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This study, it turns out, is one of many that validate attention restoration theory (ART), which claims that spending time in nature can improve your ability to concentrate. This theory, which was first proposed in the 1980s by the University of Michigan psychologists Rachel Kaplan and Stephen Kaplan (the latter of which co-authored the 2008 study discussed here, along with Marc Berman and John Jonides), is based on the concept of attention fatigue. To concentrate requires what ART calls directed attention<\/em>. This resource is finite: If you exhaust it, you\u2019ll struggle toconcentrate. (For our purposes, we can think of this resource as the same thing as Baumeister\u2019s limited willpower reserves we discussed in the introduction to this rule.) The 2008 study argues that walking on busy city streets requires you to use directed attention, as you must navigate complicated tasks like figuring out when to cross a street to not get run over, or when to maneuver around the slow group of tourists blocking the sidewalk. After just fifty minutes of this focused navigation, the subject\u2019s store of directed attention was low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Walking through nature, by contrast, exposes you to what lead author Marc Berman calls \u201cinherently fascinating stimuli,\u201d using sunsets as an example. These stimuli \u201cinvoke attention modestly, allowing focused-attention mechanisms a chance to replenish.\u201d Put another way, when walking through nature, you\u2019re freed from having to direct your attention, as there are few challenges to navigate (like crowded street crossings), and experience enough interesting stimuli to keep your mind sufficiently occupied to avoid the need to actively aim your attention. This state allows your directed attention resources time to replenish. After fifty minutes of such replenishment, the subjects enjoyed a boost in their concentration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n