Page 51 - Time Special Edition Alternative Medicine (January 2020)

nature. It’s not that they have to be rigorous in ical and mental health benefits. Some physicians,
terms of exercise,” Yuen says. “You relax and re- like Robert Zarr, a pediatrician in Washington, D.C.,

duce stress, and then you feel more happy.” And are even writing prescriptions for it. These “nature
that’s certainly not to diminish the value of more prescriptions”—therapies that are redeemable only
strenuous exercise. Health professionals are unani- outdoors, in the fresh air of a local park—advise pa-
mous in advocating for physical activity that gets tients to spend an hour each week playing tennis,
your heart pumping faster. There is also plenty of for instance, or exploring all the soccer fields near
research that comes to the conclusion that while ex- their home. The scrips are recorded in his patients’
ercising is good for mental health, exercising out- electronic health records.“There’s a paradigm shift

side is even better. in the way we think about parks: not just as a place
It is for all of these reasons that the medical for recreation, but literally as a prescription, a place
community is increasingly viewing green space as to improve your health,” says Zarr, who writes up to
a great place where their patients can reap phys- 10 park prescriptions per day. In 2017 he founded

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