Welcome to the happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. Over the years of creating the Happiness Podcast, I definitely advocated getting in nature.

It's probably one of the main things I teach in regards to finding peace and tranquility in our hearts. But have you

ever wondered why I'm such an advocate of being in nature and if there's any studies

that support what I'm suggesting.

Well, today we're going to look at both.

One, a study that was recently done on the benefits of being in nature.

And two, why I personally think it's so important for our emotional,

spiritual, and mental health. I've always been personally attracted to nature

always. Throughout my life I've spent a lot of time in natural

places and for many years I almost felt as if I was born in the wrong era. I

thought I should be a mountain man living off the land. And this desire,

this relief really shaped me as a youth. I'm grateful for it because it brought a lot of

beautiful experiences to my life. But as I said, are there any

studies that support this, that nature is good for us? Well, there is. And let me talk about

a recent study that just came out in February of 2019.

The study I'm referring to was reported in the International Journal of Environmental Health

Research, and the study was conducted by Jin, Y, E, N, and Jenkins

at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. What these two researchers were investigating was did taking people

to urban parks in a local city make any difference on the mental and emotional health of the participants.

So what they did is they took 94 participants to three urban parks in Mountain Brook, Alabama.

And what they found was just by spending 20 minutes in urban parks, there was a significant

increase in happiness in the participants regardless whether they were physically active or not.

...