Stressed? Take a hike!
Before gas prices became prohibitively expensive, I, like many people, would respond to high levels of stress by hopping in my car and going for a drive. It was a simple but effective method for temporary relief: put on some music, find a country road, or at least a road without further stress-inducing traffic, and drive until my blood pressure dropped to an acceptable level. These days, however, it might be cheaper to just pop into a psychologist’s office for a walk-in therapy session than to burn enough fuel to reduce stress. Besides, I don’t own a car anymore. So when I get stressed these days, I go for a walk.
Turns out I should have been going for walks all along. At least, that’s what a study by a bunch of researchers from the UK, Finland, and Spain, in press at the Journal of Environmental Psychology, suggests. The researchers took a bunch of measurements – some self-report measures like cognitive function and mood, along with salivary cortisol and ambulatory heart rate as physiological measures of stress – and then sent their participants on a thirty-minutewalk in one of three environments: a low-traffic urban area, a “green” natural environment (a “country park”), or a “blue” natural environment (a “footpath beside a canal with a range of natural vegetation”). Once the walk was over, they retook the measurements twice, first immediately and again thirty minutes later.
Here’s what they found: going for a walk in any of the three environments improved mood and cognitive function, and reduced cortisol levels, though the positive effects were more persistent for the “natural” environments than the urban one. There were small differences between the “blue” and “green” environments, but they weren’t statistically significant. So, if you need immediate relief from stress, go for a walk wherever you are (as long as you’re not in a stress-inducing environment), but if you want the relief to last, find a park.
Front page image: The Barton Creek Greenbelt trail covers a wide range of . Photo: Flickr user Brandon Turner, CC licensed. (Souce)
Even when you have to people dodge? I actually like walking and find it to be a stress reliever. When I’m agitated and having to engage in people dodging in New York, it just aggravates me though.Report
Previous studies have shown that being in high-traffic urban environments is itself pretty stressful. This study used low-traffic ones for that reason. So find a quiet street. Or if you really want to be less stressed, get the hell out of New York ;).Report
Probably depends on the person. I love walking in cities. I just moved to one of the densest cities on the planet and I find it quite relaxing to walk around and observe all the activity.
I was born and raised in New York City, though, so urban environments feel like home to me. I do love the nature as well. The place that stresses me out is the suburbs, which can make me quite anxious.Report
People dodging is far less stressful than “illegally unleashed puppy” dodging. Particularly when dodging involves throwing punches.Report
Somehow, imagining you walking down the streets of Pittsburgh punching dogs doesn’t seem that fantastic.Report
Oh, not me… When do my stories ever actually say that I did something?
A friend of mine, who’s been attacked multiple times by rural dogs (he took to carrying a whappin’ stick on his bike, in order to knock them unconscious while they were lunging at him — dogs are nothing if not predictable.), and who for some reason is not exactly happy with unprovoked jumping of city dogs on him from behind.Report
Those that stress me out, should find a short pier.Report
I’m sure that the causes are overdetermined.
Step away from the internet.
Step away from the television.
Step away from the phone (meant more when we were tethered to landlines, of course).
Spend 10-15 minutes with someone you like. Perhaps a dog. Perhaps a person *AND* a dog.
Talk about trivial and silly things if you are with a person.
Hold this person’s hand, if appropriate.
Ideally, do this in a pretty place that smells good.
Man, I’m in a better mood just writing those sentences.Report
That sounds like a pretty good method as well.Report
I’d like to see this done a second time and compare people who walk with their smart phones and people who walk without them.
Though we might find that the people who walk without them feel stress because they can’t check to see if anyone liked their post about how they were going for a walk.Report
This is actually a really good idea. You deserve a grant.Report
One other thing to try. The treadmills from Episode 2 of Black Mirror. https://ordinary-times.com/blog/2015/01/24/black-mirror-season-102-15-million-merits/Report
Why not, given the federal govt already wastes money studying stupider things like lesbian obesity and senior citizen dating habits?Report
Query for the community:
Is there any reason to point out how difficult it is to get research grants out of the federal government these days, or would I just be wasting my time?
(like that dumbass grant back in the mid-50s to support the research program proposed by Dave Keeling to monitor CO2 levels on Mauna Loa!)Report
It would likley be a waste time. Those who know how it is don’t need to be told and those who want to point at crazy looking studies don’t care. To often grants that sound crazy have good reasons and or are solid basic science, but those dont’ beat a good talking point.
I think it was Gov Jindal who mocked fed grants for earthquake and volcano monitoring. Fun fun for someone who doesn’t get geography or geology.Report
Did you ever think if the gov’t didn’t waste money on silly grants that there might me more for real science? Or are you going to tell us how important it is for the gov’t to spend $375,000 on senior citizen dating habits? It is sad that you’d rather grandstand to an audience than acknowledge that the fed gov wastes our tax money.
There more where that came from:
http://www.lankford.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Federal_Fumbles_2015.pdfReport
Wow.
375 thousand dollars! Wasted? Squandered?
OMG.
Wait, hold on just a sec.
The guys over at Halliburton and Lockheed Martin are laughing themselves silly. Something about a rounding error.Report
Really? the elderly has a spreading aids problem, and you don’t care a whit? You are cold.Report
As always, it depends on the research and how creative you can be at getting the military to fund it.Report
I’m going to keep this vague so as not to leaves traceable artifacts.
I worked with a medical researcher at a major university who wanted to study a specific chromosome (part of the Genome Mapping effort worldwide). Little to no funding until he found an obscure study that suggested that people who had a disease involving a fault in this chromosome had an increased resistance to radiation poisoning. After some clever grant proposing, nearly endless Department of Defense funding resulted. No restrictions, no hands-on — just money that went a long way toward mapping this particular chromosome.Report
I always found being in the woods relaxing, especially if exercising. Walk/hike long enough and empty your mind of all the crap that occupies it and concentrate on your steps or the sounds around you while you burn off the chemical stressors.
Free the mind of all that crap and you find answers to things you needed but were too busy to find.Report
Part of why we bought a house where we did was for the walkability of it. Not a lot of shops in immediate walking distance, but lots of sidewalks & walking paths through communities & woods.Report
We bought a house with acres of woods, great shops, and tons of sidewalks.
… it was rather expensive, but Pittsburgh!Report
My experience is that the longer the time spent in the woods, the more dramatic and long-lasting the changes. I hiked two “long” trails, the Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail, and I am of the opinion that both hikes permanently changed my mental make-up (for the better).Report
“Before gas prices became prohibitively expensive”
?
Have you bought gas recently? Maybe not if you don’t own a car, I guess.
Adjusted for inflation it is cheaper than it was in 1915, 1925, 1935, 1945, 1955, 1965, 1975 and 1985. Not quite as cheap as in 1995, cheaper than in 2005. These are the good old days.Report
Yeah, they are really low right now. I just noticed $1.62 regular today.Report