precisely. There is no one way.

vcbrannen.bsky.social•315 days ago

yeah, I think that outdoor time is not gonna prove to be a standalone treatment for chronic depression by itself, but it could very well be effective as part of a larger set of interventions.

timsull.bsky.social•314 days ago

I find it plausible. Seasonal affective disorder seems pretty real, we have circadian rhythms attuned to the cycle of day and night. Indoor/outdoor seams similar.

tjmahr.com•315 days ago

gonna need a study comparing nature walking to treadmill walking to no walking

jasmynthewriter.bsky.social•315 days ago

“Inclusive” of whom?

pershing48.bsky.social•315 days ago

Everyone lives next to some outdoors, right?

jasmynthewriter.bsky.social•315 days ago

And everyone can walk right?

awnutts.bsky.social•315 days ago

Idk, this reads to me as "AN intervention" and not "a full treatment plan."

No singular antidepressant works for everyone or "cures" depression, but I don't object to medication being referred to as an intervention.

inigopurcell.bsky.social•315 days ago

This is one of the things where they have forgotten that you can in fact be too depressed to put the kettle on, and that interventions for depression should try and bear this in mind...

glorbis.bsky.social•315 days ago

I think it’s too nuanced to say it definitively helps everyone, & it depends on what the nature is! Personally I feel less depressed and anxious after being alone in nature but I mean being ALONE, so I drive far out to parks 1-2 hours out of chi. A walk in the nearby park ain’t gonna cut it for me!

michaelhobbes.bsky.social•315 days ago

Exactly, some people feel energized and inspired by being in nature and some people don't! I think the effect is more likely related to taking a break and doing something you enjoy

glorbis.bsky.social•315 days ago

1000% I think the reality is “break the loop somehow”

emmagoldman.bsky.social•315 days ago

Have you been talking to my “don’t go to the woods” sister?

dcober.bsky.social•315 days ago

This is kind of beside the point, but I hate the phrase "exploiting nature" here.

gabbklein.bsky.social•315 days ago

YES!!!

encapsidated.bsky.social•312 days ago

The Journal of Clinical Medicine’s publisher (MDPI) is basically predatory. They have hundreds of journals publishing a lot of bullshit studies.

ltremmick.bsky.social•315 days ago

Well, yeah. It's just some scientists telling us all to go touch grass.

dogsandsobriety.bsky.social•315 days ago

The abstract's use of the term "nature walk" is genuinely bizarre. It sounds as though it is a singular product - "Hello, I would like one nature walk please..." rather than a thing that is done. Was this written by a human being?

wkimper.bsky.social•315 days ago

Ok so hot take there are a lot of human beings who are not native speakers of English.

dogsandsobriety.bsky.social•315 days ago

Agreed.

louisathelast.bsky.social•315 days ago

I love a nature walk and it does generally help my anxiety and depression, but you know what doesn’t? The fact that it’s gonna be 103 degrees today and being outside reminds me of climate change

kyleor.land•315 days ago

The subject/verb misalignment of "Nature walk have..." is making my teeth ache

seandehrlich.bsky.social•315 days ago

From the abstract, it does not appear that they’re comparing ‘nature walk’ to ‘regular walk.’ If they’re just comparing it to ‘no nature walk’ then they may have just rediscovered that exercise can have positive benefits on mental health!

michaelhobbes.bsky.social•315 days ago

yeah and all of the effects are super short-term. "Do you feel better immediately after taking a break and going for a nature walk?" doesn't say anything about nature walks specifically, it could just be that people like not-working for like 15 minutes

seandehrlich.bsky.social•315 days ago

True. My personal experience is that taking any sort of walk eases anxiety which often doesn’t come back but also sometimes returns just as bad within a short time of the end of the walk. Long term, there’s definitely a correlation between mood and exercise for me but who knows the causal direction.

siafu11.bsky.social•314 days ago

This is so gd validating. Constantly having health professionals ask me if 15 minutes of exercise helps, and me telling them "sure, for about the next 15 minutes".

enjohnston.bsky.social•315 days ago

It's all super complex, agreed. But also, it's important to get this out there—even if we can't parse out what's the cardio (definitely good!) & what's the "nature". So many studies show that folks recover faster in hospitals if they have views of trees, e.g.

We weren't born for a life of concrete.

enjohnston.bsky.social•315 days ago

But I'd LOVE to see this be truly inclusive. Insurance co's could pay for parks & trees in neighborhoods without them! It would save $ in the long run (if they were actually insuring those communities, which of course they're mostly not).

SO MUCH WOULD save $, that we're too short-sighted to do.

rudbeckiahirta.bsky.social•315 days ago

They do this with studies about yoga or reading or meditation or whatever too.

Like, you’ve got to compare apples to apples. Otherwise you’re just showing that exercise and relaxing make people feel better.

emilyhughes.bsky.social•315 days ago

the way my therapist has explained this is that it basically forces your central nervous system to focus on other things, which makes sense to me and seems to work for me, but it's not a cure-all, it's one helpful lever among many (plus there are lots of other ways to achieve that CNS reset!)

fuzzymike.bsky.social•315 days ago

if we rephrase it as “exercise alleviates depression” as opposed to specifically nature walking, it has a lot of corroborating evidence

michaelhobbes.bsky.social•315 days ago

I don't know if this is the a term for it, but the flipside of a moral panic is a moral bandwagon: Elites are coalescing around the idea that there is something inherently good about the outdoors and prescribing exposure to nature as a cure for all kinds of societal challenges, especially for kids.

jimgetz.bsky.social•315 days ago

Hmmmm... why does this all sound so familiar...

zbk.bsky.social•315 days ago

https://www.theonion.com/study-finds-majority-of-american-health-insurance-plans-1836308697

everythingisph.bsky.social•314 days ago

OMG thank you for saying this, I've been looking for a term just like this. The number of times I've heard people suggest that all I need is to do more walks outside is frustrating

jimjordanosu.bsky.social•314 days ago

Sounds like this is yet another low effort, individual solution to an institutional/society wide problem. Like a bandaid on an infected gunshot wound

ncecire.bsky.social•315 days ago

I'm afraid it's giving strong whiffs of early C20 eugenicist ideologies, teddy bear patriarchy style. [pdf] https://monoskop.org/images/8/85/Haraway_Donna_1984_Teddy_Bear_Patriarchy_Taxidermy_in_the_Garden_of_Eden_New_York_City_1908-1936.pdf

ncecire.bsky.social•315 days ago

Sam Walton has the goods: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/everybody-needs-beauty-9781526621023/

johncastiglione.bsky.social•315 days ago

I always have viewed the "get outside" advice as shorthand or a synecdoche for things that I think are in fact proven, right - exercise/motion, disconnection from devices, better sleep.

But I don't really know anything so maybe that's wrong.

michaelhobbes.bsky.social•315 days ago

This honestly sounds delightful but the stress relief might just be taking a break from school and being with your peers, not the "awe" or outdoor-ness of the activity. Kids should absolutely do nature stuff but it's not a panacea and they can get huge benefits from indoor activities too.

lemondifficult.bsky.social•314 days ago

Hard agree. See also "exercise" - that it's useful for many health outcomes & seen as inherently virtuous fuels moral bandwagon where research standards are lowered. That it's hard/impossible to blind studies, eliminate confounders like the above etc doesn't doesn't mean these factors don't matter!

shawnradcliffe.bsky.social•314 days ago

While hiking in Ontario on a rugged trail, I passed a group of 10-12 yos from an outdoor school. They were sitting on the side of the trail doing their math homework.

Are they happier because they are in nature? Or because math is more fun while sitting on top of a mountain? 😂

stephanon.bsky.social•315 days ago

Might also be cause for further concern regarding normal societal health stressors, like emissions, noise pollution and light pollution. Easy to breathe easy and find peace when you leave an environment that is dominated by fume spewing vehicles.

lantro.bsky.social•315 days ago

I generally agree with you, although as a parent, there is definitely *something* about getting the kids outside, especially the under 5 crew.

Also this:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/05/13/1250555639/kids-eyesight-myopia-near-sighted-nearsightedness-outdoor-play

jacodemon.bsky.social•313 days ago

Strong "it's not it's having access to and resources for " vibes

andistern.bsky.social•314 days ago

It’s all fun and games until someone gets bitten by a tick

jgcrocke.bsky.social•315 days ago

Those trips aren’t free either! It’s been a few years since I was guiding and I assume it’s worse now but it used to be like $50 or so per head. Not all that useful or scaleable as an intervention although it’s fun.

wkimper.bsky.social•315 days ago

There’s also just a massive problem when it comes to like… a measurable difference is not necessarily a meaningful or sufficient difference. So many things demonstrably help, but they don’t help ENOUGH.

funnyletter.bsky.social•315 days ago

Send them to an all-inclusive resort for a week and see if the same thing happens.

Seriously, do it for science, send the underprivileged kids to the beach and feed them for a week.

sababausa.bsky.social•315 days ago

when I was 16 my dad got a job that had us relocate from Switzerland to Missouri (wouldn't recommend that to be honest) and for real one of the hardest adjustments for me was school lunch going from "an hour free period" to "25 minutes in a loud sweaty food hall"

weeshtable.bsky.social•315 days ago

My husband is in a discord channel with some Swiss people, and they'll occasionally post "Look at this cat I saw on my walk today!" and it's a cat sitting on a stone wall with the goddamn Swiss Alps in the background. My jealousy is immense.

sababausa.bsky.social•315 days ago

can't deny it could be idyllic,

and an ultra-privileged bubble

sababausa.bsky.social•315 days ago

one of my favorite things I miss is there'd be some of the best food you've ever had in the most random places

there's an amazing Portuguese restaurant hidden in a BP Station—would highly recommend it if you're in the region

https://www.google.com/maps?q=Caf%C3%A9+Restaurant+du+Creux,+Le+Creux,+1337+Vallorbe,+Switzerland&ftid=0x478db13e626d4127:0x3ff54c1a0c426427&entry=gps&lucs=,94207356,47071704,47069508,94212608,47084304,94206604&g_ep=CAISDTYuMTA0LjIuNDU1OTAYACDXggMqNiw5NDIwNzM1Niw0NzA3MTcwNCw0NzA2OTUwOCw5NDIxMjYwOCw0NzA4NDMwNCw5NDIwNjYwNEICVVM%3D&g_st=ic

marikapea.bsky.social•315 days ago

I like being in nature and it makes me feel good, but it's as much about having leisure time, being with friends (plus transpo as a non-driver in a city), and having structured activities to do away from work and chores. I get the same benefit from travel or a well-planned staycation

marikapea.bsky.social•315 days ago

Now I just feel like I'm doing Frank O'Hara

fullblownwoman.bsky.social•315 days ago

BREAKING: going on a (presumably free) excursion once in a while is fun

wildcatholler.bsky.social•315 days ago

There is a sub field of research on indoor vs outdoor exercise and its impact on cognition. One example:

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1161533/full#:~:text=This%20study%20suggests%20that%20outdoor%20exercise%20influences%20positive%20emotion%20and,brain%20regions%20related%20to%20creativity.

helenlovatt.bsky.social•315 days ago

What if it’s beauty that matters, whether indoor or outdoor?

michaelhobbes.bsky.social•315 days ago

exactly, some people need to look at sunsets others of us need to look at Manny Jacinto

bryantfrancis.me•315 days ago

He just creeps into my head a little every day

varinajr.bsky.social•315 days ago

Big pharma just wants us to stay medicated, instead of simply providing every American with ten minutes of watching the fading sunlight bounce off Manny Jacinto's perfect cheekbones in a crisp autumn sunset. Wake up, sheeple!

spiritomb.bsky.social•315 days ago

whitewater rafting is a cooperative team activity so the team cooperation aspect is also likely beneficial.

athodyd.bsky.social•315 days ago

Offering up "touch grass" as a universal cure is particularly gross given that for the last few weeks it's been so hot outside as to be medically dangerous

athodyd.bsky.social•315 days ago

I recently learned that there's a summer variant of seasonal affective disorder and while I don't really fit the symptoms I was struck by how, like winter, I am staying inside all the time because it's awful out. I love walking around Knoxville but the window of my apartment is hot to the touch

maisiepubblechook.bsky.social•315 days ago

IME the moral bandwagons almost always have a large component of this-is-a-problem, how-cheap-of-a-solution-can-we-point-to-studies-for (the cost is salient, actual results lag far behind)

prestobal.bsky.social•315 days ago

Yeah, that framing for me reminds me of forced mindfulness activities at work. The whole time it's made obvious that if you point out that your material conditions have gotten significantly worse, resulting in massive stress, compounded by limited work time taken up by that stuff, you're the problem

maisiepubblechook.bsky.social•315 days ago

I'm retired now, but I worked for a long time for the Walton crime family. They specialized in inventing unhelpful interventions for worker problems that never got near the best solutions: fair pay and scheduling.

manofsuds.bsky.social•315 days ago

To me - and I don't quite know how to say this - this study seems more like inventing reasons to justify public green space beyond being a public good. Kind of like how investment in the arts can't be a good itself, we must justify that the arts have to teach life skills or whatever

joolia.bsky.social•315 days ago

Academia desperately needs a magic genie who can pop up whenever someone starts a study like this to ask “Is this an attempt to ‘measure’ the subjective effects of a subjective experience? You might want to reconsider whether the scientific method is appropriate to this inquiry!”

lajoiemedia.bsky.social•315 days ago

Science Clippy

duncanarchitect.bsky.social•315 days ago

I read somewhere that you get the same benefit from walking in an urban environment with visual complexity

gpike.bsky.social•315 days ago

Speaking from experience, it only works WHILE you are on the nature walk, if it works at all (sometimes it doesn't).

chardday.bsky.social•315 days ago

This is why I support addressing our gun crisis with ranch vouchers

goodluckiz.bsky.social•315 days ago

Oh interesting. This is published out of MPDI which has had a history of scandals regarding predatory publishing. It’s cleaned house since but there’s a lot of debate on if it’s really any better.

smoljomusic.bsky.social•315 days ago

I feel like “nature” is not particularly well defined here. I live in London - which technically has enough trees to be defined as a forest. But is also very urban.

Not to mention that the countryside =/= nature -
a lot of rural areas are intensively farmed.

Feels a bit “have you tried yoga?”

smoljomusic.bsky.social•315 days ago

And I have already done years of inward rolling my eyes at yoga teachers intoning over the amazingness of being “in nature” whilst gesturing towards a field of very much selectively bred grazing animals.

auditoriumawful.bsky.social•315 days ago

This strikes me as something that would make more sense in an analysis of built environments and mental health. Like if you have easy access to a nice green area to walk around that would probably improve your mental health but a prescription to touch grass would turn into a stressful chore

manogirl.bsky.social•315 days ago

What's also interesting to me is that many psychiatric drugs make you more susceptible to heat, which makes walking outside pretty unpleasant if you experience it this way, and further, climate change is making the world hotter too. So yes, but also, no.

cdanby.bsky.social•315 days ago

Are we clear that "meta-analysis" typically just means "we found several articles that are vaguely about the same thing"?

crashcityrocker.bsky.social•315 days ago

Man, if I’m going to exploit nature you’d think I’d have to at least light something on fire

contagonist.bsky.social•315 days ago

i cant believe theyre telling me to touch grass

ianbobmorris.bsky.social•314 days ago

walking a long distance makes me feel better a bunch of the time but that isn't relevant to the study

limeyemily.bsky.social•315 days ago

This is like the memes my crunchy friend would share that say shit like “a day in the woods literally cures depression”

artfulscientist.bsky.social•315 days ago

did a creature lurking in the woods waiting to devour lost souls write this?

alexanderfurnas.com•315 days ago

nature walk have been proposed

aristofontes.bsky.social•315 days ago

nothing are better than nature walk

corbin.io•315 days ago

Did they test for nature walks when the heat index is 105 F

kja.bsky.social•315 days ago

All peoples love nature walk

fullykrausened.bsky.social•315 days ago

Oh yeah, my anxiety symptoms are helped by going to the place where deer ticks live.

matthew1290.bsky.social•313 days ago

Wonder if any of these studies adjust for people who actually like nature walks.

Nature walks are just a common activity people like, depression and anxiety are reduced by doing things you like is almost tautological.

If someone hates them, I doubt this is true.

captlaserpants.bsky.social•315 days ago

Begging journals to hire good copy editors (specifically me)

streamlass.bsky.social•315 days ago

*Any* copy editor would be an improvement at most journals; a GOOD one would be incredible.

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