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Practicing activities such as outdoor running provides physical and mental benefits.
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People tend to prefer certain natural environments that offer security and resources.
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The natural environment helps reduce stress, improve alertness and promote psychological well-being.
One of the most overlooked fortunes that running holds for you is that you practice it outdoors. It is a well-known fact and therefore taken for granted, to the point that people do not even mind that it is good for them not only as a physical activity in itself but precisely because they practice it outdoors. So how does nature affect the mind and why do we derive so many benefits from it?
The explanation is contained in a book called “The Extended Mind,” which talks about much else but has as its central theme the potential of the mind and especially how little we use it-and how easy it is to use it more. These include the benefit of doing outdoor activities: not only running but also a simple walk.
Why is it that after spending some time surrounded by nature one feels objectively better? To say “Because nature is good for you” is a bit reductive. So here are some explanations.
We tend to select which kind of nature we like
Let us start with a statement that would perhaps seem to contradict what has been said so far: it is not that we like all of nature, indiscriminately. “We like wide grassy expanses, dotted with clusters of trees with outstretched branches and located near a water source. We like the ability to see long distances, in many directions, from a protected, elevated position.” There are environments that indeed seem threatening to us, and seem so to us because of an ancestral reflex, since “in order to survive, humans have developed strong and shared preferences for certain types of natural spaces, those that seem safe and resource-rich to us.”
In short, there are natural spaces in which we linger and where we like to be and others that we consider threatening and dangerous, because our ancestors probably regarded them in the same way.
Why we feel the need to live in nature
When we are stressed, our instincts lead us to go to natural settings. It involves what is called “‘environmental self-regulation,’ which is a process of psychological renewal that our brain cannot accomplish on its own.” In short, we need the natural environment to rebalance our brains, because independently it cannot succeed.
The city does not provide equally effective environments in this respect, because “walking in an urban environment, with its hard surfaces, abrupt and sudden movements, loud and sharp noises, requires voluntary attention. Passive attention, on the contrary, involves no effort at all: diffuse and unfocused, floating from one object to another, from one topic to another.”
The city is so full of visual and aural stimuli that it puts the brain in a state of continuous alertness. Not only that, the city also expresses an idea of scarcity: it seems that everyone is trying to survive somehow, so one also feels unconsciously in competition with all its inhabitants. Nature, on the other hand, expresses an idea of abundance and variety: in this condition the mind is not on alert and thinking about having to find ways to survive.
As if that were not enough, we move around the city looking at our cell phones, which, in shape and size, are another expression of something small and defined. Nature, on the contrary, is infinite, or at least is perceived as such. By observing and experiencing it, the stress level is lowered because the mind contemplates the endless possibilities it offers.
“The time we spend observing those little monitors of ours leads us to think “small,” even as this expands and enlarges, in each individual, the sense of self.”
The benefit is obvious
A walk in a park for an hour to an hour and a half produces easily measurable results that are manifested in decreased stress levels, restored mental balance, and improved ability to focus and maintain attention. In fact, “within twenty to sixty seconds of exposure to nature, our heart rate slows, our blood pressure drops, our breathing becomes more regular, and our brain activity decreases. Our eye movements also change: we look longer at natural sights than at built-up ones, also shifting our attention less frequently.”
Nature is much more diverse than we think, but it is within an organic and coherent structure. If you look at a park and its trees you can easily realize how many colors and shapes there are. They are, however, consistently so (the trees and their leaves have color variations, not juxtapositions that are bothersome to the eye). This variety is precisely what the mind seeks: it is stimulated and not overwhelmed by it as it is by the city’s excess of visual and aural stimuli.
In short, outdoor life acquires a different perspective: thanks to its therapeutic abilities, it is an activity that we should practice as much as possible, partly because it has ancient origins. We still manifest its effects in our genetic code, and those who run have the advantage of doing so in nature on a regular cadence. So you are already ahead :)