Why going outside is good for you, even when it's freezing

Today on the show, we explore the science behind why going outside is so good for us, even when it’s freezing.

If you’re interested in learning more about nature therapy, check out the Center for Nature Informed Therapy.

A psychologist says this exercise can make you more hopeful in 14 days: the Noticing Nature Intervention is straightforward, but its results might surprise you.

If you want more Optimistic stories in your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter. And if you’d like to hear more hopeful stories on the weekend on “Post Reports,” please send us an email: podcasts@washpost.com. 

Today’s show was produced by Maggie Penman with help from Rennie Svirnovskiy who also mixed the show. It was edited by Allison Klein and Ariel Plotnick. Thank you to Sean Carter. 

Subscribe to The Washington Post here.

Transcript:

WHY GOING OUTSIDE IS GOOD FOR YOU, EVEN WHEN IT’S FREEZING

Post Reports (The Washington Post) — Saturday, January 24, 2026

[Maggie Penman]

On a recent Thursday morning, I started my day with a walk in the woods. So we’re approaching a little bit of a steeper part and then it’ll level out. We’re gonna be huffing and puffing.

It has been very cold here in D.C., so I’ve been having trouble getting myself outside, even though I know it’s so good for me. But on this particular day, I was out here for work. So tell me, first of all—actually, I’m gonna have you introduce yourself just for the audio.

[Jessica Magidson]

Yeah. Hi, I’m Jessica Magidson. I’m a clinical psychologist and a professor at the University of Maryland. I’ve been doing work for a couple decades now looking at how we increase access to mental health care—and over the past year, I’ve become extremely passionate about how we can do this outside.

[Maggie Penman]

When most of us think of therapy, we probably picture an office with a chair and a couch, or maybe even just a screen.

Virtual therapy sessions have become a lot more common in the past few years. Jess Magidson is part of a small but growing movement of psychologists who want to change that. They want to take therapy outside.

There are a lot of benefits for clients to doing therapy outside, but Jess believes there are also huge benefits for therapists who have been experiencing really high levels of burnout in the last few years.

As humans, we spend, I guess, 93% of our lives indoors. Wow. It obviously didn’t used to be like that.

[Jessica Magidson]

Yeah.

[Maggie Penman]

And we’re not meant to be like that. And so I do really think that a lot of the shifts that we see at this time of year—people are more likely to be inside, less likely to get the sunlight they need—it does affect our mood.

What we need is this, you know? Right.

I’m Maggie Penman. I’m a reporter for The Optimist, the section here at The Post where we tell you about things that are going right in the world—because, believe it or not, there are things going right in the world.

It’s Saturday, January 24, and today we’re going outside. So layer up, get a good coat on, and take this podcast with you.

Okay, so here we have the point. We can either go through the wooded trails, or we can keep on the pavement. We can keep on the pavement and then loop back on the wooded trails if you wanted.

Let’s do the woods, right? I feel like we’re talking about it—we got to practice what we preach here.

On a walk in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., I asked Jess to first explain why being out in nature is so good for our mental health.

[Jessica Magidson]

Yeah—so I think we have so much research that has demonstrated the effects of spending time in nature on our physical and our mental health.

From a mental health perspective, we’ve seen that it can really reduce our stress levels and reduce cortisol, which is our stress hormone. And even at small doses, being able to regulate our body’s response to stress helps us sleep better, and it can also have direct effects on improving our mood as well.

Especially when you pair it with things like what we’re doing now—walking or exercise can almost double the impact.

There’s also this theory called attention restoration. Researchers have found that taking a walk out in nature improves our ability to pay attention and remember things.

Something about time in nature is being able to tune into the world around us in a way that captures our attention, but not fully. So we’re able to still have a conversation; we’re able to have more creative thoughts by having part of our attention captured by the natural beauty, if that makes sense. Researchers call this “soft fascination.”

You can walk through the woods and look at the trees, notice the leaves, the sound of the wind, the birds. Nature engages us, but it doesn’t necessarily take our full attention. And the result is a kind of mini mindfulness break for your brain.

And one cool thing is it really doesn’t take a lot to feel the benefits—and you don’t even have to like it. There’s research showing that even 10 minutes of time outside or 10 minutes in nature can make an impact on our mental health. So being able to start small, have realistic expectations for ourselves.

The other piece, too, is that we have shown that even if you don’t like it, you still experience the cognitive benefits.

[Maggie Penman]

That’s hilarious.

[Jessica Magidson]

I mean, that makes sense too. It’s still good for you, even if you’re like, “Ugh.”

[Maggie Penman]

Yeah, exactly.

I have totally experienced this myself. As I mentioned, it’s been bitterly cold in D.C. this winter, which is pretty unusual here.

And on a recent Sunday, I was inside with my toddler and my dog, and I made myself take all of us out for a walk. We were probably outside for like 20 minutes total, and I’m not going to sugarcoat it—it was painfully cold. And there were definitely tears—my daughter’s for sure, maybe also mine.

But afterwards, I felt so much better. And I could tell she did too. The dog was definitely happier.

The other thing I noticed is that being home felt so much better afterwards. Before going out, my messy living room had felt kind of stuffy. But after, it felt cozy.

I talked about how we can embrace the winter better with Dr. Heidi Schreiber-Pan, the executive director and founder of the Center for Nature-Informed Therapy.

[Dr. Heidi Schreiber-Pan]

So one thing to note is that the happiest people on this planet are the Scandinavians, right? The last five years, they scored the highest in happiness. They also have the longest winters.

So they have this whole way that they embrace winter, and they do it through these two concepts.

One is called “Frie Luftleben,” which means: go outside every single day for at least 10 minutes, no matter the weather.

And the second part is “hygge.” Hygge is when you go back in after you’ve just been outside—you’ve earned yourself a nest. You make a fire, you light a candle, or you make your favorite tea.

[Maggie Penman]

It turns out I had accidentally done this winter day the Scandinavian way—and it felt great.

Heidi started her center to train people in offering nature therapy—either at the best time or the worst time, depending on your perspective.

[Dr. Heidi Schreiber-Pan]

So it was founded in 2020—March-ish. So right in the middle of an event that we are trying to forget about.

[Maggie Penman]

Oh boy. Wow. But also, it kind of couldn’t have come at a better time—for lots of reasons. So many people had mental health struggles, and it was less dangerous to be outside, and there was this opportunity for a lot of people to start trying this.

While a lot of therapists took their practices online during the pandemic, a few started doing therapy outdoors, or “walk and talk” therapy. It happened organically just because it was safer to be outside than inside.

But Heidi had been thinking about this for years before that.

[Dr. Heidi Schreiber-Pan]

Yeah. It was really an interesting journey because I was a doctorate student in counseling psychology at Loyola University in Maryland. The project was to interview mental health professionals about burnout and secondary stress and compassion fatigue.

I was interviewing a whole bunch of people, and my question was: Was there anything that they did for their own self-care or that they noticed was a buffer for burnout?

And people answered in different ways. They would say, “When I come home, I have to go for a walk.” Some people said, “I just go do my garden.” Some people said, “I get on my bike.” Some people said, “I actually got into birding.”

Different answers—but the common denominator was the natural world. People went to the beach, or they sat by open water.

And I was so excited to find this theme. And then a follow-up question was: Do you bring this to your clients?

And people said, “No.”

And I thought there was such an interesting disconnect: Here was something people knew was really helping them maintain well-being, but it wasn’t translating into bringing it to their clients. And I thought, well, this is worth investigating.

[Maggie Penman]

Heidi couldn’t find much research or many trainings for bringing therapy out into the natural world, so that became her dissertation research. And after getting her PhD, she started working towards putting it into practice.

Other clinicians are joining her, though it’s still not a lot of therapists.

[Dr. Heidi Schreiber-Pan]

I would say it’s still a small percentage of people. The reason is that there is not a lot of training out there.

And I think, too, people think of nature… It’s the first thing we ask them at the training: When you think of nature, what comes to mind?

They talk about beautiful parks, a national park, the mountains, the ocean. And where is your therapy office? Not there.

[Maggie Penman]

Heidi says part of the training is opening up therapists—and the rest of us—to the idea that even a city park can be “nature,” and there can be huge benefits to going outside even if we don’t go to the mountains.

After the break, we’ll hear from a therapist who is actually practicing outside with her clients.

[Break]

[Maggie Penman]

There’s just a different level of connection…

One of the clinicians I spoke with is a psychologist in a primary care setting, which means she’s sometimes seeing patients just a couple of times—or maybe only once—and she wants to help them as quickly as possible.

[Dr. Mickey Moskowitz]

So what I’ve seen that’s so encouraging is that sometimes just that first session, we go for the walk and patients are like, “Wow. One, I didn’t know this trail was here. This is so beautiful. This feels so great. This is totally something I can do on my own.”

And that is so much more powerful than if we’re sitting in my office, which has no windows, just talking about the idea of going outside—as we sit in this climate-controlled room with no windows.

[Maggie Penman]

Another benefit Mickey mentioned is that being in nature encourages mindfulness.

Mindfulness is a tool that lots of psychologists suggest to improve mental health. There’s a ton of research about the benefits, but it’s hard.

Mindfulness means meditating—being fully present in the moment, noticing what’s around you, noticing thoughts as they pass through your mind without following them. It’s easier said than done.

And so many people are like, “I can’t do mindfulness meditation. I just get distracted. It’s over. I can never make time for it.”

[Dr. Mickey Moskowitz]

And honestly, I feel that way too. I struggle to implement it.

But when you’re outside—and this I love doing with patients—we’re doing mindfulness practices outside and it’s so rich because we can say: “Okay, just look up at the treetops and notice what you see. Notice what you hear. Now you’re tuning into the birdsong. Look for something that’s moving.” You’re watching the branches sway in the breeze. Or look at something close up, or look at something far away.

You’re doing a mindfulness practice and you’re tuning into your senses and focusing your attention—but it’s not hard work. It’s accessible, feels so good, and people can really connect to it—often more easily than with classic mindfulness meditation.

[Maggie Penman]

I did a version of this in the woods on my walk with Jess. We stopped near a patch of ivy and tried to notice what was around us.

[Jessica Magidson]

Take a moment to notice: what is one thing that is beautiful to you in nature right now?

[Maggie Penman]

Yeah. I feel like this green is just so gorgeous—and so rare this time of year to see lush green.

[Jessica Magidson]

Yeah, we’re really tuned into the colors.

[Maggie Penman]

And for me, when we pause and I notice… it’s that sound of the rustling of the leaves and the wind. As we pause it also gets a little bit colder, but that sound is something I find so soothing.

I think for each person it’s different, but allowing ourselves to pause and see things in a bit of a different way.

If you’re anything like me, you might be thinking: This sounds lovely, but how does this work logistically?

There are the privacy concerns. If you’re having a conversation in a park or on a trail, there is a chance you could be overheard.

The biggest thing Mickey has found is that it takes some forethought and conversations between therapists and their clients or patients before they go outside. Therapists call this informed consent.

[Dr. Mickey Moskowitz]

We talk about: “Okay, if we pass other people on the trail, what are we going to do? If we run into somebody that you know, what are we going to do?” Just so they’ve had a chance to anticipate that and think about it and talk about it—and they know what to expect.

[Maggie Penman]

For Mickey, it’s been totally worth the extra planning. Her clients like it—and so does she.

[Dr. Mickey Moskowitz]

The days that I have a walking session, I am just so much more alive. I’m so energized. My mood is totally different.

I kind of got used to it this fall. Then in December I understandably had less interest—some people wanted to go through the winter, but a lot of people didn’t.

So I was in withdrawal for a little bit in December because I went for a few weeks without having any—and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I miss it.”

[Maggie Penman]

In a lot of ways, outdoor therapy feels like a no-brainer. It’s good for us to walk outside—of course it would compound the benefits of therapy. But it’s still a relatively small trend.

The psychologists I spoke with think that’s mostly because it’s new. There are so many different ways to deliver care. And when we get locked into rigid ideas of doing things one way—because that’s how we’ve done it, how we’ve studied it, what’s comfortable, what logistically works for schedules—we lose sight of what’s actually helpful for our clients.

Dr. Mickey Moskowitz is a clinical psychologist in Maryland. You also heard from Dr. Jess Magidson and Dr. Heidi Schreiber-Pan.

I’m Maggie Penman. I’m a reporter for The Optimist. If you want to hear more stories like this on the weekend, please send me an email. You can reach the whole team at podcasts@washpost.com or just me at maggie.penman@washpost.com.

And if you want more uplifting stories—or more information about the mental health benefits of being out in nature—check out our show notes. I’ll include some links there.

This episode was produced by me with help from Rennie Svirnovskiy, who also mixed the show. It was edited by Allison Klein and Ariel Plotnick. Thank you also to Sean Carter.

Thank you for listening. Have a lovely rest of your weekend—and go outside, even if it’s just for a few minutes.