Is 1-Minute of Nature Enough? : Durations of Nature during Walking and Attention Restoration

Abstract

Walking in nature provides several health benefits including restoring attention capacity. However, researchers do not know the extent to which the duration of green exercise affects attention restoration. This lack of evidence prevents designers and planners from effectively providing this nature’s co-benefit. This study tested the extent to which a view of nature and durations of nature while walking may impact attention restoration. 79 participants completed attentionally demanding tasks and walked on a treadmill for 15 minutes; they were randomly assigned 0, 1, 5, and 15-minute views of nature. Participants who saw nature during the walk had greater attentional score improvements. No difference was found among durations. This finding suggested that only one minute of nature in a fifteen-minute walk has a potential to restore attention. This implied that designers should focus on distributing urban nature into barren spaces before adding nature to the places which are already green. This study was one of the first that compared duration of contact with nature for differences in attention restoration. More studies should explore differences in attention restoration with greater ranges of duration to allow landscape designers and urban planners to effectively design cities to reap full co-benefits of green exercise.