If you want to reduce your stress levels, getting outside into nature is a great place to start. Whether you take a simple walk in the park or embrace the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing,” multiple studies have shown that spending time in nature helps lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and improve well-being.
Spending pretty much any time outdoors in nature will help, but if you want some more specific advice to follow, then the 20-5-3 rule might be for you. It’s a term coined by Dr. Rachel Hopman, a professor of psychology at the University of Utah, and it essentially prescribes an amount of time to spend in nature each week, month and year.
What is the 20-5-3 rule?
Dr Hopman’s 20-5-3 is a simplification of Tanya Denckla-Cobb’s ‘nature pyramid’, a concept that helps you to think about how much you interact with nature and where.
The 20 in the rule stands for 20 minutes, which is the amount of time you should spend in local green spaces like city parks, three times a week.
Then the 5 in the rule stands for five hours; the amount of time you should aim to spend in semi-wild environments, once a month. This can be in a state or national park, or any place where you're surrounded by nature with minimal urban infrastructure.
Finally, the 3 in the rule is for spending three days a year off the grid in the wilderness, where you can fully unplug. You can camp or find a lodge to rent without cell service or WiFi.
The rule is not so hard and fast that you can’t adjust it a little to suit your situation, but the aim is clear — get outside more, even just locally, and aim to get into wilder environments semi-regularly.
What are the benefits of the 20-5-3 rule?
The 20-5-3 rule itself has not been studied, but the benefits of spending time in nature are well-established in research. A 2019 study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that spending just 20 minutes connecting with nature can lower stress hormones, while another 2019 study on 20,000 people showed that spending 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing.
Being in nature is important too — it’s not just about taking a walk. Another 2019 study found that cortisol levels lowered more in people who walked in a forest compared to those who walked in urban environments.
There’s also little to no downside to getting outdoors more, aside from finding the time to do so. That and the risk of getting eaten by a cougar, but if you stick to city parks at first, then you should be fine on that front.
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