Health care providers have long suggested stressed-out patients spend time outdoors. Now hundreds of providers are going a step further and issuing formal prescriptions to get outside. The tactic is gaining momentum as social media, political strife and wars abroad weigh on the American psyche.
Of course, no one needs a prescription to get outside, but some doctors think that issuing the advice that way helps people take it seriously.
“When I bring it up, it is almost like granting permission to do something they may see as frivolous when things seem so otherwise serious and stressful,” said Dr. Suzanne Hackenmiller, a Waterloo, Iowa, gynecologist who started issuing nature prescriptions after discovering time outdoors soothed her following her husband’s death.
Spending time in natural areas can lower blood pressure, reduce stress hormones and boost immunity, multiple studies have found.
“Study after study says we’re wired to be out in nature,” said Dr. Brent Bauer, who serves as director of the complementary and integrative medicine program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The program focuses on practices that usually aren’t part of conventional medicine, such as meditation, acupuncture, massage and nutrition. “That’s more than just ‘Woo-woo, I think nature is cool.’ There’s actually science.”
