Life can feel like a labryinth. 

On top of trying to earn a living, spend time with our families, pay the bills, run errands, keep up with cleaning & repairs around the house, keep the kids & pets fed and the car running, we also need to find time to care for ourselves.

It can feel overwhelming, but the good news is that it doesn’t have to be complicated.

If you have the time to engage in longer workouts, lingering hikes, or restorative yoga sessions, that’s excellent. But for the days or periods in life when you’re running short on time, all is not lost.

A study recently published in the Journal of Positive Psychology found that only brief contact with nature was enough to elicit positive improvements in mood.

The study was split into two parts, with the first part focused on whether five minutes of nature contact influenced emotions.

Researchers first split 123 students into two groups – those who sat indoors in a windowless lab (lucky them!) & those who sat in an urban park. Both groups were asked to set aside any electronic devices for the duration & they rated their emotions both before and after the five minutes.

They found that participants who sat in an urban park showed significant increases in positive emotions in those five minutes vs. those who sat in the windowless room.

To determine if improvements in mood would be sensitive to the duration of time in contact with nature, researchers then split 70 students into the same two groups (indoors & outdoors). Only this time, they asked them to remain seated for 15 minutes.

Like the first experiment, participants were also asked to rate their emotions, including stress, depression & anxiety, on a 4-point scale both before and after they were seated.

Though they anticipated that spending additional time outdoors might boost mood further, additional time did not magnify the effect.

However, they did find that negative emotions were lowered in both locations with five minutes of rest.

Take Home Messages

Our time can feel limited – and we have a tendency to wonder, “what’s the point?” if we have anything less than an hour or two to dedicate to our favorite outdoor adventures.

It can lead us to overcomplicate things – or to skip activities altogether – under the notion that they’re useless.

But as this recent work demonstrates – which is consistent with other work indicating that even as little as a 20 minute walk outdoors or a one-minute workout can be effective in improving our mood or fitness levels – we need not dismiss it so swiftly.

On the days when you’re running short on time & high on cortisol, here are some key, actionable points to keep in mind given this study:

• If you need an emotional boost, heading outdoors will provide a better ROI than taking a break indoors.
• If you’re feeling stuck on locations, you don’t need to hit the highest peak or toughest trail. Even a local park (and probably even your own backyard) will do.
• If you’re short on time, five minutes is all you need to feel improvements in your mood, including stress, depression & anxiety.

If you have abundant time to indulge in your favorite activities, please do! But for the days when your hair’s on fire, know that relief lies on the other side of a brief rest outdoors.

 

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