FFS BBC Breakfast news – It is not News!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8654350.stm

In other news, getting wound up about news stories on a Sunday morning has been proven to stress you out.

I was reading that before popping in over here, and was a bit surprised by it.
(Not surprised that nature / exercise is good for you, surprised that the fact that it is seemed to be a surprise).

Subjective of course, but it seems kinda weird to see it laid out like that, but I guess there are plenty of people to whom this concept is [hitherto] utterly unknown?

😐

It is not News!!

Well it's news to me. I was unaware that any research had been done into "green exercises" or exercises in green spaces. I was unaware that the location where the exercise occurred had a significant effect – I thought exercise was exercise. I was unaware that "biggest effect is seen within just five minutes", I thought it was 10-20 mins. I was unaware that there had been properly conducted research which showed the effects of taking exercise in areas that also contained water – such as a lake or river. I was unaware that green exercise had more effect on young people than older people.

I was also unaware that an article in the Environmental Science and Technology journal about research carried out by the University of Essex wasn't "news".

"STW Punter Is Shocked And Slags Off The BBC Shocker"

no sh!t!

It's not groundbreaking stuff though. 5 years ago I remember being told that a) exercise & being outdoors is good for mental health and b) that hospital patients recover more quickly if they have a view of the outdoors or even a landscape painting / photo and c) that the landscapes people typically like most have hills, trees and water.

Yes but it was saying green environments are better than just running on roads etc.

Not that exercise is good for you but the green' is better mentally.

Been reported years ago though.

An extract from the actual journal article if anyone is interested:

Discussion

The results show acute short-term exposures to facilitated green exercise improves both self-esteem and mood irrespective of duration, intensity, location, gender, age, and health status. The six subgroup analyses suggest important specific recommendations for the most effective dose of nature and green exercise. 1. Exposure duration: both self-esteem and mood showed greatest changes for the least duration (5 min), both showed smaller positive improvements for <1 h and half-day activities, and both increased for whole-day activities. This suggests that there is an immediate effect obtained from the start of green exercise. Whole-day activities are likely to be qualitatively different activities, involving in some cases camping overnight and in others significant conservation achievements. 2. Exercise intensity: self-esteem improvements declined with growing intensity of activity, and mood improvements were greatest for light and vigorous activity. This suggests that there is a health benefit from any short engagement in green exercise. 3. Type of green space: all green environments improved both self-esteem and mood; the presence of water generated greater improvements. Although participants should be encouraged to undertake outdoor activities in both rural and urban environments, spending time near waterside (e.g., beach or river) or participating in water-based activities may give a greater benefit. 4. Sex: both men and women reported similar improvements in self-esteem after green exercise, though men showed a difference for mood. 5. Age groups: for self-esteem, the greatest change was in the youngest category, with diminishing effects with age; for mood, the least change was for the young and old. This suggests that younger people will see more self-esteem improvements, and the middle-aged from mood. The over-70 age group experienced the least change, perhaps because those sampled were already experiencing good mental health and further improvements were limited. 6. Starting health status: the mentally ill had one of the greatest changes for self-esteem improvements. This suggests that the mentally ill should be encouraged to undertake green exercise.

Exposure to nature via green exercise can thus be conceived of as a readily available therapy with no obvious side effects (56). These findings indicate that dose responses for both intensity and duration showed large benefits from short engagements in green exercise, and then diminishing but still positive returns. The findings also suggest that those who are currently sedentary, nonactive, and/or mentally unwell would accrue health benefits if they were able to undertake regular, short-duration physical activity in accessible (probably nearby) green space. Such doses of nature will contribute to immediate mental health benefits. As with smoking, giving up inactivity and urban-only living results in immediate and positive health outcomes, even from short-duration and light activity such as walking. The findings from this multistudy analysis suggest the need to undertake larger-scale and randomized studies of different cohorts over long time-frames to explore the dose of green exercise further.

All studies included in this multistudy analysis involve exercise in green environments. The combined benefits are thus assessed but the relative contributions of each component are still unknown. Thus, there is also a need for a field-based controlled study to analyze the benefits of each element and assess whether there are any synergistic outcomes. This has been demonstrated in a controlled laboratory environment involving simulated green exercise (12), but evidence is limited in the field. Overall mood effect sizes for green exercise in this study are slightly larger (d = 0.54) compared with exercise in nongreen environments (d = 0.49) reported in other studies (57), although future research is still needed to compare different exercising environments.

The findings here are based on short-term exposures to single interventions. There remains a need for longitudinal multicohort studies to track changes over time. Important questions remain on how long the enhanced mood lasts once activity has finished, and whether there are accumulative effects following repeat exposures. The findings comprise studies conducted by one University; thus once other national data becomes available future meta-analyses will be more cross-sectional. The 10 studies were also analyzed over a period of six years, so self-esteem and mood may have been manipulated by extraneous variables which could not be controlled for. However, the outcomes do suggest a new priority for frontline environmental and health professionals—a regime of doses of nature may be prescribed for anyone, but will have a greater effect for the inactive or stressed and mentally ill, or at presurgery (58) or for recovery (59). Employers, for example, could encourage staff in stressful workplaces to take a short walk at lunchtime in the nearest park to improve mental health, which may in turn affect productivity (60).A particular focus should be on children: regular outdoor play brings immediate health benefits, and may instill healthy behaviors early in life (61). Childhood social and economic conditions also predict adult health status (62), and outdoor free-play is vital for development and cognitive skills (63, 64). Given the therapeutic affects of green exercise (65), youth offender teams should engage certain groups of young people more in outdoor programs. Health inequalities could be reduced if attention were also given to the importance of urban design for both private dwellings and public institutions such as schools, care homes and hospitals (14).

Biking keeps me out of the funny farm.