The Atlantic

Nature Therapy Is a Privilege

Science is learning more about the health benefits of going outside—at a time when access to wild spaces is ever-more unequal.
Source: Pete Lomchid / Getty

I am in the mountains and they are healing me. It is like the miracle pool at Lourdes except it’s not a miracle and we’re not at Lourdes. We’re at Maroon Bells, which depending on which website you ask, are the most photographed mountains in Aspen, in Colorado, or in North America. I photograph them some more, to help them hold onto their title.

The mountains, and their attendant plant life and water features, are helping to lower my blood pressure, and my stress hormones, and keeping my heart rate variability normal. These are just some of the health benefits

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