Good Nature

 

Most of us probably believe that nature is good for us. Trees and greenery in our environment improve the quality of the air and create a pleasant atmosphere. Interacting with plants is good for our well-being. But is there scientific proof of this?

Kathy Willis is Professor of Biodiversity in the Department of Biology at the University of Oxford. A few years ago, she was asked to “do some writing for an international project detailing the societal benefits we gain from plants. [She was] asked to find tangible examples of the health benefits derived from having plants in our everyday environments.”

She presents the results of her research in Good Nature: Improve Your Health and Happiness with Nature – One Simple Step at a Time (2024). This book is my choice for the category Garden for the 2025 Nonfiction Reader Challenge.

Willis writes that “The more I looked into this, the more published studies I came across showing that, along with sight, the effect of smelling, hearing and even touching certain plants can trigger measurable (and sometimes long-lasting) positive physical and mental health changes in us.”

The book details the different ways we interact with nature – like gardening, having houseplants, walking in a park, listening to birdsong, smelling flowers – and how these activities affect our health through each of the senses. Willis gives details about the studies she researched, and explains how we can use the results in our own lives. She writes in a conversational style, adding personal experiences. Sometimes I found the research more detailed than I needed to know, but it shows how thorough she has been. She includes Notes, an Index, and 16 pages of illustrations.

There are many good tips in the book for how we can incorporate the health benefits of nature into our daily lives, and I was gratified that many of them were already part of my life.

Some examples:

• “Gardening is something that we should definitely timetable into our busy lives.” (This includes working with houseplants.)
• “Being outdoors in nature, for at least twenty minutes, three or four times a week, provides a whole host of health benefits to young and old alike, healthy and unhealthy, and in both the short and long term.”
• “Children who could see green views from the [classroom] window showed much better results in the tests than those in the rooms with no window or who looked out onto a blank wall. They also recovered much faster from elevated stress levels caused by the test.”
• In noting that most studies focus on the visual aspects of nature, the evidence she has found indicates that “the list of what and how we sense nature for our health should possibly be the other way around: smell, sound, sight, in this order.”
• There is “strong and convincing clinical evidence that when we inhale lavender scents, it triggers changes in our nervous and endocrine systems and mental state, leading to physiological and psychological calming.”
• “A finding that has been replicated time and again from studies across the world: birdsong is perceived as having the best restorative properties, followed by water (streams in woods, waves at a beach) and wind in trees.”

As Willis mentions at the beginning of the book, most of us realize that the sights, sounds, and scents of nature make us feel good. At the end of the book, she writes, “One of the things I’ve found so satisfying from researching this book is finding that the science backs up our instincts about interacting with nature – it not only feels like it is doing us good, mentally and physically, it actually is doing us good.”

The book also presents information about how our communities and cities can incorporate more natural areas in public spaces, with evidence that the effects on health and wellness also benefit schools, hospitals, and the economy.

She concludes, “Nature provides us with untold wealth. It is priceless and we must protect and enhance it – we need nature more than it needs us.”