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Mark · Site Admin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1052

Nature helps with ADHD may even out-perform medication

http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1021-hance_adhd.html?email

Excerpt:

Children with ADHD are better able to focus after a twenty-minute walk in a natural setting, according to a study published in the Journal of Attention Disorders. The study compared walks in nature to those in urban or residential areas and found that the child’s ADHD improved most after walking in a green space.

The researchers, Andrea Faber Taylor and Frances E. Kuo, kept every other variable of the walk the same. All walks were twenty minutes long; children were accompanied by the same adult for each walk and met with the same researcher afterward to test their attention. Across the board, the children who had taken a nature-walk scored better than those who had walked elsewhere.
...

Perhaps one of the most surprising finds in the study was that the nature-walk proved as effective as medication—sometimes even more so. “We calculated the size of the effect in our study and compared it to the size of effects in a recent medication study," said Faber Taylor, "and we were surprised to see that the dose of nature had effects the same size or even larger than the dose of medication." None of the children were on their medication during the walk. With the many troubling side-effects of ADHD medication, Kuo believes that spending time in green space is a possible alternative.

Mark · Site Admin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1052

Well, duh.

Who would have thought that being out of our natural environment could cause stress-induced illnesses? Smilie_PDT