The Biophilia Hypothesis: Are We Hardwired to Be Cured by Nature?

There is mounting evidence that all the time we spent indoors during the pandemic made us sick. Are our minds and bodies wired to heal themselves by simply going outside?

Evgeny Atamanenko/Shutterstock

There’s an adage that goes, “If you want to boil a live frog, don’t turn up the heat too quickly or the frog will jump out of the pot.” Aside from why you would want to boil a frog, the point is that we may not notice incremental life-threatening changes until the damage is severe.

If that’s true, the lockdowns and shut-ins of the COVID-19 years may have boiled our collective well-being to shoe leather.

Beginning in 2022, The Epoch Times reported widely on the devastating effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns. From increases in obesity and depression to delayed learning and cognitive development in children, the evidence is overwhelming that the COVID-19 lockdowns caused significant harm.

As bad as the lockdowns were, the greatest harm to our health might well be the long-term increase in the time we continue to spend indoors.

Since the 1980s, the amount of time Americans spend indoors has been steadily climbing. Even before the lockdowns, data showed that Americans were spending a whopping 90 to 93 percent of their time indoors. That isn’t healthy.

Years before governmental COVID-19 mandates forced people indoors, a mountain of evidence revealed a nasty slew of negative physical and psychological effects from too much time indoors: depression, cardiovascular disease, respiratory ailments, inflammation, and much more.

Fortunately, a substantial body of evidence suggests that our bodies are hardwired to be cured by nature. Just 20 minutes a day outside has been shown to improve health dramatically.

In the early 1980s, a Japanese researcher named Tomohide Akiyama began publishing findings about how our bodies respond to being in a natural environment. In a series of studies, Akiyama asked participants to go out into a forest or a park and slowly, mindfully, spend short periods of time there, a process he called shinrin-yoku or “forest bathing.” Akiyama found that being out in nature lowered blood pressure, improved heart function, and suppressed the release of stress hormones.

Why do our bodies respond so well when we spend time outside?

In 1984, American biologist Edward O. Wilson published a book called “Biophilia” in which he speculated that we are genetically designed to be attracted to nature and natural things. Wilson proposed that our bodies and minds adapted to living outside and thus don’t respond well to being kept indoors.

“The biophilia hypothesis boldly asserts the existence of a biologically based, inherent human need to affiliate with life and lifelike processes,” he wrote.

Wilson’s biophilia hypothesis seemed to support Akiyama’s work, but nonetheless sparked a 20-year debate within the scientific community.

In 2005, journalist Richard Louv published “Last Child in the Woods.” In the book, Louv coined the term “nature-deficit disorder” to describe what he believed was happening to children as the time they spent indoors increased.

Louv chronicled exploding rates of obesity, skyrocketing adolescent depression, and a whole host of negative effects brought on by “an increasing divide between the young and the natural world.”

Louv agreed with Wilson that we are genetically wired to be outside and wrote that our children were suffering from a gross deficiency of nature, which he called “Vitamin N.” The response to “Last Child in the Woods” was nothing short of sensational, and the book was praised by a chorus of leading thinkers, writers, clinicians, and politicians.

Biological Nature or Divinely Nurtured?

Centuries before we began gathering clinical data about the benefits of being outside, people knew that the natural world held the power to heal. From the ancient Greeks to the Romans to the native peoples of the Americas, there’s a long history of extolling the benefits of being in and around nature.

While Akiyama, Wilson, and Louv theorized that this healing response is linked to evolutionary biology, others, such as theologian Christopher Thompson, claim that we are drawn to nature because of our divine origins.

While Thompson doesn’t deny the physiological benefits of being outside, he emphasizes that the driving force of these benefits is that nature, with its order, structure, and predictable rhythms, has been created as our first “classroom” in which we learn about the Creator and how we fit into the created order.

In his book “The Joyful Mystery,” Thompson takes issue with the theory that we feel better when in nature because of a connection to a “biologically driven unconsciousness ... remnants of a past now long forgotten through the centuries of evolution and progress.”

Instead, Thompson asserts that the joy, even the wellness that we feel when in nature, comes from a deep connection with our metaphysical origins—an insight “into our status as a creature within the cosmos, created by God who is love.” Put plainly, Thompson writes that we feel better in nature because we feel a sense of awe, which is “a glimpse of the gift of being.”

Whether the benefits of being outside arise from our biology or a connection to a creator, the evidence of those benefits is clear and conclusive. These benefits are especially strong during the winter months, during which daylight hours are fewer and, as the temperature drops, we tend to spend increased time indoors.

According to some studies, during the cold winter months, we spend nearly twice as much time indoors as during summer. While this isn’t surprising, more time indoors increases our exposure to allergens—such as dust mites—known to cause respiratory difficulties such as asthma, especially in children.

When we combine our increased time indoors with shorter winter days, we decrease our exposure to sunlight, which in turn reduces our levels of vitamin D. Taken together, the drop in sunlight during winter, increased exposure to allergens, and a lack of vitamin D take a toll on our mental and physical health.

However, there is good news: Just 10 to 20 minutes spent outside during the winter months has been shown to improve physical and mental health, according to a study published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2019. And the benefits of being outside aren’t connected to any particular activity—walking, building a snowman, or just standing outside can all help improve health during the winter months.

On colder days, when the temperature is below freezing, be sure to dress appropriately. Layers of clothing work best, and clothing made from natural fibers such as wool and down tends to work better than synthetics. Cotton clothing will keep you warmer than polyester, but since it’s a natural fiber, it tends to absorb and hold moisture (from the weather or perspiration), and it’s a poor insulator when wet.

Dressing well and staying warm can make going outdoors in winter a pleasure rather than a chore and help ensure you actually want to get outside. As the old Scandinavian saying goes, “There is no bad weather, just bad clothing.”

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated Christopher Thompson’s title. The Epoch Times regrets the error.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.