This can be explained evolutionarily. Our love of green is part of our genetic wiring. Our ancestors who sought non-threatening natural areas with food, water and protection had a greater chance of survival and of passing on their genes than those who did not. That created a genetic mechanism whereby nature continues to trigger positive responses from us.
Sophie Sliepen, a special needs teacher at the Fontys University of Applied Sciences, helps parents and teachers cope effectively with young people who have behavioral problems like ADHD. “The kids I work with have an automatic attraction to nature,” she explains. And those with ADHD like the concrete results nature provides—unlike the yield of many activities required in our modern lives. Those tangible results help those with ADHD focus on what they’re doing. Seeds turn into plants or trees, and the vegetables that sprout from the soil end up on your plate.
Timo van Hardeveld began his garden with radishes, which shot out of the ground in no time. For him, this was a completely different experience than focusing on schoolwork, which he doesn’t always see as important. “It makes me impatient,” he says, “so my mind wanders easily.”
Sliepen isn’t surprised that this connection with nature does a better job of calming the minds of those with ADHD than social contacts. “There is a continual unspoken rejection and attraction between people,” she explains. “Our assessments of one another are never neutral, which creates a constant vigilance and restlessness. But a tree doesn’t care about -appearances. -Nature is authentic and never -underhanded.” Sliepen is advocating making the “outdoor classroom” a standard part of the learning curriculum. The idea is to get kids outdoors for an activity every day, not just occasionally, and to involve all students, not just those with ADHD.
But Sliepen can’t prevent the wave of global urbanization or the fact that we lead busy and complex lives, multitasking in the face of an endless stream of information. Our brains are continually occupied, and we need downtime. You can’t squeeze your hands together forever. Similarly, our mental muscles need rest too.
Some people like to relax by lounging in front of the TV. But does watching a beautiful nature film on the National Geographic Channel have the same positive effect as a walk in the woods? Mayer studied this, once again assigning students to focus on solving a problem. This time the group was split into three sections: one spent time in -nature; another watched a nature video; while the third watched a video filmed not in nature, but in urban areas.
The group that spent time in nature was able to solve the problem while the other two groups didn’t show much progress.
“The connection with nature cannot be virtually simulated,” Mayer says. “After all, you can only experience social connections in real life through contact with family and friends, not by watching people’s lives in a movie.”
So what happens to our brains when we walk through the woods or a park?
This has not yet been demonstrated, according to Marc Berman, a neuroscientist at the University of Michigan. To study someone’s cognitive process, the -individual must be placed in a brain scanner. That technique has not yet advanced to the point that we can take mobile equipment to the woods and walk along measuring brain activity. So the peaceful nature walk must be simulated by the scanner.
That’s complicated, Berman stresses. “The hypothesis is that exposure to nature influences two brain networks. Activity declines in the so-called executive network, which we use for task-oriented thought processes, while the default network, which handles daydreaming and musing, gets busier.”