"Nature-deficit Disorder" and Office Work

“Nature-deficit Disorder” is not a diagnosis in DSM-IV but a phrase that Richard Louv uses in his landmark book, The Last Child in the Woods. Louv focuses on the importance of direct exposure to nature for children’s healthy physical and emotional development. He cites studies that show that exposure to nature may reduce AD/HD symptoms and also improve children’s cognitive capabilities as well as their resistance to negative stresses and depression.

“Nature-deficit disorder,” Louv writes, “describes the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses. The disorder can be detected in individuals, families, and communities.” But deficit, he goes on to say, is only one side of the coin. The other side is abundance. By becoming aware of the negative effects of nature-deficit disorder, he says, we also become aware of the powerful healing benefits of reconnection with nature.

Louv cites numerous research studies that all support the notion of nature as healer, not only for children but also for adults. Roger Ulrich’s research at Texas A & M showed that the “people who watch images of natural landscape after a stressful experience calm markedly in only five minutes: their muscle tension, pulse, and skin-conductance readings plummet.” In England and Sweden, researchers studied joggers who exercised in natural green settings and found that they felt “more restored, and less anxious, angry, and depressed than people who burn the same amount of calories in gyms or other built settings.”

And here at the University of Michigan, Stephen and Rachel Kaplan surveyed over twelve hundred corporate and state office workers and found that those who had window views looking out at trees or other greenery “experienced significantly less frustration and more work enthusiasm than those employees without such views.”

While Louv’s book focuses on children’s nature-deficit disorder, the implications of his work for adults working in offices are huge. If being exposed to nature is fundamental to health and well-being, this does not bode well for those of us who spend large amounts of time cooped up in a mostly inorganic office environment. Yet the Kaplan study would seem to indicate that one doesn’t necessarily have to move one’s workstation out into the nearest park to get one’s daily nature-dose. Although exactly how much contact with nature you need to be healthy has yet be determined, my guess is that, as with “quality time” with parents for children, even a little bit of nature exposure can make a big difference in how you feel.

In what ways can we, as office workers, act to reduce “nature-deficit disorder”? Here are a few of my own ideas:

1. If you don’t have a window in your own office, take “window breaks” to go look out any other windows you can find as often as possible.
2. Walk outside as much as you can, either to and from work, or during your lunch hour or break – an absolute necessity!
3. Bring plants and anything else alive you’re allowed to bring.
4. A group where I work “adopted” a small park area where they spend time – mostly outside of regular work hours – gardening together.
5. Bring landscapes, postcards, calendars with nature photos, and use a nature-scene screensaver.
6. Play recordings of nature sounds with headphones.
7. Read nature poetry with your lunch and put a copy of a favorite poem up on your bulletin board.
8. Get a group of nature-loving coworkers together to go visit local parks, zoos, botanical gardens during lunch.
9. Spend as much time in nature when you’re not at work as you can: garden, hike, camp, canoe, sail, or sit on your back porch and watch the birds.

These are just a few ideas, and no doubt you can think of others. If so, please share them with us in a comment!

Coming next: Office Lit 101: Melville's "Bartleby"