Is Going Green The Best Form of Exercise?

May 12, 2010 By Mark

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390606540_9c27386ad7 Everything revolves around going green these days which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the thing is though nowadays more than ever there is a multitude of places and equipment that we can use to do our exercise.

There is more equipment being brought out all the time, which encourages us to exercise in our own homes, here is the thing though is that necessarily such a good idea?

Some recent research suggests that you are probably better off getting your exercise outdoors, even if it is in your own back garden or on a nearby park and the great news is it doesn’t necessarily have to be for a long period of time, for people who are pushed for time five to 10 minutes is ample from what they say.

A lot of scientific evidence now supports the theory that exercising outside is good for your overall well-being from a mental health point of view. People who have been in hospital and sit near windows and can see outside tend to have far better recovery times than those who can’t see any greenery or trees, etc.

Jules Pretty who was one of the people who instigated the study had this to say.

“For the first time in the scientific literature, we have been able to show dose-response relationships for the positive effects of nature on human mental health,” Pretty said.

They analysed 1252 people from various studies, and found that more people had positive responses to activity, which was conducted outside and communing with nature also. They looked at various types of activities, which included gardening, cycling, walking, fishing, boating and horse riding

Their overall research found that just five minutes doing any of these particular activities gave the people the most boost as far as feeling good and self-esteem were concerned.

So what can we learn from this piece of research? Well, you can do exercises on park benches such as push-up etc. perhaps we need to be varying what we do and getting out of our dwellings more because after all we are social creatures.

Do you find that if you exercise outside rather than inside you tend to feel better and does it affect any other parts of your life such as do you feel better overall and do you sleep better? As always, it’s always nice to get some feedback from people to find out what they think about these sorts of things.

Source http://www.sciencedaily.com