Exercise in nature outperforms the gym for mood, calm, and well-being
STUDY: Liu X et al, Frontiers in Psychology 2026
STUDY TYPE: Systematic review and meta-analysis
FUNDING: Independent
Background
Exercise improves mental health. That’s well established. But does it matter where you exercise? This meta-analysis asks whether working out in natural, green environments — parks, forests, trails — produces greater mental health benefits than exercising indoors or in urban built-up settings.
The Study
- 51 randomized controlled trials involving 3,092 healthy adults, ages 18–85.
- Green exercise (walking or running in parks, forests, or natural corridors) was compared to indoor exercise, built-up urban exercise, and non-exercise controls.
Results
Green exercise beat non-exercise on every measure: well-being (effect size moderate, 0.46), positive affect (effect size large, 1.18), and negative affect (effect size large 0.78), with reductions in anxiety, depression, stress, anger, and fatigue.
It also outperformed indoor gym exercise, improving well-being (effect size 0.65), positive affect (effect size 0.68), and reducing depression (effect size 0.88) and anxiety (effect size 0.71).
Even compared to urban outdoor exercise, green exercise still won better well-being, a large boost in positive affect (effect size 1.01), and modest reductions in negative emotions.
The effect on positive affect was consistently larger than on negative affect, which makes sense — natural environments appear better at generating good feelings than at erasing bad ones.
Practice Implications
- Start with a 20-to-30-minute walk in a park appears. Even that makes a difference.
- More ideas for nature and exercise.
—Chris Aiken, MD
Director, Psych Partners
Editor in Chief, Carlat Psychiatry Report
