Attention deficit disorder (ADD) affects over 2 million children in the United States. It is characterized by a child’s inability to focus and pay attention for appropriate lengths of time. It is usually most apparent when doing something that requires this focus like school work or chores.

The two most common current treatments are medications which show some effectiveness but with potentially severe side effects. The other is behavioral therapy to try reward the child for completing tasks.

What if there was another way to reduce the effects of ADD that had no side effects and is available to everyone. It’s literally right outside your door. It’s called nature, and that is just what this research paper looked at.

This paper published in the journal Environment and Behavior looked at how spending time in green outdoor spaces affected a child with ADD. The idea they started with is that there is two general types of attention. One is the focused attention required when doing class work or home work or some other attention demanding task. They refer to this as voluntary attention. The other is the type of attention that doesn’t require work. Things like watching the clouds roll by, a shiny object that catches your attention, these they called an involuntary attention. The idea put forth by the researchers is that the focused, voluntary attention gets fatigued or tired and needs to be restored. That is done by being in environments that utilize involuntary attention. Namely spending time in natural settings.

The researchers gave out questionnaires to parents of children with ADD. The questionnaire looked at how children spent there free time and graded it on various measures such as whether it was indoor or outdoor, how green that outdoor space was etc. They then had questions to grade how severe their child’s symptoms were after doing these different activities.

What they found was the more natural the setting the better the child would be able to focus and complete tasks after spending time in nature. This held true no matter what activity they were doing outside. Attention was improved if they were playing a sport or reading as long as it was in a natural setting. It didn’t matter if they were doing the activity alone or with others or if it was an activity they really enjoyed and looked forward to or one they were just stuck doing.

So the research part speaks volumes on the benefit of giving children free time in nature but what I really liked hearing was stories from some of the parents in the research paper. After the study was done parents were invited to attend a follow up dinner with the researchers so they could ask questions of the parents to make sure the questionnaire and study made sense to them. Several of the parents commented how, even before being told what the paper was actually looking at, they noticed their children behaved better when engaging with nature. One parent said the only vacation trip they do is camping! They stated amusement parks were a nightmare but their child was great on camping trips.

I really love this study because first it gives an available, natural resource to parents of children with ADD to help them. Also these ideas about restoring focus apply to everyone!

Need to recharge and get inspired? Go for a hike!