Sports science academics in the University’s Department of Applied Sciences and Health asked kids aged 9-10 years to complete a series of 15 minute moderate intensity cycling activities<\/strong> — one whilst viewing a video of a forest track synced to the exercise bike and another with no visual stimulus.<\/p>\n The researchers found that after the ‘green exercise’ the children’s post-activity blood pressure was significantly lower than it was without the simulated forest environment, indicating that the nature scenes promoted positive health effects.<\/p>\n Data showed that the children’s mean systolic blood pressure — the pressure in the arteries when the heart beats — was 97.2 mmHg a quarter of an hour after green exercise<\/strong>, compared with 102.7 mmHg after normal activity (over 5 per cent lower).<\/p>\n Lower blood pressure is normally associated with a lower risk of developing health problems, whereas high blood pressure — also known as hypertension — is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.<\/p>\n Dr Michael Duncan, lead author of the study and associate head of the Department of Applied Sciences and Health at Coventry University, said:<\/p>\n “Hypertension is a chronic health problem across the world, so given the results we’ve seen in our study it’s crucial that we continue to try to understand the role physical activity and — in particular — green exercise plays in blood pressure.<\/p>\n “If there is indeed a correlation between viewing scenes of nature and a lower blood pressure post exercise, as indicated by our data, it could have very positive implications in encouraging public health practitioners to prescribe outdoor exercise to reduce health risk<\/strong>.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Coventry University media release: Children who are exposed to scenes of nature while exercising are more likely to experience health-enhancing effects after activity, according to a Coventry University… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,10,60,346],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16606"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16606"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16613,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16606\/revisions\/16613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"children](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/children_playground.jpg\")
<\/a>Children who are exposed to scenes of nature while exercising are more likely to experience health-enhancing effects after activity<\/strong>, according to a Coventry University study published this week in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health<\/em>.<\/p>\n