IN PRAISE OF ‘AWE' WALKS

Spending time outdoors is great for your health, but there’s an easy way to reap even better benefits

- MICHAEL MOSLEY

There is a wood near me that I walk or run through most days. Even on a wet winter’s day I get pleasure from being among the trees, though to be honest, when I am running, I wear headphones to distract myself from the pain in my lungs. But perhaps I should be spending more time appreciating my surroundings by cultivating a sense of ‘awe’. Doing that might increase my sense of joy and even my ‘smile intensity’. Or at least that was the findings of a study I recently came across, published in the journal Emotion.

I have always assumed that spending time in nature is good for me, but a couple of years ago I decided to see if there were any measurable benefits. The BBC series,