- Being surrounded by greenery is not automatically the same as feeling connected to nature.
- A study in young adults found that what mattered most was regularly noticing nature in everyday life and also when being physically active.
- The biggest mental health differences appeared when both types of exposure lined up, suggesting that nature and movement may reinforce each other rather than acting as separate wellbeing tools.
Rates of low mood and anxiety have risen in many countries and young adults have not been spared.
Against that backdrop, researchers explored a deceptively simple question: is it enough to live in a leafy area, or does mental health benefit more when people actually perceive nature as part of their routines? Many studies rely on maps and satellite measures such as how many trees are nearby or how close a park is.
Those measures are useful, but they can miss the human reality: two people can walk the same street and experience it very differently.
Instead of only counting trees, the researchers asked participants how often they perceived natural environments around them. The focus was on two contexts: daily life in general and physical activity in particular.
The participants were 357 young adults with an average age in the early twenties, drawn from a long-running cohort in New Brunswick, Canada. They rated their exposure on a five-point scale, capturing not just whether nature was present, but whether it registered in their awareness.
- Food that may boost mood in older adults identified in new research
- Young people with type 1 diabetes 50% more likely to develop mood and anxiety disorder
That difference between presence and perception turned out to matter.
The results suggested that contact with nature in only one setting was not enough to produce a clear, reliable mental health advantage once other factors were accounted for.
The strongest association appeared when participants reported high exposure in both everyday life and during physical activity.
When those two settings aligned, participants scored notably higher on a mental health measure compared with those who reported little exposure in either setting.
A key detail is that initial patterns can look more impressive than what holds up after careful adjustment.
People who feel mentally well may be more likely to go outside, take walks and notice natural features in the first place.
To address this, the analysis accounted for baseline mental health. After that adjustment, the statistically meaningful advantage remained concentrated in the group with high nature perception in both daily life and exercise.
In other words, the “double exposure” pattern looked less like a simple reflection of already feeling good and more like something that could be contributing to better wellbeing.
Why might this combination matter? One explanation is that physical activity can act as an amplifier.
Moving through an environment changes attention. A run or brisk walk encourages scanning the surroundings, while sitting indoors does not. Natural settings can also make activity feel easier to sustain by shifting attention outward. Instead of focusing on fatigue, people may be drawn to birdsong, changing light or the movement of leaves.
That outward focus can reduce rumination, which is a common feature of anxiety and low mood.
The relationship can also run the other way. People who experience nature as pleasant may be more motivated to be active because the setting feels restorative rather than demanding.
- Outdoor exercise more beneficial than indoor exercise
- Forget 10,000 steps: for older women, 4,000 is enough
- 5 steps to improve your cardiovascular health
Over time, this becomes a feedback loop: nature encourages movement, movement increases exposure to nature and together they support mental health more than either would alone.
The findings also raise an equity issue that is hard to ignore.
Access to safe, appealing green spaces is not evenly distributed. Immigrants, racialised communities and lower-income households often face barriers such as fewer parks, poorer maintenance, safety concerns or long travel times to reach larger natural areas.
If mental health gains depend on repeated exposure across different settings, unequal access can deepen existing health gaps.
A practical takeaway does not require wilderness.
The study’s logic points towards frequency and integration rather than grandeur.
A short walk through a local park, exercising on a route with trees or water, choosing a greener street for errands and noticing nature where it exists can all add up.
