Nature and the tired mind: what attention restoration research actually shows

Short answer

1. several lines of research suggest that time in nature helps a tired mind recover. In two experiments, a walk in nature improved performance on attention tasks compared with an urban walk (Berman et al., 2008).
2. A 90-minute nature walk lowered self-reported rumination in a small study (Bratman et al., 2015). Across 19,806 people, at least 120 minutes a week in nature was associated with better reported health and wellbeing (White et al., 2019).
3. Most of these studies have clear limits.

"Go for a walk, clear your head" is advice everyone has heard and few people take seriously on a busy week. It sounds like a lifestyle tip. The research behind it is more specific: it is about a particular kind of attention, how it gets used up, and what lets it recover.

What is attention restoration theory?

Attention restoration theory proposes that natural settings hold our attention gently and without effort, which lets the effortful, directed kind of attention recover.

The idea is that we use directed attention for almost everything at work: reading a contract, following a meeting, ignoring the notification while finishing a sentence. It is effortful and it gets tired. A busy street demands more of it: traffic, signs, people. A forest or a lake holds attention in a softer way: leaves, water, light. Nothing needs a decision.

Work uses directed attention, which gets tired. Natural settings hold attention gently, so the tired kind can rest.

The experiment: a walk in the park vs a walk in the city

In 2008, Marc Berman, John Jonides and Stephen Kaplan published "The cognitive benefits of interacting with nature" in Psychological Science. In two experiments, participants did tasks that measure directed attention, including a backward digit-span task (repeating numbers in reverse order) and the Attention Network Task.

The result: a walk in nature, or even looking at pictures of nature, improved directed-attention performance compared with urban settings. The authors read it as support for attention restoration theory.

The brain-scan study: rumination

Rumination is repetitive, negative, self-focused thinking: the same worry running in a loop. Gregory Bratman and colleagues tested whether nature affects it, and published the results in PNAS in 2015.

38 healthy participants were randomly assigned to a 90-minute walk, either in a green area near Stanford or along a busy road in Palo Alto. Before and after, they reported their level of rumination and had a brain scan.

After the nature walk:

• self-reported rumination was lower;
• activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex, a brain area other studies link to rumination, decreased.

After the urban walk, neither changed.

This study is often quoted as "nature calms the brain". The details are more careful. The sample was small and young (about 27 on average), all from one region. The key test of rumination across both groups was not statistically significant on its own (p = 0.07). The effect on rumination was small. The two walks also differed in other ways, like noise and elevation. It is an interesting result, not a settled one.

The large survey: how much time is linked to wellbeing?

The third study looks at everyday life rather than a lab. In 2019, M. P. White and colleagues published an analysis in Scientific Reports based on 19,806 people from the Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment survey (2014/15–2015/16), weighted to be nationally representative.

Compared with people who spent no time in nature in the previous week, people who spent at least 120 minutes a week were significantly more likely to report good health and high wellbeing.

Source: White et al., Scientific Reports 9, 7730 (2019). Self-reported data; associations, not proof of cause.

According to the authors, it did not matter how the 120 minutes were reached: one long visit or several shorter ones. They also wrote that experiments and long-term studies are the "critical next step" before anyone turns this into a guideline.

In a study of 19,806 people, two hours a week in nature was the point where reported health and wellbeing started to look better. Beyond about five hours, the benefit stopped growing.

What we know and what we don't

Why this is interesting for people who lead

Gloria Mark, who studies attention at the University of California, Irvine, told the UC newsroom in 2024 that people now stay on a single screen for about 47 seconds on average, compared with about two and a half minutes in her first study, which used data from 2003. If work keeps cutting attention into small pieces, the question of where it recovers becomes practical.

The research doesn't say a walk will solve a hard decision. It suggests something more modest: the tired part of attention recovers better when the input changes completely, not when the same stream just slows down.

A question worth asking

When was the last time you were somewhere for two hours where nothing needed your decision?

Where Stilla Circle fits

Stilla Circle long weekends are planned outside the city, with forest walks and work with your hands between the conversations. The idea is to give attention a different kind of input for a few days, and to let the conversations happen in between.

FAQ

Sources

1. Berman, M. G., Jonides, J., & Kaplan, S. (2008). The cognitive benefits of interacting with nature. Psychological Science, 19(12), 1207–1212. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02225.x (accessed 16 Oct 2026)
2. Bratman, G. N., Hamilton, J. P., Hahn, K. S., Daily, G. C., & Gross, J. J. (2015). Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex activation. PNAS, 112(28), 8567–8572. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4507237/ (accessed 16 Oct 2026)
3. White, M. P., Alcock, I., Grellier, J., et al. (2019). Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing. Scientific Reports, 9, 7730. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-44097-3 (accessed 16 Oct 2026)
4. Schelenz, R. (2 Jan 2024). How to sharpen your attention and meet your goals in 2024 (interview with Gloria Mark). University of California Newsroom. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/how-sharpen-your-attention-and-meet-your-goals-2024 (accessed 16 Oct 2026)