Going Outside Can Change Our Hormones and Improve Microbiome Diversity

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.3 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Going outside has many benefits, from positively affecting our nervous system to diversifying our microbiome. But you don’t need a forest preserve to benefit from nature—sometimes even a houseplant or the smell of lavender can improve our life. Kathy Willis, a professor of biodiversity at the University of Oxford, joins host Rachel Feltman to discuss her new book Good Nature: Why Seeing, Smelling, Hearing, and Touching Plants Is Good for Our Health. Willis suggests ways for even city dwellers to reap the benefits of nature, such as strolling through urban parks or keeping plants in their office. Read Willis’s book: Good Nature: Why Seeing, Smelling, Hearing, and Touching Plants Is Good for Our Health (Pegasus Books, 2024) Listen to our previous episodes about plants: Do Plants ‘Think’? We Might Not Know Enough about Consciousness to Be Certain How to Grow Your Houseplant Collection Ethically E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Kathy Willis. Our show is edited by Fonda Mwangi with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	This podcast is sponsored in part by PNAS Science Sessions, a production of the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
0:08.0	The Science Sessions podcast features brief but insightful conversations with leading researchers.
0:14.0	In our latest future episode, we explore how the potential benefits of plant-based meat alternatives are currently limited by environmental,
0:22.1	health, and economic tradeoffs. Don't miss out. Subscribe to Science Sessions on iTunes,
0:27.5	Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:32.2	Hey listeners, happy new year. For Scientific American Science quickly, this is Rachel Feldman.
0:38.9	Whether you're an avid backpacker, an occasional park stroller, or someone whose relationship
0:44.3	with the great outdoors falls somewhere in the middle, you probably already know that
0:49.1	spending time in nature is a great way to de-stress. But what if leaf peeping could do more than just help you
0:56.0	unwind? Well, according to a recent book, the sights, sounds, and smells of plant life can have
1:02.0	serious impacts on our bodies. My guest today is Kathy Willis, a professor of biodiversity at the
1:08.3	University of Oxford, where she also serves as principal of St. Edmund Hall.
1:13.0	She's the author of Good Nature, why seeing, smelling, hearing, and touching plants is good for our health.
1:24.3	Thank you so much for joining us today.
1:26.4	Pleasure. Absolutely pleasure. So you're a professor of biodiversity and a lot of your work focuses on the well-being of plants and their ecosystems.
1:35.3	How did you become interested in how plant life impacts human health and wellness as well?
1:40.3	So that's right. I'm very much someone who's always worked the sort of interface between looking at
1:44.9	vegetation and climate change and very academic. But then I was working on a big international
1:50.5	project. Part of my role was to pull together the information about the relationship between
1:54.8	nature and human health. And as I was trawling through the literature, I kept coming across
2:00.1	this study published in 1984 in
2:02.2	the top scientific journal showing that people who looked out of hospital window beds onto trees
	...

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