Articles en Español
The book, The Nature Principle, highlights the importance of what it calls "Vitamin N" (for Nature) to make indoor environments healthier. Here are some excerpts:
- A study that investigated 101 public high schools in Michigan found that students in schools with larger windows and more views of nearby nature — from classrooms, lunchrooms, and outdoor eating areas -- had higher standardized test scores, higher graduation rates, and a greater percentage of these students planned to attend college.
- Pennsylvania researchers found that patients in rooms with tree views had shorter hospitalizations (on average, by almost one full day), less need for pain medications, and fewer negative comments in the nurses' notes, compared to patients with brick views.
- A study of 260 people in 24 sites across Japan found that, among people who gazed on forest scenery for 20 minutes, the average concentration of salivary cortisol, a stress hormone, was 13.4 percent lower than that of people in urban settings.
- Employees who sit next to operable windows are more productive and exhibit consistently fewer symptoms of "sick building syndrome" than other workers; at one organization, absenteeism quadrupled after a move from a building with natural ventilation to one with sealed windows and central air. Studies of such workplaces show improved product quality, customer satisfaction, and innovation. Some office workers take nature into their own hands by wildscaping their offices.
