Spending time in natural environments before exercise could boost physical endurance by 7.5% compared with exposure to an urban industrial setting, according to new research from Loughborough University, suggesting that access to green spaces may support human physical capacity in ways that go beyond simple recreation.
The study, published in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology, is the first experimental study to show that industrialised settings can acutely reduce physical capacity. This is relative to a natural environment.
Twenty-five healthy adults completed a randomised crossover trial. In this trial, they spent 90 minutes in either an ancient woodland or an urban industrial setting. Afterwards, they performed a standardised cycling test to exhaustion in controlled laboratory conditions.
Participants performed 7.5% better on the endurance test following the woodland visit – lasting around 1.1 minutes longer. This was despite negligible differences in oxygen update and other cardiorespiratory measures between conditions. Moreover, mood improved significantly following woodland exposure and remained better for up to two hours afterwards. Optimism was also higher, suggesting that psychological mechanisms may be partially responsible for the performance benefit.
The research is framed within the novel Environmental Mismatch Hypothesis. This is the idea that the pace of global industrialisation over the last 200–300 years has outstripped the pace of human biological adaptation. As a result, this has left us physiologically ill-suited to the environments most of us now inhabit. Industrialised settings introduce novel stressors, including air pollution, noise and artificial light. At the same time, they reduce contact with natural elements that support biological function, such as phytoncides released by trees.
Lead author Dr Danny Longman, from the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University explained:
“These findings add to growing evidence that natural environments actively support human biological function, not just mental wellbeing or stress relief. Forests and woodland represent the kind of ancestral habitat in which our species evolved and spent the vast majority of its existence, and it appears our bodies still respond to them differently. Given that aerobic fitness is a key indicator of long-term health and disease risk, the fact that a single 90-minute woodland visit can meaningfully boost it suggests that access to green and natural spaces may be more important for physical health than is currently recognised. This has real implications for how we design cities and think about health promotion.”
The results suggest that green spaces, woodlands and other natural environments may do more than provide recreational value. Instead, they may actively support the physical capacities that have underpinned human survival throughout our evolutionary history. This may help to counteract the biological costs of industrialised living.
The paper, Outpaced by Industry: Industrial Environments Reduce Endurance, With Implications for Evolutionary Fitness, is available open access in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology.
