Is 120 Minutes a Week in Nature Enough for Mental Health?
Quick Answer
When anxiety, depression or grief weighs heavily, two hours outdoors can feel like one more task. For general well-being, 120 minutes a week in nature is a sound target, and small pieces add up. In the 2019 study behind the number, it did not matter whether the time came in one long visit or several shorter ones. For anxiety, depression or trauma, I see nature as an additional support to counseling. It does not replace care.
If you are already stretched by worry, grief or a heavy mood, a number like 120 minutes can feel either reassuringly small or impossibly far away. Two hours sounds modest. Two hours out of the 168 in a week is not much time on paper, yet on a hard week it can still feel like a lot to ask of yourself.
The number itself has a clear origin. A U.S. News & World Report story published on June 13, 2019, summed up the research in one line: people who met the threshold "reported better health and higher psychological well-being than people who did not spend any time in nature during the week." The outcomes were what participants reported about themselves, which is worth keeping in mind as you read on.
Biophilia, a term first used by the German social psychologist Erich Fromm and later popularized by the American biologist Edward O. Wilson, describes an innate attraction to living things. That raises a fair question for anyone who is struggling: if two hours a week is a modest amount of time, is it enough to lean on?
In my view, the answer depends on what you need it to do. A useful first question to ask yourself is whether you are hoping to feel generally better or to ease symptoms that have stayed with you for weeks. For anxiety, depression or trauma, outdoor time is one support among several.
When you are living with anxiety, low mood or the weight of trauma, being told to spend more time outside can feel far too simple for what you carry each day. You may also wonder whether two hours a week is truly the amount that matters. My short answer is that 120 minutes a week in nature is the most widely cited benchmark for general well-being. It was never designed as a treatment.
The need behind the question is real. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, an estimated 21.0 million U.S. adults, 8.3% of all adults, had at least one major depressive episode in 2021. A 2019 analysis by University of Exeter researchers, drawn from Natural England survey data, found that people reporting at least 120 minutes in nature over the past week had consistently higher health and well-being than those reporting none, even when they lived in areas with little green space. The size of that link was similar to the difference between meeting and not meeting recommended levels of physical activity. That gives you a place to start: think back over your past week and notice when you spent time in natural settings. It is a simple way to see the connection between nature and well-being in your own life.
Top 3 questions this article answers
- Where does the 120 minutes a week in nature rule come from?
- Is 120 minutes in nature enough to help anxiety or depression?
- How do I get 120 minutes of nature a week when I am busy?
All three start from a 2019 study in Scientific Reports whose authors described their measure as the first weekly exposure metric for nature, counted in minutes per week.
Where Does the 120-Minute Number Come From?
The figure comes from one large 2019 survey study in England. People who reported at least two hours in nature that week were more likely to report good health and well-being.
How to read the number:
- Count your minutes across the whole week, not in one outing.
- Compare your week with zero time outdoors, since that was the study's comparison group.
- Treat 120 minutes as a marker linked with well-being, not a dose that guarantees it.
In 2019, Mat White and colleagues at the University of Exeter published the analysis in Scientific Reports, drawing on Natural England's Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment survey.
The University of Exeter's research blog, Beyond Greenspace, summarized a central finding of the study. People reporting between 1 and 119 minutes were no more likely to report good health or high well-being than people reporting none at all. At 120 minutes or more, levels of health and well-being were consistently higher.
Two details matter for real life. The weekly total is what counted, so short visits add up. The pattern also held across age, gender, ethnicity and occupation, whether people lived in richer or poorer areas, and among people with long-term illnesses or disabilities.
Before you set a goal, think about where your own past week falls. To estimate it the way the researchers did, multiply the length of a typical visit by the number of visits you made, counting leisure time in places such as parks, woodlands and beaches.
A fair question to bring to your doctor or counselor is how this survey finding fits your own health, your neighborhood and your week.
You do not need a perfect week to begin. The two-hour pattern held even for people living in areas with little green space, so a small neighborhood park can still be a fair place to start. If anxiety makes even a short walk feel hard right now, that deserves gentle attention, and our anxiety therapy in Frisco is one place to start.
How Much Can the 120-Minute Study Really Tell You?
Two hours a week in nature made headlines the same day the research appeared. The study behind the number is more flexible, and more modest, than its fame suggests.
On June 13, 2019, a New York Times headline read "How Much Nature Is Enough? 120 Minutes a Week, Doctors Say." Its summary said researchers had "quantified the ideal amount of time" for the benefits of the outdoors, according to a National Library of Medicine page that pairs the story with the research behind it. The paper itself was more careful. Environmental psychologist Mathew White of the University of Exeter and his colleagues wrote in Scientific Reports that "exposure-response relationships," how much nature time it takes to see a benefit, were "under-researched."
The team used Natural England survey answers from 19,806 adults in 2014/15 and 2015/16, weighted to represent England's adult population, and sorted each person's nature time over the past week into 60-minute blocks (White and colleagues, 2019). The result looks more like a step than a steady slope.
| Nature time in the past week | What the 2019 study found, compared with no nature time |
|---|---|
| 1 to 59 minutes | No better, with or without adjustment |
| 60 to 119 minutes | Better only before adjusting for other factors |
| 120 minutes or more | Clearly better after adjustment |
| About 200 to 300 minutes | Positive associations peak |
| Beyond that | Flat or even lower, with very wide uncertainty above 400 minutes |
So 120 minutes is where the signal held up once the researchers accounted for area deprivation, socioeconomic status, physical activity, neighborhood greenspace and other factors. In the 120 to 179 minute group, people had 1.59 times the odds of reporting good health, and 1.23 times the odds of reporting high well-being, compared with people who spent no time in nature (White and colleagues, 2019). The authors judged the size of that link comparable to living in an affluent rather than a deprived area, and "meaningful in terms of potential public health implications," as quoted by the University of Exeter's Beyond Greenspace research blog.
Past two hours, the curve bends. A more detailed analysis showed "diminishing marginal returns" up to about 200 minutes for health and 300 for well-being, then "a flattening out or even decrease" (White and colleagues, 2019). If caring for yourself has started to feel like one more test, that may be a relief: more hours outdoors did not keep adding benefit.
Ordinary places counted, too. The Exeter team reported that most visits happened close to home, and that one long visit worked as well as several short ones (European Centre for Environment and Human Health, 2019).
Many of our clients ask whether any of this applies to anxiety, depression or trauma. The study asked people to rate their general health and well-being. It did not look at diagnoses, and it reports correlation rather than causation. The 120-minute pattern held for people with long-term illnesses or disabilities, which suggests, in the words of the Beyond Greenspace blog, that the result "can’t only be explained by the potential that healthier people visit nature more often." The authors call longitudinal and intervention studies "a critical next step" before anyone sets a weekly guideline.
What the 2019 study measured, and what it left undiscovered
Measured: how nearly 20,000 adults in England rated their own general health and well-being, alongside their nature time over the previous seven days.
Left undiscovered: anxiety, depression or trauma diagnoses, cause and effect, and whether nature time works as a treatment.
One study that did look at depression points to a smaller number. A 2016 dose analysis in Scientific Reports, "Health Benefits from Nature Experiences Depend on Dose," estimated that green space visits of "30 minutes or more during the course of a week" could cut the population prevalence of depression by up to 7%. Still, the cutoff clearly moves with the study and the analysis.
Somewhere between roughly 30 and 300 minutes a week, depending on the study and the statistics, time in green space correlates with people feeling healthier. One hundred twenty minutes is where one large study's signal became hard to dismiss. None of these studies tested nature time as a treatment for anxiety, depression or trauma. For someone who is struggling, two hours outdoors can be a gentle habit with research behind it, sitting beside care rather than replacing it.
- Think of two hours as the point where the study saw a clear difference, rather than a test you pass or fail.
- Feel free to stop counting somewhere past 200 to 300 minutes, where the study saw the benefits level off.
- Let short visits to a park close to home count toward your week.
- If you live with anxiety, depression or trauma, ask your counselor how time outdoors might fit alongside the work you do together, since none of this research tested nature as a treatment.
- When a headline names a number of minutes, ask what it measured: how people rated their own well-being, a diagnosis, or an estimate for a whole population.
How we checked this
We read the 2019 Scientific Reports paper, two University of Exeter summaries of it, a National Library of Medicine page that pairs news coverage with the research, and the abstract of a 2016 Scientific Reports paper. None of the figures in this section come from our practice. The 2019 study rests on what adults in England reported about themselves in the 2014/15 and 2015/16 surveys. It did not measure anxiety, depression or trauma. The 2016 depression figure is a modeled estimate for a whole population, and we read only that paper's abstract. The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) funded the 2019 study, and the Exeter summaries come from the research team's own university. We are a counseling practice that also offers nature-based therapy, so we have a stake in how this research is read. Still unknown: whether reaching a weekly nature target changes symptoms of anxiety, depression or trauma for any one person. None of our sources tested that.
- Mathew P. White and colleagues, Scientific Reports study on 120 minutes a week in nature, June 13, 2019.
- University of Exeter, European Centre for Environment and Human Health, press release on the two-hour nature dose, June 13, 2019.
- Becca Lovell, Beyond Greenspace (University of Exeter), summary of the 120-minute findings, June 13, 2019.
- National Library of Medicine, Behind the headlines page on the 120-minute story, undated.
- Scientific Reports, "Health Benefits from Nature Experiences Depend on Dose" abstract, 2016, retrieved October 11, 2026.
Is 120 Minutes in Nature Enough to Treat Anxiety or Depression?
Two hours a week is a well-being benchmark, not a treatment. Symptoms of anxiety or depression usually call for counseling, with time outdoors as a support beside it.
In our practice, we tell clients that weekly sessions for 12 weeks is a standard length of time for therapy to make significant progress on a treatment plan. Timelines vary with the complexity of the trauma and the counseling approach, and clients with complex trauma may take longer. One gentle option is a walk on your own once or twice a week, without headphones or a phone, simply noticing what you see and hear. A walk like this can support your well-being, but it is not a stand-in for therapy.
Contrary to what a headline number suggests, the 2019 study looked at general health and well-being, not clinical diagnoses such as major depression. A person can report good well-being on a survey and still live with symptoms that deserve care.
Other research points to a mental health signal at lower doses. The 2016 dose study covered above found that people who made long visits to green spaces had lower rates of depression and high blood pressure, a pattern across a population rather than a promise for any one person. Still, it is a good reason to make at least one of your visits each week a longer one.
In 2020, Michelle C. Kondo of the USDA Forest Service and colleagues reviewed the evidence on nature prescriptions, which are written recommendations from a health-care professional to spend time outside. They found that eleven studies, eight of them empirical, had evaluated nature prescription programs, and they concluded, "Research is too sparse to draw patterns in health outcome responses." Studies testing ways to help people follow through on these prescriptions had mixed findings.
Two hours outside is a healthy habit to build. Notice whether low mood, panic or painful memories still weigh on you after a week with more time outside. If that sounds close to your life lately, therapy for depression in Frisco can work alongside the time you spend outdoors. If you are having thoughts of suicide or self-harm, call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at any hour.
How Can You Fit 120 Minutes of Nature Into a Busy Week?
Spread the time across your week in green spaces close to home, like a town park. Let it work with weekly therapy when you need more support.
When you are already stretched thin by work, school pickups or a heavy mood, a two-hour goal can feel out of reach. The research never asked for a wilderness trip. In its 2019 release on the study, the University of Exeter's European Centre for Environment and Human Health reported that the majority of nature visits took place within two miles of home, in settings such as town parks, woodlands, country parks and beaches. Lead author Dr. Mat White put it simply: "Two hours a week is hopefully a realistic target for many people, especially given that it can be spread over an entire week to get the benefit."
The park at the end of your street counts. So does a greenbelt path you pass on the way to the grocery store.
A few small changes may make the time easier to find, depending on your schedule and what feels comfortable to you:
- Take a phone call or a lunch break on a park bench instead of at your desk.
- Choose the route to work or school that passes trees or water, even when it takes a little longer.
- Pair outdoor time with something you already do, such as walking the dog, meeting a friend or having your morning coffee outside.
Fit matters as much as minutes. On a 2025 episode of The Ready State, Jay Maddock, a public health professor at Texas A&M University, said nature prescriptions should be tailored to the person and their health condition, covering where they feel safe, what they like to do, and how often and how long they go. Maddock also observed that "the people that get the most benefit from nature are the people that are getting no nature." If you are starting from zero, that view is encouraging.
On a busy workday, even a 15 to 20 minute break outside can help: step away from your desk, breathe deeply, and notice the sights, sounds and smells around you. If worry, low mood or grief stays with you even as your outdoor minutes grow, I would treat that as a sign to add counseling, not a reason to push harder on the walking plan. A question worth bringing to a first session is what tends to keep you indoors on your hardest days, since that answer can shape the plan you build together. If a loss has left everything feeling heavy for months, for example, grief therapy in Frisco can give that weight a place to be explored, while your park visits keep giving you room to breathe.
So Is Two Hours Outdoors Each Week Enough for You?
For general well-being, two hours outdoors each week is a strong, research-backed goal. For anxiety, depression or trauma, it works best as one support alongside counseling.
Professor Terry Hartig of Uppsala University, a co-author of the 2019 study, said its findings offer "valuable support to health practitioners" in recommending time in nature.
As a licensed professional counselor-supervisor and certified school counselor who has worked with children, teens and adults since 2010, I think minutes outside are worth protecting, and so is your need for more help when those minutes are not enough.
If worry or low mood has stayed with you despite your best efforts, a conversation may be the gentlest next step. Our team offers free consultations so you can decide whether we are a good therapeutic match, and you can call our office at 469-238-2686 to get started directly. If you are thinking about suicide or feel unsafe, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What Else Do People Ask About Nature Time and Mental Health?
The questions below cover what a nature dose means, whether short visits help, and what starting counseling with our team looks like, including cost and timing.
What does "nature dose" mean?
A nature dose is a way of measuring time in nature by how long you stay, how often you go and how intense the experience is. The authors of the 2016 Scientific Reports study mentioned above used this framework with an urban population and noted there was "almost no guidance" on how much or how often people need to engage with nature. The two-hour figure later helped fill part of that gap.
Does how often I go outside matter, or only how long I stay?
Both seem to matter, in different ways. In that 2016 study, people who visited green spaces more often had greater social cohesion, a sense of connection and trust with the people around you. Higher physical activity was linked to both how long and how often people went.
Can a few minutes outside still help on a hard day?
Short visits are still worth taking. In the 2019 study, it did not matter whether the weekly time came in one long visit or several shorter ones, so a short visit still adds to your total. A 2018 review of 143 studies by researchers at the University of East Anglia also linked time in green space with lower heart rate and salivary cortisol, a stress hormone.
Can time in nature replace therapy for depression?
No. Time outdoors is a helpful support, and I see it as something to keep alongside therapy for depression, not in place of it. None of the studies in this article tested nature time as a treatment for depression.
How much does therapy cost with your team, and do you take insurance?
Sessions with our therapists can be as little as a co-pay. We take most major insurance plans. Call and ask about your coverage. Your independent benefits determine your specific payment per session. Sessions with a licensed professional counselor are $165, and the first session is $185 for 75 minutes. Sessions with a licensed professional counselor associate are $125, with a $150 first session, and associates can take your insurance too. Associates are fully vetted by the state before the license is granted (a national exam, a background check, the Texas Jurisprudence Examination and a 1.5-year academic internship working with real clients under faculty supervision), and you also gain the years of experience their supervisor brings. Call 469-238-2686 and we can tell you about your specific plan, or refer you to community partners that take your insurance if we cannot accommodate you.
How soon can I start, and can I meet online?
We work very hard to see new clients the same week they reach out, or the following week. We offer in-person counseling in Frisco, TX and telehealth therapy across Texas, including evening and after-school appointments. Our team offers free consultations so you can decide whether we are a good therapeutic match, and you can call our office at 469-238-2686 to get started directly.
Written by
Bonnie King
PhD, LPC-S, CSC
Bonnie King, PhD, LPC-S, CSC, has practiced as a counselor since 2010, working with children, adults, and teens with a variety of mental health concerns, including trauma, mood disorders, and specific concerns related to LGBTQ+ marginalization.
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