The Advantages of Open-Air Living — Top 10 Trends
Expanding the footprint of your home by adding outdoor living spaces does more than just meet your style and social needs. Being outside is really, really, really good for you. Even without exercise— being outside in natural light and shade can improve your health and happiness at an accelerated speed. Jamie Ducharme, a correspondent for TIME magazine on health and science explains, "Spending time outdoors, especially in green spaces, is one of the fastest ways to improve your health and happiness.” Less than 20 minutes in the outdoors has “been shown to lower stress, blood pressure and heart rate, while encouraging physical activity and buoying mood and mental health." Not only is our mental and physical health greatly benefited by spending more time outside, the physiological effects the body’s health is real and it is measurable, says Michelle Kondo, a research and social scientist with the USDA-Forest [...]