Health benefits of nature

The idea that contact with nature is healthy appears so intuitively valid, that for a long time, people felt no need to demonstrate or quantify nature's contribution to their health and well-being. This chapter provides a brief introduction to the concepts of health and nature. Within environmental psychology, the term nature is generally used to denote a broad category of natural environments and features of those environments, such as single trees or plants. A more recent line of research has investigated the relationship between access to green space in the living environment and public health. The chapter discusses four main mechanisms: improvement in air quality, stimulation of physical activity, facilitation of social cohesion, and stress reduction. The scientific research and insights discussed in the chapter provide a scientific base for the formal acceptance and better practical use of health benefits of nature in policy and practice.