Everyday movement through nature linked to nighttime cardiac regulation

Amid escalating chronic stress in urbanising societies, understanding nature’s role in recovery from stress is critical. Here, we relate daily variation in nature exposure to nighttime activation of the autonomic nervous system, a key stress regulatory system, using 10 months of Global Position Systems and heart rate data from 45 individuals in Gävle, Sweden (3224 person-days). We examined within-person associations of (1) time in nature, (2) active and passive movement, and (3) stationary time or active movement in nature vs. non-natural environments with resting heart rate (RHR) and heart rate variability (HRV), and their moderation by sex. We further explored cumulative exposure associations over different timescales (day, week, and month). Active movement in nature was associated with lower-than-usual RHR and higher-than-usual HRV in the full sample and in females (but not males). We provide within-person real-world evidence that active movement in nature may support nighttime cardiac regulation, which may be beneficial for health.

Citation

Samuelsson, K., Giusti, M., Hallman, D.M., Koch, S., Farahbakhsh Touli, E., Buekers, J., van den Bosch, M., Bornioli, A., Dadvand, P., Barthel, S.  Everyday movement through nature linked to nighttime cardiac regulation. npj Urban Sustain 6, 65 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-026-00387-0