Nearby Nature
Spending time in Nature whenever and wherever you can matters
Written by Maxwell Duquette, LICSW
Over the years of offering outdoor and nature-based treatment models, our team has observed consistent patterns: time outside matters, movement matters, and proximity to nature (often closer and more ordinary than people expect) can meaningfully support mental health.
Those observations were strongly affirmed when members of our team attended the Burlington Area College Mental Health Summit at the University of Vermont, where findings from the LEMURS (Life-logging, Engagement, and Mood Using Real-time Sensors) study were shared with practitioners supporting college-aged students.
The LEMURS study provided empirical validation for what we have been seeing clinically. Nature exposure, sleep quality, and embodied regulation are deeply intertwined with mood and anxiety outcomes. While existing literature in kinesthesiology, psychology and outdoor education has long supported these ideas, LEMURS adds something particularly compelling: fine-grained, real-world data drawn from everyday life rather than idealized wilderness experiences.
About the Study: Predicting Mood the Way We Predict Weather
On a stormy December day, one that dashed the hopes of skiers and riders across Vermont, researcher Chris Danforth opened the session with an elegant analogy. One of modern science’s successes, he noted, is our ability to predict the weather well enough to prepare for it: adjusting travel plans, layering differently, or deciding when to stay home.
The LEMURS study asks a parallel question. Can data from wearable technology help us anticipate changes in mood and emotional experience before individuals consciously feel them?
Wearables have already demonstrated the ability to detect early physiological changes associated with illness, including COVID, up to 24 hours before symptoms are reported. LEMURS explores whether similar predictive patterns exist for mental health states, using continuous data on sleep, movement, respiration, location, and self-reported experience.
Key Findings (Most Relevant to Practitioners and Clients)
1. Sleep Quality Is a Strong Predictor of Anxiety
Not surprisingly, the study found that individuals with particular sleep patterns were more likely to experience anxiety in the following days and weeks. This included not only total sleep duration, but also the distribution of light, deep, and REM sleep.
For practitioners, this reinforces the importance of sleep as a foundational intervention point. For clients, it helps normalize the experience that anxiety often begins before conscious worry and is rooted in physiology rather than personal failure.
2. Respiratory Patterns and Next-Day Stress
The study also identified sleep-related physiological signals, including respiratory rate, as being associated with perceived stress and anxiety. Changes in overnight breathing patterns appeared as part of a broader physiological picture that helped anticipate next-day stress responses.
Rather than pointing to a single “good” or “bad” breathing rate, the findings suggest that variability and disruption in respiratory patterns during sleep may reflect underlying nervous system activation. These signals are best understood alongside other measures such as heart rate and sleep quality.
This finding supports the value of interventions that promote nervous system regulation, particularly in the hours leading up to sleep. It also strengthens the rationale for somatic, movement-based, and outdoor practices that naturally support settling and recovery.
3. Time Spent in Nature Reduces Mood Disorder Symptoms
One of the most compelling findings for our work was the clear relationship between time spent surrounded by nature and a reduced likelihood of reporting mood disorder symptoms.
Using infrared mapping of foliage combined with participants’ location data, researchers generated what might be thought of as a “nature exposure coefficient.” The more time participants spent in greener environments, the better their reported mood outcomes.
Importantly, this benefit was not limited to remote or “wild” spaces.
4. Accessible Greenspaces Matter
The study found positive outcomes associated with time spent moving through highly accessible, everyday greenspaces. On the UVM campus itself, certain zones registered as beneficial, alongside nearby areas such as Centennial Woods and the Intervale.
The takeaway is simple but powerful. You do not need to summit a mountain to benefit from nature.
Neighborhood paths, campus greens, wooded edges, and small pockets of foliage all count, and they matter.
5. Perception of Nature May Matter Even More Than Exposure
Perhaps the most intriguing finding was that participants’ perception of their time outdoors was more strongly correlated with mood than the objective data alone.
When individuals reported feeling that they spent “more time in nature this week,” those responses predicted mood outcomes more reliably than the raw metrics. This suggests that attention, appreciation, and meaning-making play a crucial role in how nature supports mental health.
In other words, it is not just where you are. It is how you experience being there.
Ethical Questions and Future Implications
The study also raises important ethical considerations, particularly around data privacy. Given that this data can infer mood, sleep, substance use, or sexual activity, should information generated by wearables be treated with the same confidentiality standards as medical records?
Hearing that hundreds of first-year students were wearing devices accessible to university researchers prompted reflection. For many of us, college was a time when privacy mattered deeply, and support services like CAPS and SAS felt safe precisely because of their confidentiality. The level of trust required to participate in this kind of data collection is significant.
At the same time, this openness may reflect a generational shift. There appears to be a growing willingness to share mental health data as stigma around common diagnoses such as mood and executive functioning disorders continues to decrease. Whether this crowd-sharing becomes a net positive remains an open and necessary question, particularly as more severe mental health experiences still lack the same visibility and understanding.
We also recognize that for some clients, the ability to monitor health information can become overwhelming, stressful, or triggering. When asked about this, Chris was quick to acknowledge that the gamification of personal health metrics can be too much for some participants. Of the roughly 600 participants, about 10 chose to return their rings and discontinue participation for these reasons. One example involved a participant whose poor sleep metrics increased worry, which then interfered with sleep and compounded the problem.
With respect and appreciation for all study participants, our client-centered approach will continue to emphasize understanding lived and felt experience through conversations that build trust and connection. For clients who wish to incorporate insights from personal wearables into their work, we are better equipped today to support that learning thoughtfully and collaboratively.
Take-Home Message
For our team, the LEMURS study reinforces a core commitment.
We are dedicated to continued learning, to grounding our work in emerging research, and to expanding access to nature-based therapy in ways that are realistic, inclusive, and low-barrier.
Nature does not need to be remote, dramatic, or truly wild to be therapeutic. There is real value in neighborhood greenspaces, campus paths, and everyday outdoor experiences, especially when clients are supported in noticing, appreciating, and engaging with them intentionally.
All nature counts.
And often, the most powerful nature is the kind that is already nearby.
