US Doctors are Prescribing Nature in 35 States

Nature has officially been recognized as a promising and effective approach to integrative health care in the US.

Prescribing time in parks and green spaces is now used as a way of treating a range of conditions including high blood pressure, anxiety and depression. Nationally, there are two Park Rx Programs: Park Rx America and Walk With a Doc. State by state, the movement towards developing a more interactive and meaningful relationship to nature for one’s health and wellbeing is growing.

Take Vermont: A state that consistently rates as the nation’s healthiest. Through Burlington Park Rx (a partnership between BRPW & CHCB), Nature Rx in Rutland County (partnership between CAO & Community Health), and the Park Prescription Program, doctors and healthcare providers prescribe time outdoors to their patients as a way to promote healthy lifestyles and prevent chronic health issues. For Vermont’s programs that work specifically with state parks, healthcare providers prescribe free park passes to patients. With a park pass or a simple prescription for nature, patients are directed to go spend time outdoors to exercise, relax and de-stress.

And for good reason. One study’s results yield that Americans spend 87% of their time indoors and an additional 6% in an enclosed vehicle (on average). * That’s a shocking 93% spent indoors and 7% of our life that is spent outdoors. This may be a prompt for you to see how much time you spend outside.

According to a 2019 study, spending at least two hours a week in nature is associated with good health and well-being. With these findings in mind, Nature and Park Rx Programs are a perfect opportunity for people to reach the minimum time needed per week to take advantage of the health benefits of nature.

In Evolutionary Terms

Our species has spent the majority of our time evolving in close concert with nature over hundreds of thousands of years. So let’s compare that to time after the advent of agriculture just 10,000 years ago. Farming transformed our way of life and essentially brought us more indoors by encouraging more permanent living structures.

And even more recently in our evolution: The internet. Screen technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated at grabbing and holding our attention and keeping us sedentary, indoors with our eyes fixed on screens- especially our children’s. Are we becoming an indoor species so rapidly that our health cannot keep up with the change? Are there simply less opportunities to be active outside with how our modern lives have been structured?

Researchers studied how technology and urban environments deprive us of development in our attention system, which are designed for interactions with nature. They found that by redirecting our attention to nature and interacting with natural environments (Attention Restoration Theory), there is less of a demand for controlled attention compared to attention in urban environments, and is therefore, restorative.

[bctt tweet=”Collectively as a nation we have been closing ourselves off from what keeps us all healthy and sane: Nature. ” username=”natureconnect_”]

Here’s the Door

As an ANFT Certified Nature and Therapy Guide, it’s important to recognize that nature is the therapist and the guide simply opens the door. So I would like to open a door for you. Just past the threshold is the natural world filled awe, spaciousness, beauty and restoration. You can reliably find your dose of nature in national, state and regional parks. Thankfully, these precious areas have been preserved by forward thinking members of our society like Frederick Law Olmsted of Central Park notoriety.

The vast majority of green spaces are free, of course. That is the giving beauty of nature. But for many of us we need help breaking out of our routine and a little encouragement from the people who are said to be taking care of us. Now Doctors in the US are writing prescriptions to go outside and emphasizing the importance of nature connection for our physical and mental health. So it’s official. Get outside! Doctor’s orders.

Park Prescription Programs

Park Rx Map of Park Prescription Programs across the US

At the state and local level, there are Park Prescription Programs and nature connection initiatives of all varieties springing up. In total, there are over 80 local Park Rx Programs, and the number is growing. Hosted by a web of health care practitioners, community health advocates and land stewards you’ll find programs all over the US such as Parkscriptions in Washington, Pittsburgh Parks Prescription , Birmingham Parks Rx. These seemingly disparate initiates are being noticed, coordinated and brought under two leading national umbrella programs called The National ParkRx Initiative and Park Rx America.

The National ParkRx Initiative provides the resources needed to create and maintain a Park Prescription program, information on the need for park prescriptions and a state-by-state directory of ParkRx programs that are building the movement. The movement is just now gaining steam from its original inception. In 2013, The Institute at the Golden Gate and a coalition of park agencies, healthcare providers, and community organizations were inspired by the concept of nature-for-health and were eager to support Park Prescriptions as they moved beyond initial pilot tests into the mainstream.

Your next prescription may look like this

ParkRx America is a non-profit organization who has a similar mission to “decrease the burden of chronic disease, increase health and happiness, and foster environmental stewardship, by virtue of prescribing Nature during the routine delivery of healthcare.” ParkRx works closely with public land managers and healthcare providers to streamline the process of prescribing nature to patients in a real world clinical environment.

Nature Prescriptions for Physical & Mental Health

The prescriptions issued range from nature based physical activities called “green exercise” to simply spending leisure time in nature. To accompany the patients who have been prescribed a non-strenuous outing in nature there is a growing field of ANFT Certified Nature & Forest Therapy Guides ready to help. The guides help patients slow down and practice Forest Bathing.

Forest Bathing, or “shinrin-yoku” originated in Japan and is now taking off in the US as a promising therapeutic modality. One groundbreaking study indicates that forest bathing trips increased NK count and activity and the levels of anti-cancer proteins. The increase has been attributed to a compound released by the trees themselves called Phytoncides that we breathe in during walks in the forest. * NK cells or Natural killer cells are a type of white blood cell that play a major role in the host-rejection of virally infected cells and tumors. This is just one of 10 amazing ways that nature effects us.

Park Rx Programs around the country have already recognized the benefits of Forest Bathing by integrating the practice into their programs. Metroparks Rx in Toledo, Ohio and Sugarloaf Ridge State Park Rx Program in Sonoma County, California are just two examples of Park Rx Programs that host Forest Bathing for patients’ nature prescriptions.

Here at the Nature Connection Guide, our goal is to provide guided Forest Bathing as an accessible resource for Vermont patients to fill their nature prescriptions.

Benefits associated with Nature have been shown to include:

The Nature Movement

The US isn’t alone in prescribing nature to help keep us healthy. Scotland has officially implemented a Nature Prescriptions program on the Shetland Islands. Canada established its first national nature prescription program in November 2020 through the BC Parks Foundation’s PaRx. This program started in British Columbia and expanded to Manitoba, Ontario, and Saskatchawan in 2021. Over 1,000 registered healthcare providers now write patients a prescription for nature in Canada, including Parks Canada Discovery Passes.

The movement is underway! Help spread the initiative. Share this news with your physician and local Parks. We need nature. Nature takes care of us and in order for us to live sustainably on this planet, we must recognize and honor this fact.

What This Means for you

I’ll propose some actions to help get you started:

Ask your Doctor about a Park Prescription Program near you
Refer your Doctor to the information in this blog post
For 6 weeks, commit to increasing your time spent outdoors and decreasing your time spent on screens.

There may be a Park Prescription Program in your area already in place. So during your next doctor’s visit, you might even be sent off with a prescription not to be fulfilled at your pharmacy, but at your local State Park.

by Duncan Murdoch

Duncan is a certified Nature & Forest Therapy Guide through ANFT and a Nature Integration Consultant. Contact Nature Connection Guide if you would like to experience a Nature & Forest Therapy Walk and if you would like to know how to best incorporate nature into your life. Be sure to subscribe to Nature Connection Guide’s Nature Newsletter to keep informed and current on the movement of Nature Connection.

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Duncan Murdoch

CERTIFIED NATURE & FOREST THERAPY GUIDE Duncan is a Certified Nature & Forest Therapy guide living and working in Vermont. He grew up on the shores of Lake Champlain where his deep connection to Nature was formed. Following his passion for art, he moved to NYC where he lived and worked as a professional actor for 14 years. Nature called him to become a horticulturist so he transitioned to become a NYC parks department gardener which lead him to a life of nature (re) connection. After receiving his Nature & Forest Therapy Guide Certification from the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy (ANFT) in 2015, he began his practice in New York City guiding the first forest bathing groups in Central Park. He then moved back to his home state in Vermont in 2015 and began his work with the Intervale Center growing and planting native trees where he now serves as the Land Stewardship Coordinator. As a wellness practitioner, he is part of the UVM Integrative Health Practitioner Network and frequently conducts forest bathing experiences throughout Vermont and the world, in-person and online with his organization, Nature Connection Guide.