How a Walk in the Woods Can Make You Smarter (& Restore Some of What We Lose from Our Excessive Use of Technology): What the Science Says (and How to Maximize the Benefits)

Recently, I got to experience one of the greatest gifts living in northern Vermont has to offer. On a 70 degree September day, a friend and I took a couple boats out on a local lake and rowed out to an island. For the next few hours we did nothing but sat on the shore, stared at the sunlight cascading over the water, listened to the lapping of the waves and delighted in the warm breeze wafting over us. For the next several days I felt more peaceful and relaxed. This led me to reflect on the benefits time in nature offers us.

Maybe you’ve felt it too: even a short stroll through natural settingd leaves you feeling calmer, clearer, more able to focus. Well it turns out this isn’t just anecdote or placebo — decades of experiments and a growing body of neuroscience point to real cognitive and psychological gains from time spent in green spaces. Below is a deep-dive into the studies, competing explanations, and modern brain data that adds to this understanding, and—most importantly—how to get those benefits without having to quit your day job and go live in the woods.

The story that started it all (and why it still matters)

In 2008 Marc Berman and colleagues ran a simple, elegant experiment that gets cited again and again in the literature. Thirty-eight University of Michigan students split into two groups; one group walked 2.8 miles through Ann Arbor’s Nichols Arboretum while the other navigated the same distance through busy downtown streets. Both before and after the walks they took an attention / working-memory test (a backwards digit-span task). A week later the groups swapped routes and repeated the procedure. The result: walking through urban streets produced only a small improvement, while the nature walk boosted working-memory performance by roughly 20%. The effect appeared whether the walk happened in January or July — enjoyment or weather didn’t explain it away. (PubMed)

Why this paper matters: it was controlled, replicable, and simple — a clear demonstration that real environments can shift cognition on short timescales.

Attention Restoration Theory (ART): the dominant explanation

The most influential account for these effects is Attention Restoration Theory (ART), developed by Rachel and Stephen Kaplan in the 1980s. ART proposes that our capacity for directed attention (the effortful kind we use to concentrate and ignore distractions) is a limited resource that becomes fatigued with heavy use. Natural environments tend to be “softly fascinating” — they modestly capture attention (think waves, leaves, clouds) without demanding effortful focus. That gives directed attention a chance to rest and replenish; when you return to a task, your attentional system performs better. ART has been elaborated, tested, and debated in many followups and reviews. (Deep Blue Repositories)

What modern neuroscience adds

Behavioral tests are powerful, but many have long asked: what’s happening in the brain? Recent EEG studies are starting to answer that:

Amy McDonnell and colleagues (2024) used EEG to measure brain activity before and after 40-minute walks in a nearby arboretum versus an urban medical campus. Both walks improved mood and some cognitive measures, but the nature walk produced distinct neural signatures: lower resting activity immediately after the nature walk (interpreted as the brain being more “rested”) and larger task-related neural responses when subjects performed attention tasks afterward — consistent with ART’s “rest then return stronger” idea. Other EEG markers of executive control were enhanced after nature but not after the urban walk. (Nature)

These neural results make the behavioral findings more mechanistic: nature may reduce ongoing executive-control load (the brain quiets), and then when needed the system re-engages more efficiently.

But is ART the whole story? (Probably not)

Researchers emphasize that ART is useful but incomplete. Several other mechanisms likely contribute — and they may act together:

1. Perceptual/visual properties. Natural scenes contain curved lines, fractal patterns, and multi-scale textures that may be easier for visual systems to process than the straight edges and high-contrast details of urban settings. Berman and others have suggested that these visual features reduce processing load and feel more “effortless.” There’s growing work on fractal structure and design that supports this possibility. (Bloomberg.com)

2. Physiological changes from exercise and air quality. Walking itself raises heart rate and improves circulation; cleaner air in parks (fewer cars, more trees) could reduce physiological stressors that interfere with cognition. Some experiments compare matched walking durations in different settings to try to separate the effects of exercise from environment. (PubMed)

3. Social and attentional context. Time away from work or screens — solitude or a change of context — may reduce cognitive load and rumination. That “break” effect is not unique to nature, but nature may be a particularly effective break. (PubMed)

4. Olfactory and chemical signals. Newer interdisciplinary work points to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other airborne chemicals emitted by plants that might influence mood, stress, and even cognitive function. A 2024 multi-author paper argues the olfactory pathway is an underexplored route by which natural environments affect wellbeing. If true, that would introduce an entirely different sensory mechanism to explain some benefits. (jacobs.berkeley.edu)

So, ART explains a large portion of the behavioral pattern (and is supported by neural data), but visual, physical, social, and chemical factors probably overlap and interact.

What the evidence as a whole says (the short version)

• Repeated, controlled studies show that brief exposure to nature (even ~20–40 minutes) reliably improves attention, working memory, and mood compared with urban walks or indoor control conditions. The 2008 Michigan study is the classic demonstration; later work — including EEG — reinforces and extends it. (PubMed)

• Systematic reviews find consistent positive effects but also note variability in methods and open questions about dose (how long), setting (park vs. wilderness vs. urban green), and mechanisms. In short: the effect is real but complex. (PubMed)

Practical takeaways: how to turn these findings into everyday "nature prescriptions":

You don’t need t climb a mountain to benefit. Here are simple, evidence-based ways to get the cognitive boost:

1. Keep it short and regular. Studies show benefits from walks as short as 20–40 minutes. Even short, frequent green breaks (10–20 minutes) likely help. (PubMed)

2. Prefer immersion over mere glimpses. The biggest effects come from spending time in a green environment (walking through a park or arboretum) rather than briefly looking at pictures — though even nature images help a little. (PubMed)

3. Unplug, if possible. Let the environment be the focal point — minimize phone checking and task-switching during the break to allow attention to “rest.” (PubMed)

4. Experiment with senses. If possible, sit where you can hear leaves, smell vegetation, or watch water—multi-sensory exposure may improve effects (olfactory research is emerging). (jacobs.berkeley.edu)

5. Bring green into daily life. Street trees, office plants, and window views to nature are associated with improved wellbeing and could confer smaller but cumulative benefits. Urban design that adds fractal/curved elements and more green cover is an active area of research and policy interest. (PMC)

Open questions scientists are still investigating:

• Dose and durability: How long must exposure be, and how long do benefits last? (We have good short-term data; long-term dosing is still being mapped.) (PubMed)

• Which elements matter most: Is it the soft fascination, the fractal visuals, cleaner air, plant smells, solitude, exercise, or some combination? Current evidence points to a mix, so isolating single causes remains difficult. (Nature)

• Individual differences: Do some people get bigger boosts than others (age, baseline mental health, urban upbringing)? Early work suggests yes, but more targeted trials are needed. (PMC)

• Translation to design & health care: How do we best integrate nature into cities, schools, and clinical practice (even “nature prescriptions” from doctors)? That translational work is accelerating. (Porchlight Book Company)

Further reading

• Berman, M. G., Jonides, J., & Kaplan, S. (2008). The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting with Nature — classic experiment showing a ~20% boost in working memory after a nature walk. (PubMed)

• Kaplan, R., & Kaplan, S. (1989/1995). The Experience of Nature / The Restorative Environment — foundational work that introduced Attention Restoration Theory (ART). (Deep Blue Repositories)

• McDonnell, A. S., et al. (2024). Immersion in nature enhances neural indices of executive control — EEG evidence linking nature walks to neural markers of restored executive control. (Nature)

• Ohly, H., et al. (2016). A systematic review of ART — useful take on the evidence base and limits of ART. (PubMed)

• Bratman, G. N., et al. (2024). Nature and human well-being: The olfactory pathway — interdisciplinary argument that plant VOCs and smells may be a mechanism worth studying. (jacobs.berkeley.edu)

Final thoughts

Nature’s benefits for attention and mood are among the most reproducible findings in environmental psychology: short, simple, low-cost interventions ( think a lunchtime walk in a park) reliably improve cognitive performance for many people. The precise mix of mechanisms — ART’s softly fascinating attention rest, the visual ease of fractal/curved patterns, cleaner air and pleasant scents, and the restful change of context — is still being worked out. That uncertainty is a scientist’s dream: it means there’s plenty more to learn, and plenty of room to design cities and routines that make those benefits accessible to as many people as possible.