Off the grid: How much nature is enough?

In recent articles exploring the question of the impact of “time in nature” on mental health, a new rule of thumb developed by neuroscientist Dr. Rachel Hopman, is being widely applied in various wellness literature: The 20-5-3 Rule.

The basics: We can improve our mental health by spending 20 minutes outside each day, five hours in a natural setting each month, and three days in a more wild, off-grid setting each year.

Presumably, this measured approach should suffice for those of us too busy bouncing from our doctor to our psychiatrist to our gym.

Checking this additional outdoor box will, no doubt, ensure our health and vitality.

For Pacific Northwesters, known for their outdoor enthusiasm only to be exceeded by enthusiasm for the Seattle Seahawks, this may seem rather like scraping the bottom of the barrel, at best.

In medicine, there is something known as the “minimum effective dose,” or the smallest dose necessary to produce a desired outcome.

That science and medicine are applying this method to observational studies on exposure to nature, though well-intended, contributes to a reductionist perspective on well-being.

One might argue that it is not well, just well-enough.

Wellness writers across the nation are sharing this new data with pleased announcements that mental health can be impacted by a “painless” 20-minute stroll in the park.

It is unclear if the minor sacrifice of time or the pace of the stroll is what promises a comfortable cure to a communal disease, though all parties agree that our mental health doesn’t have to be hard work. Thank goodness.

Perhaps this is the reason most public relation campaigns for nature focus on how little time or effort is needed to enjoy the panacea-like benefits of green spaces. On the matter of those benefits, the science is clear.

Spending time outdoors in green spaces is shown to lower blood pressure, increase serotonin levels, improve mental health, increase motivation (to eat sandwiches, one might presume), increase life expectancy, sharpen our cognition, reduce cancer risk, reduce cardiovascular disease risk, and much, much more.

But if it weren’t for a prescriptive cure, why would we even bother going outside?

And if science is telling us 20 minutes in the park will do the job, will we reduce our wilderness areas to their lowest effective dose – a half-mile path of park and a canyon without cell service?

The minimalist approach to nature fails to address the complexity of issues that are inextricably interdependent.

For example: How did our mental health get so needy in the first place? (Note: in studies where individuals were allowed to look at their phone during park visits, no mental health benefits were observed.)

When in our evolution did we lose touch with the reality that we, too, are natural beings and thus require an environment conducive to our survival?

We don’t put our house pets in a shoe box for 23 hours and 40 minutes a day, then plop them into aquariums and terrariums for twenty minutes and expect them to thrive.

When did moving freely through the environment of our very creation become a chore on our daily checklist? And why is this not seen as a travesty?

In Joe Henderson’s 1976 book, “The Long Run Solution,” he made reference to the myriad ways in which his hour-long meanderings changed his life.

He wrote at length of “going out of his mind,” which these days is referred to as “mindfulness” or something called “soft fascination.”

Much like the therapeutic application of nature, we’ve taken to prescribing spaces (external and internal) in which our minds are allowed to wander.

It seems that nature is the only socially acceptable place for us to pause the otherwise incessant bludgeoning of messaging: the news, texts, traffic, social media, billboards – all of them with a distinct motive.

Maybe that is what makes nature a cathartic healer: It has no intentional influence.

It’s not even offended if we only spend 20 of our sacred daily minutes with it.

Surely there’s a new Netflix series pandering to our need to be entertained by the sensational and salacious, while trying to find a J.Crew sweater and looking into that new weight loss drug that makes potato chips part of the meal plan.

The question is not: How much time should we be spending in nature?” It is: What better thing do we have to do with these precious moments of our life?

That we have come to a place where we require Harvard scientists to affirm that time in nature is, as supported by the data provided, indeed beneficial to our well-being is as tragic as our ignorance (or blatant neglect) of the causes of our ill-being.

We consume that which directly detracts from our health and our intuitive knowledge that nature is necessary to it. We spend more time scrolling Reddit about why we should go outside than actually going outside.

Then, with the affirmation that, yes, actually there is a thorough body of knowledge to support this very premise, we add “green-bathing” to our weekly agenda in 20-minute blocks to be sure we get enough.

Long before this crisis, Henry Thoreau laid it out as simply as one can, and with a preceding eloquence in describing the “booming of the snipe” and the “whispering of the sedge” that makes one salivate at the prospect of a long walk on a spring day.

“We can never have enough of nature.”

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammimarie@gmail.com