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There are moments you forget and moments you don't. I've never forgotten one I experienced on a sunny January day in 1994. I'd spent five days backpacking through the rough terrain of California's Joshua Tree National Park. Now I stood alone on a boulder, a cool breeze on my face, gazing out in silence at the stark beauty of the high-desert hills. In one timeless instant, I saw the arc of my life to that point and a new path I'd soon take, a path that would lead to a dramatic career change. I inhaled deeply of the clean, dry air and felt gloriously alive.Whether it's a backcountry hike, a stroll on the beach, or a picnic in a local park, we've all felt the calm yet vibrant sense of well-being that comes from being surrounded by nature. Our aches and pains ease, our worries fade. We know in our bones that it's good for us.
Through the ages and across the globe, people have looked to nature as a balm for what ails them. "We need the tonic of wildness," wrote Henry David Thoreau, the dean of American nature writers.
But the idea that nature could heal mind and body remained scientifically untested -- until recently. "It's something people have been thinking about for thousands of years," says Roger Ulrich, PhD, a professor of architecture and landscape architecture at Texas A&M University, who has done pioneering research in the field. "And lo and behold, there's something to it."
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