Spending time outdoors is one of your favorite pastimes. Or are you a city dweller who prefers the comforts of the urban jungle to the natural splendor of the countryside? Biophilia was coined by US scientist EO Wilson in 1986, when he claimed that people have an intrinsic affinity to nature.
All aspects of human life, from food and shelter to fuel and clothes, are dependent on nature. Spending time in nature is something that some of us like more than others.
More than 1,100 twins were evaluated as a control group to see how much of our connection to nature can be traced back to our DNA. Almost half of the diversity in people’s relationship to nature may be attributed to heredity, according to our findings.
Nature is healthy for you.
Even a short walk in the neighborhood park has been shown to be helpful to our emotional and physical well-being. Even with our busy job and family lives and social lives, most of us don’t go out into nature nearly as often as we’d want to.
We were curious as to why some individuals spend more time outside than others, and why some of us have a stronger sense of connection to nature than others.
Find out why individuals and the earth benefit from regular doses of nature in the city.
Perhaps our love of the natural world is a genetic trait. We may also obtain it from our surroundings, such as the lovely woods in the locations where we reside. Alternatively, it might be influenced by the things we are exposed to on a daily basis, such as the books we read or the TV shows we watch.
These questions may help us figure out how to bring nature back into people’s lives.
Twin research
In PLoS Biology, we share the findings of a research that analyzed more than 1,100 pairs of twins in order to better understand the origins of a person’s liking for nature. It turns out that identical twins have a stronger bond with nature than non-identical counterparts.
Results demonstrated that 46% of the diversity in one’s psychological attachment to nature may be explained by hereditary variables. At least one study found a high correlation between how much time we spend outside and how often we go to the park where we live.
Why do we have such a deep genetic affinity for the natural world? Well, it’s possible that early humans had a major edge in their ability to survive because of their closeness to nature. These vast networks of genes may have influenced how humans interact with nature and how we behave in the natural world.
We found that despite the evident importance of heredity, our data demonstrate that external variables affect much of our attraction to nature. There are a variety of factors to consider, such as the places we visited as children, the role models we had in our parents, siblings, and other family members, our educational background, and even our geographic location.
This is excellent news, since many of these factors can be controlled by us directly.
Nature’s influence on health
Nature-based health initiatives, such as green gyms or environmental volunteerism, may promote physical, mental, and social health and well-being, as well as the environment. Introducing children to nature via programs like the Green Passport for Queensland Kids may have a positive impact on their long-term health.
A more fundamental question is whether or if spending time in nature increases our awareness of environmental issues and, as a result, our support for conservation efforts.
US ecologist James Miller has claimed that people’s experiences with nature have a critical role in their support for saving the environment. The quantity of time spent in nature, however, was not shown to be a significant predictor of conservation concern among Australian students, according to a research headed by environmentalist Jessica Pinder. So, there’s clearly much more to be discovered here.
Aside from our genetic predisposition, it is now clear that there are many other elements that play a role in our attraction to nature, some of which may be controlled. So, this is the day to resolve to revive your relationship with nature!