Restoration from Natural Spaces in Adolescents

Adolescents today experience increasing amounts of stress and deal with more mental health issues and higher levels of mental fatigue than previous generations. Although many practitioners and researchers believe that interacting with or being in nature has positive impacts on health and wellbeing, past research has shown this relationship to be more complex than one might imagine. Teenagers, for example, can have a multidimensional, conflicted, and, at times, negative view of the environment in comparison with that of younger children or adults.

To explore the relationship between adolescents and nature, this study examined the restorative power of nature for adolescents in outdoor versus indoor environments through the lens of the conditions of being alone, being with a friend, and being on the phone. The study sample included 120 adolescents (66 females and 54 males). All participants were from a sixth-form college in Southwest London. The research took place in indoor and outdoor environments that students would actually use, plus two outdoor spaces that were not usually open to students. Stress, and then restoration from the stressful condition, were measured with three indicators: blood pressure (both systolic and diastolic), heart rate (in beats per minute), and attention (measured through the Necker Cube Pattern Control Test [NCPCT]).

First, the researchers took baseline measurements of blood pressure, heart rate, and attention. Next, the researchers administered four tasks designed to stress out the participants and create mental and attentional fatigue. Three of the tasks were cognitive tests: memory, mental arithmetic, and shape sorting. The fourth task had participants give a speech on the topic of “what [they] like about [themselves]” to four other people, after which researchers took measurements of blood pressure and heart rate again. The participants then randomly chose a slip of paper that placed them in one of six categories: “outside alone,” “outside with a friend,” “outside with a phone,” “inside alone,” “inside with a friend,” and “inside with a phone.” After spending 20 minutes either inside or outside, the researchers took blood pressure and heart rate measurements again, and the participants completed the attention test.

Heart rates were reduced during both the “alone” and “phone” conditions in both the inside and outside conditions, although slightly more in the inside environments than the outside. Blood pressure, both the systolic and diastolic measurements, decreased significantly in the inside and outside conditions. Participants scored significantly better on the NCPCT test after spending time outside rather than inside for all conditions; they achieved the best scores when they had spent time talking to a friend as compared to being on their phone. Participants reported an increase in positive feelings after spending time outside rather than inside. The participants also reported an increase in positive feelings when they were outside with a friend than when they were outside alone or on their phone. Finally, in both the indoor and outdoor locations, attentiveness decreased after 20 minutes. Being with a friend outdoors decreased attentiveness, while being with a friend indoors increased attentiveness.

The results of this study suggested that nature may be restorative for adolescents. The authors note, however, the indoor environment in this experiment might have been particularly negative for the participants, as the indoor room had no windows, a condition that researchers have found can create a negative effect on mood. The results also show that most positive, restorative outcomes for adolescents occur when they are with a friend more than when they are alone or alone with their phone. In fact, being with a friend outside actually increased participants' heart rates, which may be because adolescents find being with their peers stimulating. Specifically in outdoor spaces, providing structures such as beanbags, benches, and/or blankets may make such natural spaces more attractive to adolescents and promote social interaction, facilitating restorative benefits such as reduced stress and mental fatigue and improved mood.