With the many troubling side-effects of ADHD medication, Kuo believes that spending time in green space is a possible alternative.
Children with ADHD are better able to focus after a twenty-minute walk in a natural setting, according to a study published in the Journal of Attention Disorders. The study compared walks in nature to those in urban or residential areas and found that the child’s ADHD improved most after walking in a green space.
The researchers, Andrea Faber Taylor and Frances E. Kuo, kept every other variable of the walk the same. All walks were twenty minutes long; children were accompanied by the same adult for each walk and met with the same researcher afterward to test their attention. Across the board, the children who had taken a nature-walk scored better than those who had walked elsewhere.
"What this particular study tells us is that the physical environment matters," Kuo said. "We don't know what it is about the park, exactly – the greenness or lack of buildings – that seems to improve attention, but the study tells us that even though everything else was the same…we just changed the environment, we still saw a measurable difference in children's symptoms. And that's completely new. No one has done a study looking at a child in different environments, in a controlled comparison where everything else is the same."
Perhaps one of the most surprising finds in the study was that the nature-walk proved as effective as medication—sometimes even more so. “We calculated the size of the effect in our study and compared it to the size of effects in a recent medication study," said Faber Taylor, "and we were surprised to see that the dose of nature had effects the same size or even larger than the dose of medication." None of the children were on their medication during the walk.
Mongabay.com is an environmental science and conservation news web site. It is a Premier Content Partner of SustainLane.
Vicki R. says:
Great article. A consideration for the improvement with the nature walkers is the greater exposure to the sunlight as well as the visual stimulation that nature offers. Studies are now showing that Vitamin D( a hormone produced with the aid of sunlight)has receptors in all cells in the body and may offer protective benefits for heart disease, diabetes and obesity. The correlation between ADHD and Vit D has not been verified scientifically but studies like these may precipitate more investigation.
ADHD kids need stimulation especially visual stimulation for some. Nature offers stimulation for all senses and sunlight to boot. It would be wonderful if kids with ADHD could have classes outside as well.
5 A Day CSA
Cris Bisch says:
Music and the arts have also helped children and adults on the autism spectrum and those with ADHD. I wonder how many professionals, working in the medical and mental health fields, are combining all these wonderful and natural outlets for development and healing to encourage their clients and patients to use all their senses, including music and art therapy out of doors?