Being in Nature Boosts Your Mental Focus

Greg Howard
24th January, 2024

Being in Nature Boosts Your Mental Focus

Photograph of a walking trail in a nature reserve (Amani Nature Reserve)

Photo adapted from: Nina R / CC BY (Source)
Modern life increasingly takes place in cities. This shift raises questions about how these environments affect our mental wellbeing and cognitive abilities. A key idea is that urban environments place constant demands on our attention, potentially leading to mental fatigue, while natural settings offer a chance to recover. While previous research has suggested a link between urban living and increased risk of mental health issues[2][3], the underlying brain mechanisms weren’t well understood. Researchers at the University of Utah conducted a study[1] to investigate how walks in nature versus urban environments impact attention, specifically looking at the brain activity associated with different aspects of attention. Attention isn’t a single process; it has components like ‘alerting’ (being generally prepared to respond), ‘orienting’ (shifting focus to a specific stimulus), and ‘executive control’ (managing conflicting information and making decisions). The study involved 92 participants who completed a task called the Attention Network Task. This task measures the efficiency of these three attention components. Before and after the task, participants went for a 40-minute walk – either in a natural environment or an urban one. The researchers used electroencephalography (EEG) to record brain activity during the task. EEG involves placing electrodes on the scalp to detect electrical signals produced by the brain. This allows scientists to observe brain activity in real-time. Participants who walked in nature reported feeling more restored than those who walked in the city. More importantly, the brain activity of the nature group showed a significant change. Specifically, they exhibited a stronger ‘error-related negativity’ (ERN) after their walk. The ERN is a brainwave pattern that appears when someone makes a mistake. A stronger ERN indicates greater brain activity related to detecting and correcting errors – essentially, better executive control. The urban group did not show this improvement in ERN. This finding suggests that a walk in nature can enhance our ability to focus and manage mental effort at a neural level. It provides a potential explanation for why people often feel more refreshed and less stressed after spending time in natural environments. This builds on earlier work that identified higher rates of psychiatric disorders, including depression and anxiety, in urban populations[3][4]. The current study doesn’t necessarily overturn those findings, but it begins to explain why urban environments might contribute to these issues – by constantly draining our attentional resources. The study also connects with research highlighting the impact of urban stressors on mental health[2]. The constant stimulation and demands of city life can lead to heightened stress responses, potentially increasing vulnerability to conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder. A restorative experience like a walk in nature may counteract these effects by allowing the brain to recover. The use of EEG is a key strength of this study. While self-reports and behavioral measures can be useful, they don’t provide direct insight into what’s happening in the brain. By measuring brain activity, the researchers were able to identify a specific neural mechanism – the enhanced ERN – that explains the attentional benefits of nature. The study’s focus on distinct attention networks also provides a more nuanced understanding than simply measuring overall attention levels.

EnvironmentHealthMental Health

References

Main Study

1) Immersion in nature enhances neural indices of executive attention.

Published 22nd January, 2024

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-52205-1

Related Studies

2) Brains in the city: Neurobiological effects of urbanization.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.04.007

3) The current status of urban-rural differences in psychiatric disorders.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2009.01438.x

4) Do urban environments increase the risk of anxiety, depression and psychosis? An epidemiological study.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2013.05.032


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