Good Nature

‘Should be mandatory reading ... A superb book’ CHRIS VAN TULLEKEN ‘Fascinating, comprehensive and highly convincing’ OBSERVER ‘I defy anyone to read this book and not embrace a life with plants!’ ISABELLA TREE We know the benefits of eating your greens, or getting your ‘five a day’. But what about the other ways that nature can help us lead healthier – and happier – lives? In this revolutionary book, Professor Kathy Willis reveals the surprising science behind the natural world and how we can harness its benefits to improve our health: whether it’s gardening with your bare hands to boost your gut microbiome; letting the scent of roses make you a calmer and safer driver; or tuning into birdsong to help reduce stress, and even pain. With applications for everything from which way we walk to work to choosing where our kids go to school, Good Nature brings the latest scientific research into our homes and workplaces, showing us how we can have better, happier, healthier and longer lives.

‘Should be mandatory reading ... A superb book’ CHRIS VAN TULLEKEN ‘Fascinating, comprehensive and highly convincing’ OBSERVER ‘I defy anyone to read this book and not embrace a life with plants!’ ISABELLA TREE We know the benefits of eating your greens, or getting your ‘five a day’. But what about the other ways that nature can help us lead healthier – and happier – lives? In this revolutionary book, Professor Kathy Willis reveals the surprising science behind the natural world and how we can harness its benefits to improve our health: whether it’s gardening with your bare hands to boost your gut microbiome; letting the scent of roses make you a calmer and safer driver; or tuning into birdsong to help reduce stress, and even pain. With applications for everything from which way we walk to work to choosing where our kids go to school, Good Nature brings the latest scientific research into our homes and workplaces, showing us how we can have better, happier, healthier and longer lives.

Oxford Professor Kathy Willis spent her career studying fossilised plants and plant matter - but it wasn't until she was contributing to an international project looking for the societal benefits of plants that she stumbled across a study that radically changed the way she viewed the natural world. The study showed that patients recovering from surgery improved faster just by looking at trees - that the benefit comes from our sensory experience of plants, not just from environmental improvements. Dr Willis has since embarked on a process of discovery to find the research that has shown, time and time again, that there is a causal link between the amount of greenspace and trees in our lives and better health outcomes. Consulting plant scientists and biologists, medical practitioners and psychiatrists, city-planners and government health authorities, she builds an evidence-base that can, and should, transform how we design and inhabit our environments. Focusing on the four senses of sight, smell, hearing and touch, as well as how we should organise our homes, our time outdoors, and our medical routines to reap the benefits of all this new research, Good Nature brings us into the laboratory - evoking the thrill of scientific discovery - and out again into the natural world, making us see and experience it with new eyes.

Oxford Professor Kathy Willis spent her career studying fossilised plants and plant matter - but it wasn't until she was contributing to an international project looking for the societal benefits of plants that she stumbled across a study that radically changed the way she viewed the natural world. The study showed that patients recovering from surgery improved faster just by looking at trees - that the benefit comes from our sensory experience of plants, not just from environmental improvements. Dr Willis has since embarked on a process of discovery to find the research that has shown, time and time again, that there is a causal link between the amount of greenspace and trees in our lives and better health outcomes. Consulting plant scientists and biologists, medical practitioners and psychiatrists, city-planners and government health authorities, she builds an evidence-base that can, and should, transform how we design and inhabit our environments. Focusing on the four senses of sight, smell, hearing and touch, as well as how we should organise our homes, our time outdoors, and our medical routines to reap the benefits of all this new research, Good Nature brings us into the laboratory - evoking the thrill of scientific discovery - and out again into the natural world, making us see and experience it with new eyes.

A ground-breaking investigation into newly discovered evidence showing that remarkable things happen to our bodies and our minds when our senses connect with the natural world. We all take for granted the idea that being in nature makes us feel better. But if you were a skeptical scientist--or indeed any kind of skeptic--who wanted hard scientific evidence for this idea, where would you look? And how would that evidence be gathered? It wasn't until Dr. Kathy Willis was asked to contribute to an international project looking for the societal benefits we gain from plants that she stumbled across a study that radically changed the way she saw the natural world. In the study there was clear proof that patients recovering from gall bladder operations recovered more quickly if they were looking at trees. In fact, in the last decade there has been an explosion of "proof" that incredible things happen to our bodies and our minds when our senses interact with the natural world. In Good Nature , Kathy Willis takes the reader on a journey with her to dig out all the experiments around the world that are looking for this evidence--experiments made easier by the new kinds of data being collected from satellites and big-data biobanks. Having a vase of roses on your desk or a green wall in your office makes a measurable difference to your well-being; certain scents in room diffusers genuinely can boost your immune system; and, in a chapter that Kathy calls "Hidden Sense," we learn that touching organic soil has a significant effect on the healthiness of your microbiome. What is remarkable about this book is how its revelations should be commonsense--schools should let children play in nature to improve their health and concentration; urban streets should have trees--and yet it reveals just how difficult it is to prove this to businesses and governments. As Kathy Willis says in her narrative, "We now know enough to self-prescribe in our homes, offices or working spaces, gardens, and when out walking. However small these individual actions might be, overall they have the potential to provide a large number of health benefits. And we need to be encouraging others to do the same. Nature is far more than just something that is useful for our health. It is not a dispensable commodity. It is an inherent part of us."

A ground-breaking investigation into newly discovered evidence showing that remarkable things happen to our bodies and our minds when our senses connect with the natural world. We all take for granted the idea that being in nature makes us feel better. But if you were a skeptical scientist--or indeed any kind of skeptic--who wanted hard scientific evidence for this idea, where would you look? And how would that evidence be gathered? It wasn't until Dr. Kathy Willis was asked to contribute to an international project looking for the societal benefits we gain from plants that she stumbled across a study that radically changed the way she saw the natural world. In the study there was clear proof that patients recovering from gall bladder operations recovered more quickly if they were looking at trees. In fact, in the last decade there has been an explosion of "proof" that incredible things happen to our bodies and our minds when our senses interact with the natural world. In Good Nature , Kathy Willis takes the reader on a journey with her to dig out all the experiments around the world that are looking for this evidence--experiments made easier by the new kinds of data being collected from satellites and big-data biobanks. Having a vase of roses on your desk or a green wall in your office makes a measurable difference to your well-being; certain scents in room diffusers genuinely can boost your immune system; and, in a chapter that Kathy calls "Hidden Sense," we learn that touching organic soil has a significant effect on the healthiness of your microbiome. What is remarkable about this book is how its revelations should be commonsense--schools should let children play in nature to improve their health and concentration; urban streets should have trees--and yet it reveals just how difficult it is to prove this to businesses and governments. As Kathy Willis says in her narrative, "We now know enough to self-prescribe in our homes, offices or working spaces, gardens, and when out walking. However small these individual actions might be, overall they have the potential to provide a large number of health benefits. And we need to be encouraging others to do the same. Nature is far more than just something that is useful for our health. It is not a dispensable commodity. It is an inherent part of us."