Written by Marc Braman, MD, MPH – July 5, 2017
Walking outdoors in beautiful nature makes you happier than walking indoors, even when it lasts a lot longer.
Many of us may find this intuitively true. But the researchers were trying to figure out if the popular short, high-intensity workouts were really that great in terms of people’s enjoyment of exercise. All exercise or control activities were done as a group, so that was not the major influence. The beautiful outdoor activity was more of a work out but felt less strenuous while the participants enjoyed it more.
Of course, the hope is that if people enjoy certain kinds of exercise more then perhaps they will exercise more frequently. But…if it’s enjoyable…isn’t that what life is about? Why not do what enables us to feel better in general and enjoy more of life longer in the process?
Application: Exercise in the beauty of nature vs indoors or with machines, whenever possible. And ENJOY IT!
News: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/28/well/move/for-exercise-nothing-like-the-great-outdoors.html
Study: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0177719
