The mental and physical health outcomes of green exercise

The mental and physical health outcomes of green exercise JULES PRETTY, JO PEACOCK, MARTIN SELLENS, & MURRAY GRIFFIN Department of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester, UK Abstract Both physical activity and exposure to nature are known... More

The mental and physical health outcomes of green exercise JULES PRETTY, JO PEACOCK, MARTIN SELLENS, & MURRAY GRIFFIN Department of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester, UK Abstract Both physical activity and exposure to nature are known separately to have positive effects on physical and mental health. We have investigated whether there is a synergistic benefit in adopting physical activities whilst being directly exposed to nature (‘green exercise’). Five groups of 20 subjects were exposed to a sequence of 30 scenes projected on a wall whilst exercising on a treadmill. Four categories of scenes were tested: rural pleasant, rural unpleasant, urban pleasant and urban unpleasant. The control was running without exposure to images. Blood pressure and two psychological measures (selfesteem and mood) were measured before and after the intervention. There was a clear effect of both exercise and different scenes on blood pressure, self-esteem and mood. Exercise alone sig Less