Why Your Outdoor Space Will Improve the Health of Your Family

What if the most powerful medicine was free, available everywhere, and required just 20 minutes of your day? Sounds too good to be true, yet millions of Americans are leaving this prescription unfilled.

While science confirms that even brief outdoor exposure dramatically improves mental health, physical wellbeing, and overall life satisfaction, our society continues its steady retreat indoors. What invisible barriers are keeping us confined within four walls when freedom—and better health—awaits just outside our doors?

Join us as we uncover the surprising reasons behind America's indoor epidemic, the hidden toll it's taking on our collective wellbeing, and the simple steps anyone can take to reclaim the natural advantage that's been waiting all along.

The Silent Price of Indoor Life: How Four Walls are Changing Your Health

As parents, lives get busy- sports, friends, recitals, birthdays, trips– it’s endless scheduling! According to Outdoor Foundation’s report1, 51% of the US population didn’t participate in an outdoor activity, but nearly half said they wanted to.2 The report states these reasons why families are spending less time outdoors:

They are too busy with family responsibilities
It’s too expensive
They don’t have people to participate with
People lack the skills, abilities, or knowledge
They have a physical disability
Outdoor rec destinations are too far away or they lack transportation

As the laundry list of to-do's continues to grow, so does stress. We indulge in the occasional hobby, but at times, even our hobbies become a chore.

See, that’s the crux of this challenge- your hobby, the one supposedly decreasing your stress, is actually compounding the problem because of the time it takes. For you to enjoy your hobby, you have to ‘get ready’, make sure the kids are taken care of, perhaps communicate with the people you’re meeting, all within the confines of you and your family’s schedule.

And that hobby is probably indoors, so by the time you’ve completed your day, you’ve spent a whopping 30 minutes outdoors just by trips to and from your car. Hope you’ve been wearing sunscreen. 😉

Effects it’s Having on Your Family

What’s incredible is our inherent need to be outdoors. Nature Deficit Disorder, a concept produced by Health Partners 3 is described as “the idea… that as humans, especially children, are spending less time outdoors than in the past,” which “is contributing to a range of mental and physical issues like attention deficit disorders and obesity.” The short list of symptoms can include:

Anxiety
Behavioral issues
Declining health and well-being
Depression
Increased levels of stress
Obesity
The potential for poor academic performance
Trouble maintaining focus on day-to-day tasks and activities
Vitamin D deficiency3

But there's profound hope in this troubling diagnosis. Research consistently shows that reconnecting with nature—even briefly—can trigger remarkable transformations in our physical and mental states. Just twenty minutes among trees or beside water lowers cortisol levels and blood pressure while flooding our brains with mood-enhancing neurochemicals. The natural world isn't just a pleasant backdrop to our lives—it's an essential component of our biological operating system.

Benefits of Getting Outdoors

We all know there’s benefits to getting outdoors:

Improved memory
Improved sleep
Better mood
Fulfilling relationships

You probably knew things like mood and sleep would be on this short list, but did you expect memory to be on there, too? This is based on attention restoration theory 4, which “can be as simple as looking at nature.”5

A study in 2019 at The University of Michigan found that people’s “performance on the [memory] test improved by almost 20% after wandering amongst the trees.”6

So with all these incredible benefits just waiting outside your door, let's explore how you can transform your own outdoor space into a personal sanctuary that invites you to step outside more often. Even the smallest patio or balcony can become a restorative retreat with the right approach.

How You Can Completely Transform Your Outdoor Space

Health Partners suggests to “have fun in all four seasons”3 and to do that, we want to highlight some of our considerations based on our services:

Putt-putt: we incorporated a putting green for this homeowner in Aledo, which became the backdrop for family functions.

Cooking: let’s move the kitchen outdoors so you never miss the party!

Gardening: a time to teach your children something new in your backyard while growing food for your next meal!

Resting: evenings of long days can be spent lounging on the patio, soaking up the last drops of vitamin-D as you tune in to your favorite channel.

What if you were able to enjoy your hobby without ever having to worry about getting ready again? Our team can help create the space of your dreams. An outdoor space could be exactly what your family needs.