Your blood pressure is a little high. You could stand to lose some weight, and, yeah, you're stressed. You leave the doctor's office with directions to a park near your house and a prescription for 30 minutes a day out there breathing fresh air among the trees and the birds.
Until recently, doctors encouraged patients to get more outdoor exercise but stopped short of writing a prescription. Soon, in collaboration with parks and trails organizations, community and athletic associations, some Minnesota doctors will be handing patients prescriptions for that dose of nature.
"The data is there. We're wired to be connected to nature," said Dr. Brent Bauer of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. "Cool things happen when you're exposed to nature for two hours a week — inflammation is reduced, stress, anxiety, heart rate."
A formal mechanism, Bauer said, makes it easier for patients to follow through, and sends the message that being outdoors is a legitimate therapy. "A prescription says, 'My doctor recommended this; it's not a waste of time.' I think the concept [prescribing outdoor activity] might engage a group of patients not currently engaged with the generic nature-is-good-for-us bromide."
Bauer founded Mayo's complementary and integrative medicine program 20 years ago grounded in the theory of biophilia — that humans have an innate need to connect with nature. That people spend 90% of their time indoors, most of it sitting, has resulted in negative consequences: obesity, diabetes, anxiety, depression, to name a few. The last 10 years have seen a "scientification," as Bauer called it, of our need for nature. It's been studied, measured.
At the same time, there's been a shift toward preventive medicine — lifestyle choices like food, exercise, spirituality — and efforts to make health care more efficient. There has been collaboration between communities that haven't overlapped — parks and the Department of Natural Resources with public health; health insurance with health clubs; sports events with hospitals. Since 2010, doctors have worked with a nonprofit called Wholesome Wave to prescribe patients fruits and vegetables.
Bauer signed on with one of those collaborations, Park Rx America, a national nonprofit established by Washington, D.C., pediatrician Dr. Robert Zarr in 2017. Park Rx America, in partnership with state parks agencies, allows health care providers to find a park near a patient's home, prescribe a certain amount of time in that park, and send a text reminder to fill the prescription. Park Rx merges with electronic medical records so the prescription can be recorded. According to Zarr, there are 22 registered Park Rx health care providers in Minnesota and 96 parks listed.
"Will a walk in the woods cure hypertension? That's a stretch," Bauer said. "By itself, it's not a magic wellness program. But it gives me another tool in adjunct with, not replacing, conventional treatment. At a typical wellness consult, we talk about exercise, nutrition, social connections, spirituality, sleep — lifestyle choices. People can transform their health, and maybe go from taking three pills to one. These kinds of lifestyle options are usually cheap, the patient is in charge — there's almost no downside."