Health and well-being in nature: Analysis of 18,054 visit reports and implications for nature-based biopsychosocial resilience theory (NBRT)

Nature-based biopsychosocial resilience theory (NBRT) proposes that visiting nature helps build and maintain ‘stocks’ of adaptive biological, psychological, and social resilience resources that can later be used to prevent, respond to, or recover from stressors. Using 2020-24 data from a representative sample of adults across England, we examined how recent nature visits ( n = 18,054) contribute to self-reported biopsychosocial health and well-being (foundational components of resilience stocks), as a function of natural setting (e.g., urban/rural green, coastal), natural elements (e.g., safety, biodiversity), and nature contact components (i.e., activity, duration, companionship, nature connectedness). Coastal visits were more positively associated with biological and psychological (but not social) health and well-being than the average across all setting types. Visit settings rated as peaceful, safe, clean, accessible, and biodiverse, as well as longer visits and those undertaken by people higher in nature connectedness, were positively related to all three types of health and well-being. Further scrutiny of walking as the most common visit type ( n = 9,065) showed that duration was more important for self-reported biological and psychological health and well-being when alone than when with others. Additionally, duration and companionship were less important for social well-being among those with higher nature connectedness. Findings are in line with the notion that nature visits can enhance multiple dimensions of health and well-being, thus contributing to biopsychosocial resilience stocks. Further research is needed to explore how such visit-related benefits may support individuals to be more adaptively resilient to diverse stressors.