Research conducted at the University of Kansas concludes that people from all walks of life show startling cognitive improvement \u2014 for instance, a 50 percent boost in creativity \u2014 after living for a few days steeped in nature<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Ruth Ann Atchley, whose research is featured in this month\u2019s Backpacker<\/em> magazine, said the \u201csoft fascination\u201d of the natural world appears to refresh the human mind, offering refuge from the cacophony of modern life.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got information coming at us from social media, electronics and cell phones,\u201d said Atchley, associate professor and chair of psychology at KU. \u201cWe constantly shift attention from one source to another, getting all of this information that simulates alarms, warnings and emergencies. Those threats are bad for us. They sap our resources to do the fun thinking and cognition humans are capable of \u2014 things like creativity, or being kind and generous, along with our ability to feel good and be in a positive mood<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n The researcher said that nature could stimulate the human mind without the often-menacing distractions of workaday life in the 21st-century<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cNature is a place where our mind can rest, relax and let down those threat responses,\u201d said Atchley. \u201cTherefore, we have resources left over \u2014 to be creative, to be imaginative, to problem solve \u2014 that allow us to be better, happier people who engage in a more productive way with others.\u201d<\/p>\n Atchley led a team that conducted initial research on a backpacking trip in Utah with the Remote Associates Test, a word-association exercise used for decades by psychologists to gauge creative intelligence. Her fellow researchers included Paul Atchley, associate professor of psychology at KU, and David Strayer, professor of cognition and neural science at the University of Utah.<\/p>\n Intrigued by positive results, the researchers partnered with Outward Bound, the Golden, Colo.-based nonprofit that leads educational expeditions into nature for people of many backgrounds. About 120 participants on outings in places like Alaska, Colorado and California completed the \u201cRAT\u201d test.<\/p>\n \u201cWe worked with a number of backpacking groups that were going out last summer,\u201d Ruth Ann Atchley said. \u201cFour backpacker groups took the test before they hit the trail, and then four different groups did it on the fourth day just like we had done before. The data across age groups \u2014regular folks from age 18 into their 60s \u2014 showed an almost 50 percent increase in creativity. It really worked in the sense that it was a well-used measure and we could see such a big difference in these two environments.\u201d<\/p>\n Best of all, she said that the benefits of nature belong to anyone who delves completely into wilderness for an amount of time equivalent to a long weekend<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s growing advantage over time to being in nature,\u201d said Ruth Ann Atchley. \u201cWe think that it peaks after about three days of really getting away, turning off the cell phone, not hauling the iPad and not looking for internet coverage. It\u2019s when you have an extended period of time surrounded by that softly fascinating environment that you start seeing all kinds of positive effects in how your mind works.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the University of Kansas press release: There\u2019s new evidence that our minds thrive away from it all. Research conducted at the University of Kansas concludes that people from all… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[18,77,253,85,119,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559"}],"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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2559"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2581,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559\/revisions\/2581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/Park.jpg\" "\\"nature\\"")
There\u2019s new evidence that our minds thrive away from it all<\/strong>.<\/p>\n