Why nature contact is good for us

Nature contact has long been considered salutary. Recently, scientists from a variety of home disciplines have begun to systematically document these benefits through new assessment approaches and considerations of a wide range of negative and positive affective outcomes. They also have expanded the scale of their investigations, increasing their capacity to understand specifics about the characteristics, magnitude, and timing of effects. Although much remains to be learned about why these affective benefits occur, impressive progress has been made in identifying some of the mechanisms linking nature contact to human functioning. In this review, we focus specifically on mechanisms and outcomes related to affective functioning. We discuss emerging insights and highlight promising directions for future research in this rapidly evolving field.