Mental Vitality: Assessing the Impact of a Walk in the Woods
Posted on March 4, 2018 by Mary Hernandez
In this article, Mark Bowen presents an abridged version of his 2016 doctoral thesis entitled, “Mental Vitality: Assessing the Impact of a Walk in the Woods”.
The thesis attends to a gap in literature pertaining to studying nature and late adolescence. In particular, Dr. Bowen mentioned that “this study measured one aspect of mental vitality, that of mental acuity in 16-18 year old students at an international school. Using the d2 Test of Attention to measure the impact of regular nature walks, this study found a significant improvement in participants’ mental acuity after a regular, twice weekly, 40 to 60 minute duration nature walk intervention.”
Open or download the entire article by clicking Journal Article 2017
Mark Bowen is currently a staff member at Halcyon London International School in the UK, and has been an education professional since 1985 as guidance counsellor, community college adjunct psychology faculty, secondary psychology teacher in various curricula (AP, IB, and A Level), and was awarded his Doctorate in Education focusing on Ecopsychology in May 2016 by London South Bank University. Following completion of the degree, he has designed an Ecopsychology course at the secondary level. He can be reached at drmarkbowen@hotmail.com
