How Spending Time in Nature Makes Us Kinder and More Generous

July 26th, 2017

By Carolanne Wright

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

Want to bring out the very best in yourself? Science says spend more time in nature.

Richard Ryan, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Rochester, believes communing with nature far exceeds the benefits of easing stress and improving health — it also greatly influences our values and overall behavior as we go about our daily lives.

“Stopping to experience our natural surroundings can have social as well as personal benefits,” says Ryan. He adds that exposure to natural surroundings, compared to those of the man-made variety, helps to cultivate stronger ties of community and closer relationships, as well as increasing our generosity with money.

Ryan should know. Along with a team of researchers, he conducted four experiments involving 370 participants who were either exposed to nature or man-made settings. They were instructed to notice colors and textures of the images on 19-inch computer screens, and to imagine the sounds and smells of the environments. For the first three experiments, half the group viewed images of buildings, roads and other cityscapes, while the other half observed natural landscapes like lakes and deserts. Both the urban and nature images were matched for color, layout, lighting and complexity. The fourth study involved participants that either worked in a lab with or without plants.

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