Tag: research
Parents, communities take note: Teens need nature too.
Over the past decade, parents of young children have been told repeatedly by experts of many stripes: make sure your children are given ample opportunity to spend time outdoors. The benefits to young bodies and minds are many: Greater confidence, increased creativity, reduced stress, to name a few. Yet, similar missives have been largely absent…
What happens when you go for a walk?
“You’re doing nothing when you walk, nothing but walking. But having nothing to do but walk makes it possible to recover the pure sensation of being, to rediscover the simple joy of existing, the joy that permeates the whole of childhood”. – F. Gros The French philosopher Frederic Gros doesn’t specialize in the latest scientific…
Take a Mental Break, Eat Your Veggies, and Other Sage Advice
At Nature Sacred, we keep a close eye on the academic research being published around nature, health, and wellbeing. Via Research Shorts, each month we take what we see as some of the most interesting work being published and create a brief summary for our readers — enabling you to be in the know, even if…
Gardens engage the mind, muscles, and hope
Planting a seed engages the mind. Working the soil engages the muscles in our hands. Watching new life grow engages our hope. Gardening is perhaps one of the oldest and most common ways we interact with nature everyday, and there is increasing awareness among scientists of the potential health benefits derived from gardening activities. A…
Mind and Body in a Nearby Quiet Space
This post continues last week’s introduction to the health benefits of nature encounters. For greater detail and citations, please check out the new Nature Sacred Monograph “The Sacred and Nearby Nature in Cities”. We are approaching nearly 40 years of research about the linkages between nature experiences, human disease prevention, and health promotion. As more…
Nature Sacred Research Collection Now Available
How do we build more contemplative spaces in cities? The global population is increasingly urban. More and more people are moving to cities for opportunities and resources, each region facing different challenges. City budgets are tight and communities have many needs. In the U.S. the ‘baby boomer’ population is aging into retirement. Globally, demands to…
Track your own nature experience
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. … There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” —Rachel Carson, Silent Spring Since the 1970s, health and nature research has…
The Fine Details: Surprising Outcomes of Nature and Health Research
The Nature Sacred Award Initiative supports several projects investigating how humans benefit from being outside. One of these research projects is combing through the fine details of this overarching research endeavor using eye movement technology. Kardan and colleagues (2015) are investigating what we notice, focus on, prefer and feel when we view nature images. These findings…
A Pathway to Health: Nature Sacred Research Project Provides New Leads
New research from a Nature Sacred partner, Frances Kuo at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, hints at a central pathway linking human health and time spent in nature. Taking a walk in the park, going for a hike, or watching a tree sway in the wind feels intuitively relaxing. Health and nature research takes this a step further…
Stunning Design, Real Community Space in Singapore
In our Open Voices blog we share insight from leaders in our communities who are advancing what it means to have sacred, open green spaces in our cities. This week, we present an interview with Dr. Adrian Loo of Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. Nature Sacred: In your role as Director of Research and…
