Outdoor Activities and Well-Being

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Revitalizing your mental and emotional health may be just a few footsteps away. Researchers at the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry in the United Kingdom conducted a meta-analysis of 11 clinical studies involving 833 adult subjects, each of which assessed the effects of outdoor exercise against indoor activities and reported at least one physical or mental well-being outcome. The team found that most studies involving outdoor activities correlated with improvements in mental well-being. Compared with exercising indoors, exercising in natural environments was associated with greater feelings of revitalization, increased energy and positive engagement, plus decreases in tension, confusion, anger and depression. Participants also reported greater enjoyment and satisfaction with outdoor activity and said they were more likely to repeat the activity at a later date. The team declared that those findings gave “significant weight to the case for spending more time in the natural environment as members of the public and their clinicians fight to counteract the negative outcomes of modern living, such as obesity and depression.”

Coon, J.T., et al. (2011). Does participating in physical activity in outdoor natural environments have a greater effect on physical and mental well-being than physical activity indoors? A systematic review. Environ Sci Technol. In press.

—Dr. Bob Goldman