REI Co-op, a popular American retail and outdoor recreation services cooperation, promotes the idea that a life outdoors is one that is well-lived. You can find this catchphrase of theirs, a life outdoors is a life well-lived, all over their website! It’s anywhere from t-shirts to other merchandise like bumper stickers and water bottles. Their reasoning for this motto stems from the belief that a life spent outdoors is better for all parties involved: individuals, society and our planet.
While I am a frequent shopper at REI and full-heartedly believe in this statement, there is definitely some truth and factual evidence behind this idea. Getting outside has so many different benefits linked to improving your physical and mental health, leading to a better lifestyle. Here are ten of them, just to name a few!
1. Boosts Immunity
2. Improves Concentration
Can’t focus? Might I suggest taking a walk in your local park or perhaps around the block! Studies for both children and adults show that exposure to nature is proven to enhance attention.
According to Ask the Scientists, a 2009 study showed that children with ADHD had elevated attention performance after just a 20-minute walk in a nearby park. Moreover, adults who have an office window with nature views or who take breaks outdoors have increased production and concentration.
3. Sharpens Short-Term Memory
Not only can being in nature help you focus, but it also improves short-term memory. If you think about it, it makes sense. When we are in urban settings, like busy cities, many different factors pull our attention in different directions, making it hard to focus and remember things we just learned. By spending more time in a peaceful natural setting, we can recall things better.
A University of Michigan experiment proved this idea. Two groups of students were asked to take a memory test before and after taking a walk outside. The students who walked through the wilderness had improved their test scores by 20 percent, while the students who walked through the city had no improvement.
4. Raises Vitamin D Levels
Vitamin D is an essential vitamin that our body needs to function to the best of its ability. Although we can get it in different ways, our body gets most of this vitamin from the sunlight. Vitamin D helps us with calcium absorption and even some health conditions, like osteoporosis.
5. Improves Mental Health
Light correlates to elevating moods, and most often, you can find more of it outside than you can indoors. On top of that, just sitting outside reduces our body’s blood pressure and lowers our heart rate, leaving us in a calm and peaceful state. This can be especially helpful when coping with mental illnesses like anxiety and depression.
6. Relieves Stress
Time spent outside also lowers levels of cortisol, which is the stress hormone in our body. According to Business Insider, students sent into the forest for two days returned with lower cortisol levels than those sent into the city.
7. Natural Caffeine
Are you looking for an excellent way to quit that coffee addiction and stop spending so much money on Dunkin and Starbucks? Take a step outside, and that will do it. According to a Mental Floss article on the scientific benefits of being outdoors, a study shows just 20 minutes outside can give “your brain the energy boost comparable to one cup of joe.”
8. Promotes Activity & Exercise
By making time spent outside a priority, you will spend less time sitting on your couch or scrolling on your phone. This is a step in the right direction if you are looking to live a more active lifestyle.
It’s easier to work out outdoors, too! In a small study with cyclists, researchers had them bike in front of green, grey and red footage. Those who biked in front of the green footage had “less physical exertion and more positive moods.” In conclusion, they determined exercising in nature surrounded by grass and plants might boost your workout.
9. Increases Creativity
Ditching your devices and getting outside to get back in touch with your creative side might be the way to go if you’re experiencing writer’s block or are at a stand-still with your art. Business Insider states that a study with people immersed in nature for about four days improved their test scores on a creative problem test by a whopping 50 percent!
10. Boosts Longevity
Last reason, best reason! If you put together all nine of the previous benefits listed of why you should get outside, an overall consequence of these factors is a longer life. Air quality is better in areas with more nature than in cities, meaning an increase in longevity. People who live in these same nature-surrounded areas also have more motivation to exercise outside and improve their heart health, not to mention the mental health benefits spending time outdoors can have. With all of these things contributing to a person’s life, they are bound to live longer than someone who doesn’t have the same natural surroundings.
If these ten reasons weren’t convincing enough to get you outside, then try it just for fun! The world is your oyster, and there are so many new experiences and hobbies you can submerge yourself in when you get outdoors. You can go for a run, start a garden, bird-watch or maybe even slackline! REI is right: a life outdoors really is a life well-lived.
Go on, get to it. I’ll see you outside!
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