When I was 12 years old, I started to exercise outdoors daily. Every day I would leave the house and take a long walk through the beautiful neighborhoods in Menlo Park and Atherton, California. Upon my return home I would always feel calmer, happier, and more focused on my homework. In the context of healing from trauma and abuse, I wondered if outdoor exercise can energize and awaken our minds, lift our spirits, enhance our cognitive performance, and help alleviate depression.

This essay will explore outdoor exercise as a conduit to a deeper mind/body connection, and provide clinical data to support the argument that exercise can boost our productivity, enhance our mood and serve as a type of therapy to treat clinically diagnosed depression. The following paragraphs will support the theory that outdoor exercise has the potential to make us better people.

When I take my daily hikes, I look forward to walking through the dirt paths and gazing at the endless green trees that line the trails up on Cougar Mountain. In addition to its beauty, I relish this quiet time of my day, where the only noises I hear are the sounds of my feet hitting the trail and an occasional bird or squirrel moving in the woods. It is a respite from the noisy cars on the street outside of my home and the constant dinging of our family's 5 cell phones (not only mine, but those of my husband and three sons) receiving text messages or alerts.

On these hikes I can focus inward and think clearly, and I have thought through and solved many problems during these outings. According to a 2012 study published by Ruth Ann Atchley et all, entitled “Creativity in the Wild: Improving Creative Reasoning through Immersion in Natural Settings, (3)” my result may not be unique. The study hypothesized that ‘complex cognition is facilitated by prolonged exposure to natural settings (3)' in addition to ‘the parallel release from technology immersion. (3)'

The setup of the study included two arms: a pre-hike group that answered a series of ‘high order cognitive tasks termed Remote Associates Test (3)' or RAT items vs an in-hike group that answered the same series. The in-hike group had a 50% statistical increase in performance (as it related to the questions) than the pre-hike group over a four-day exposure to nature. (3) The statistical significance of the data in Atchley's study supports the hypothesis that hiking in nature can improve cognitive performance, and who can argue that improved cognitive performance doesn't enhance productivity?

But can exercising in nature actually make us better, happier people? Is something as simple as a daily hike on Cougar Mountain an investment in a truly brighter self? In essence, the answer to that phenomenon is, yes. The hypothesis has been tested and proven that exercising in nature without the distraction of anything technological (for example, an iPod, iPhone, etc.) could provide additional opportunities for one to ruminate less often.

Rumination, by definition, is “a prolonged and often maladaptive attentional focus on the causes and consequences of emotions – most often, negative, self-relational emotions. This pattern of thought has been shown to predict the onset of depressive episodes, as well as other mental disorders.” (1) Logically, the more time one spends exercising in nature immersed only with one's thoughts and absent any other technological distractions, less rumination would be predicted to occur. Could exercising in nature be the best preventative medicine for lowering the risk of depression?

Dr. Brahman's study, ‘Nature Experience Reduces Rumination and Subgenual Prefrontal Cortex Activation,' (1) recruited 38 ‘participants with no history of mental disorder (1)' to participate in one of two arms; ‘a 90-minute walk in either a natural environment (19 participants) or urban environment (19 participants) (1).' The results of this small study supported the hypothesis that exercising in nature, without technological distraction, were preventative!

The study subjects ‘who went on a 90-minute nature walk showed reductions in self-reported rumination (1)' compared to ‘those who went on an urban walk did not show these effects (1).' In all, the ‘findings support the view that natural environments may confer psychological benefits to humans (1).' So, did this study support exercising in nature as preventative medicine? The data from the two study arms appears to support the author's hypothesis about exercising in nature and its effects on negative self-thought. Exercising outdoors in nature with minimal technological distractions appears to be an effective, low-risk activity that results in less opportunity for one to engage in rumination.

Looking at the findings of both studies, the evidence strongly suggests that engaging in outdoor exercise both increases productivity and lowers the risk of depression through decreased rumination. Could both effects combined help make us better people? According to a 2005 study published in Current Opinion in Psychiatry entitled ‘Exercise and Well-Being; a Review of Mental and Physical Health Benefits Associated with Physical Activity (2),' that relationship does exist.

The authors, Drs. Penedo and Dahn (2), reviewed ‘recent work evaluating the relationship between exercise, physical activity and physical and mental health. (2)' The work was a meta-analysis of many different clinical/scholarly articles on the subject. The meta-analysis included ‘diverse ethnic populations, including men and women, as well as several age groups. (2)' As is often the case, pulling together multiple studies for analysis draws from larger numbers of study participants, and is often thought to provide stronger evidence to support its findings. This meta-analysis supported ‘a growing literature suggesting that exercise, physical activity and physical-activity interventions have beneficial effects across several physical and mental health outcomes. (2)'

Did the meta-analysis support the hypothesis that exercise can make us better people? In essence, yes, exercise showed ‘better health outcomes, including better general and health-related quality of life, better functional capacity and better mood states. (2)' The analysis also suggested that the benefits of exercise were universal and not limited to age, gender or overall functional health status. In other words, practically everyone can benefit from exercise and improve their overall well-being! Why isn't this meta-analysis front page national news??

In summary, the evidence is clear. Outdoor exercise IS healing, as it can markedly improve our mood, enhance our productivity and help lower the risk of depression. Our world has drastically changed in the last 20 years, as technology has gifted us with information at our fingertips, but also as a method of delivering information at rapid speed without any form of physical movement on our part. One no longer has to walk to a friend's house to ascertain if he or she can play; one can simply IM, call or text.

We don't get up to change the channel on our televisions; remote controls do that work for us. No more walking to the store for milk and groceries; Amazon Fresh delivers to our doorstep. There are less and less opportunities for us to get moving; for one to remain physically active and exercise, it requires a more focused commitment. For those who choose to honor such a routine, the benefits are clear.

I am thankful for the beautiful green, lush trails of Cougar Mountain. As a result of the benefits of healing through body work, I have focused my career (Trauma Informed Trained Yoga) on helping others heal the body through breath work and movement.

Bibliography •  1) PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America), “Nature Experience Reduces Rumination and Subgenual Prefrontal Cortex Activation,” Gregory Bratman et al, Volume 112, no 28, May 28, 2015. •  2) Current Opinion in Psychiatry, ‘Exercise and Well-Being: A Review of Mental and Physical Health Benefits Associated with Physical Activity,' Dr. Frank Penedo, Dr. Jason Dahn, March 2005, Volume 18, Issue 2. •  3) PLOS, “Creativity in the Wild: Improving Creative Reasoning through Immersion in Natural Settings,” Ruth Ann Atchley et al, December 12, 2012.

** Penelope is originally from Menlo Park, California, and now resides in Bellevue, WA. A former victim of child sexual abuse, she's now a wife, mother of three teen-aged sons, commercial real estate business professional, yoga instructor and activist for NAASCA and Yoga Behind Bars in Seattle, WA.

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