08/24/2026
This article was written by Michael Easter- It's long but worth the read!!
After being outside (camping, hiking, etc) I feel better—lighter, more relaxed, less stressed, And the feelings tend to last for days.
This isn’t a unique observation. Humans have long known that nature does good things for us.
John Muir put it best in 1901:
“Nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.”
The thing is, Muir wrote that back when people still spent a lot of time outdoors. Many Americans still farmed, ranched, and worked outside.
But we now spend 93% of our time indoors, and 10+ hours a day sucked into screens. If our nerves were shaken in 1901, they’re completely frayed and fried now.
Science now proves nature is a hell of a drug. Consider a new Nature Human Behavior finding: “A global analysis of more than 3,800 studies that involved over 10 million people shows that contact with nature reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression while promoting relaxation.”
1. All that green
52,416. That’s how many leaves the average medium-size oak tree has, according to¹ an international team of researchers who used laser scanning and computer modeling to estimate leaf counts. Now multiply that by every tree in the forest.
All that green has an impact: “Green absorbs and reflects light, and then jettisons it back at you,” the Evolutionary Anthropologist David Samson told me. At a basic level, “(infrared light exposure) helps power mitochondria such that it is the precursor to ATP production.”
In turn, “your blood pressure goes down, your immune system is primed, all these really great things from this infrared light.” (Keep an eye out for an upcoming Two Percent podcast with David).
2. Better health markers
When Japan’s forest agency launched Shinrin-Yoku—“forest bathing”—in the 1980s, Japanese scientists went to work testing whether the taxpayer-funded program did anything worthwhile.
One study found that people who spent roughly 15 minutes sitting in and then walking through nature saw drops in blood pressure, heart rate, and stress hormones. This is the same panel of numbers a doctor uses to decide whether to put you on a medication.
A newer systematic review and meta-analysis² found that time outdoors reduced blood pressure by an amount that, in pharma trials, corresponds to a 10% drop in cardiovascular events like heart attack.
3. BETTER SLEEP
Here’s a paradox: Hunter-gatherer tribes get less sleep than us (~6.25 hours a night vs our ~7.1), and their sleep efficiency is worse (~74% vs our ~88%).
Yet those hunter-gatherers report excellent sleep—all while a third of us report getting terrible sleep. The CDC calls our sleep loss a public health epidemic.
What gives? Time outside during the day—not time in bed—might be the catalyst to sleep better.
David Samson, mentioned above, studied the sleep of hunter-gatherers. He explained that our lack of time outdoors has messed with our circadian function. “We’re spending so much time indoors, we’re sedentary, we’re not getting a full spectrum of light and oscillations in temperature—which are the primary drivers of a properly functioning circadian rhythm.” And, in turn, better sleep.
4. Mindfulness without meditation
In nature, your brain enters a mode researchers call “soft fascination.”
In it, “you lightly focus outwardly on the nature around you,” the researcher Rachel Hopman told me. “You’re taking in all these things in the outside world that are nice to look at. But they’re not overwhelming.” You’re paying attention to the world around you but relaxed.
Brain scans show soft fascination is a lot like meditation. Hopman described it as a mindfulness-like state that restores and builds the resources you need to think, create, process information, and execute tasks.
It’s mindfulness without the meditation. A short daily nature walk is a great option for people who aren’t keen on sitting and focusing on their breath.
5. Reset burnout
Researchers at the University of Utah have taken students into the wilderness for a few days and tested their brain waves. The scientists measure the students’ resting brain activity before, during, and after the trip.
The upshot: prefrontal cortexes—which are akin to the command center of our brain—turn down. That’s important, because modern life works the hell out of our command center, often leading to stress and burnout.
Nature doesn’t demand too much from us, so our minds get a rest. And that seems to be good for our attention, sense of calm, and mental well-being.
We also know that the effect of extended time in nature doesn’t wash off once we’re back home.
Scientists at UC Berkeley found that US military vets who spent four days rafting in southern Utah were still feeling the effects a week later. Their PTSD symptoms and stress levels were down 29 and 21 percent, respectively. Their relationships, happiness, and overall satisfaction also improved.
6. Fractals
Fractals are complex patterns that repeat over and over in different sizes and scales and make up the design of the universe.
Think: trees (big branch, to smaller branch, to smaller branch and so on), river systems (little river to bigger river to bigger river and so on), mountain ranges, clouds, seashells.
“Cities don’t have fractals,” Rachel Hopman told me. “Think of a typical building. It’s usually flat, with right angles. It’s painted some dull color.”
Fractals are organized chaos, and research suggests they tend to reduce stress. In fact, scientists at the University of Oregon discovered that Jackson Pollock’s booze-and-jazz-induced paintings are made up of fractals. This may explain why they speak to humans at such a core level.
7. Freedom, variability, and novelty
Behavioral scientist Dr. Trevor Kashey told me that big, open environments deliver three ingredients essential to well-being: freedom, variability, and novelty.
“Freedom is the number of things you can do in a given environment. Variability means that things change often, and novelty refers to things that are new and original,” he said. “The more freedom, variability, and novelty you have, generally the better you’ll feel. The research on that goes back a century.”
Wilderness offers infinite freedom, variability, and novelty.
8. You have to find your way
Finding our way in the outside world was something humans did for all of time. If you couldn’t pay attention and navigate your environment, you died. Our brains evolved to navigate.
Today, we navigate less—instead, we follow a blue dot on a GPS app or zone out and take predetermined routes we always take.
About 11 percent of Americans over 65 have Alzheimer’s dementia today, but the number of cases is projected to double in thirty years.
Meanwhile, studies on hunter-gatherers who still have to navigate their environment show just 1 percent of their older adults get dementia and Alzheimer’s. And if they do get it, it comes later in life and typically doesn’t result in total debilitation.
Researchers think the loss of getting out and finding our way is one factor among many driving up age-related brain diseases.
Time outdoors, where we experience new environments and figure out how to get where we’re going, can help.
9. More attention
Of course, we all suck at paying attention and being present. Unless we’re in nature—nature forces attention.
When you’re moving outside, you’re not just navigating in a big picture way so you can get home.
You’re also having to focus on the ground underfoot and the environment around you—lest you trip on a rock on the trail or walk into a rattlesnake.
Focusing while we move does good things for the brain and mental health, but we get less of it today.
The USC researcher Raichlen studied³ this and wrote that the way we approach exercise today is “cognitively impoverished.” Our gym-based exercise—on treadmills and exercise bikes—“do not provide the optimal cognitive stimulus to maximize the effects of exercise on the brain.”
The takeaway: Get outside onto some rougher ground. It’ll force you to pay attention.
10. Silence (or, at least, good noise)
Silence is harder to find today: Humans have increased the world’s loudness fourfold.
All the noise we now live in is associated with worse health outcomes because it elevates our stress according to the World Health Organization.
When you get outside, the volume goes down. And what you do hear is pleasant—like wind rustling the leaves, a river running, or birds singing.
A review of the literature in PNAS⁵ found, “natural sounds improve health, increase positive affect, and lower stress and annoyance.”
11. You have to figure it out—and that can improve resilience
Recall that we spend 93% of our time indoors—inside safe boxes where we don’t struggle and can have any problem solved immediately through the click of a screen.
That changes when you get outside. If a problem arises, you have to figure it out.
A storm rolls in? Figure it out. You need to cross a creek to get back to the car? Figure it out. You got lost? Figure it out.
Figuring it out is hard in the moment, but it can improve psychological flexibility and teach you that you’re more capable than you realize.
12. Improved Creativity
That’s according to⁶ a University of Utah researcher David Strayer. In 2012, he and his team talked their way onto a handful of Outward Bound backpacking trips.
Half of the Outward Bound students took a creativity test (the RAT test) the morning before their trip. The other half took the test after their third tech-free day in the backcountry.
Those tested in the wilderness scored 50 percent better.
13. It’s free
Unless you live in a city and need to take public transportation to find some green, nature is free.
14. More fitness benefits
When you run on a treadmill or paved road, you can lock into one intensity: Program the treadmill for 7mph or stick to a pre-determined pace on flat-ish roads.
That usually can’t happen on a trail. Your heart rate will skyrocket climbing a hilly section. It’ll fall when you descend. You also have to hop over rocks and ruts.
In short: Your workout will include far more intensities in a single session.
Biomechanists at the University of Michigan discovered that the increased challenge of walking or running on rough, uneven ground leads people to burn 28 percent more energy per step.
15. We’re wired for it
Humans spent 99.9 percent of our 2.5 million-year history living outside. We were outdoorsy in the sense that we spent every moment of our lives outdoors.
Those environments shaped us into who we are—our bodies are tuned for the outdoors. We see this in all the data above.
And then, very recently, poof—that all went away. And we now spend just 7% of our lives outdoors. That has undoubtedly impacted us in ways we know and don’t know.
So get outside. More is better.
Don’t overthink it: The research suggests wilder nature it better, but even just hanging out in your backyard or a city park for 10 to 20 minutes has benefits.
