Unstructured Play in Nature — the Antidote to Youth Anxiety?
Our amazing sympathetic nervous system has a big job. Responsible for the ‘fight or flight’ response, it can save our lives in moments of real danger. When triggered, it floods our body with hormones, increasing our heart rate and our breathing to prepare us for action. While most of the dangers we evolved to react to (think lions, tigers, and bears!) are no longer part of our daily lives, our stress response hasn’t evolved; it remains the same.
In our modern world, this system often sounds a false alarm, reacting to everyday stressors—like looming deadlines or social pressure—as if they were life threatening.
In our earlier Homo Sapiens days, after danger had passed (i.e. we outran the bear or he eventually left), our stress response would switch off. No harm done. But with the repetitive, persistent stressors of modern life, our stress rarely goes away.
Without an effective outlet to release this tension, stress hormones like cortisol continue to circulate, keeping our sympathetic nervous system in a prolonged state of activation. Over time, this unresolved stress becomes chronic, leaving our mind and body in a constant state of high alert and worry, even in the absence of reald anger — creating a fertile ground for anxiety.
While this psychological process affects all age groups, children and teenagers are particularly vulnerable due to their limited coping mechanisms. According to the American Psychological Association, because young children think in concrete terms, they lack insight into how irrational their anxiety can be. For teens, anxiety can quickly spiral as their inhibitions may prevent them from externalizing and normalizing their anxious thoughts. Adding to this, the self-focus and egocentrism typical of the adolescent experience can intensify feelings of anxiety.
In fact, anxiety in children is worse now than ever before. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, growing numbers of young people were experiencing high rates of anxiety. In 2012, about 11.6% of kids had anxiety, with 19% meeting the criteria for clinical-level anxiety. But during the pandemic, those numbers nearly doubled, such that 20.5% of youth worldwide now struggle with anxiety symptoms, according to a meta-analysis of 29 studies.
A 2022 study of youth in Luxembourg showed that 34% of adolescents experienced moderate to high anxiety symptoms. Consistent with other studies, the prevalence of anxiety is higher in girls (45%) than boys (23%) and increases with age for both genders.
Hyper-awareness of the world’s problems, social isolation, and the negative impacts of technology such as social media are considered drivers of this trend. Social isolation, in particular, leads to higher levels of cortisol, the body’s primary stress hormone. Scientific evidence consistently links social isolation to higher anxiety levels in children and adolescents.
This correlates with the study conducted in Luxembourg, where 18% of adolescents reported feeling lonely most or all of the time. Reflecting trends in anxiety numbers, girls were more likely to feel lonely than boys (24% versus 12% respectively), with rates of loneliness increasing with age.
Feelings of social isolation, exacerbated during the quarantine protocols of the COVID pandemic, have persisted due in part to a disproportionate amount of time spent in overstimulating digital environments. Children and adolescents today have less exposure to environments that foster community, engender prosocial behavior, or offer opportunities for creative problem-solving. In short, they have less access to nature.
Research shows that immersive nature experiences can help young people rest and reset their nervous systems, foster healthy social interactions, and restore their feelings of self-worth and self-efficacy.
Rest and reset
There is a growing body of evidence showing that immersive nature experiences provide children and adolescents with a crucial buffer from stress.
When the amygdala, the region of the brain that processes stress, gets activated by a stressful task or experience, it requires a period of deactivation in order for the brain and body to go back to homeostasis. A 2022 study found that amygdala activation decreases after a one-hour walk in nature, but remains stable after walking in an urban environment.
This process of calming the amygdala may be even more crucial for children and adolescents. Because their prefrontal cortex is still developing, brain science says young people may rely on the amygdala to make decisions and solve problems more than adults do. Overloaded amygdalas can lead to emotional impulsivity, overactive fear, and anxiety.
A 2019 study of urban children in Portugal showed that children with green spaces around their school had lower biomarkers of stress in the body, including cortisol levels. Researchers and practitioners in the field of child development say kids today have less time in green spaces, and this could be one of the reasons for the increase in psychological conditions like depression and anxiety.
Marinella Pro, who is the Director of the Village Forest School in Montaldo, Italy, has observed some changes in her students over the last 20 years. “When you walk with children, you can feel them calming down. The rhythm is different when they’re out walking. [Children today] are more agitated. You have to walk 45 minutes to get to the same place with them,” she says.
Pro says for many children, the rush of their daily lives and overloaded schedules impacts their ability to unwind—but nature gives them time to rest and reset. Scientific research backs this up. Attention Restoration Theory proposes that environments which evoke fascination without demanding directed attention—such as natural views and surroundings—promote attention restoration and cognitive rebalancing. Several studies, including one study on university students, have established that nature-induced attention restoration can revitalize cognitive and emotional functioning.
Pro suggests walking with children daily. The more natural the setting, the better, but the most important thing is the routine of doing it. “The easiest is probably to start the day this way, or when they come back from school if they’re not too tired,” she says.
For adolescents and teens who may be more resistant to routine time in nature, Pro suggests meeting kids where they are in their development. “If they’re at an age where they want to prove they’re capable, maybe it’s parcours in the woods. Or if they’re a really mellow child, maybe take them in the woods to paint flowers. With older children, it’s usually the challenge and the curiosity,” she says.
Build social skills
Playing with peers in nature is one of the very first experiences children have outside of parental direction. That’s why, research shows, it’s an important determinant of socialization and cognition.
A 2023 study of children aged 4 to 14 showed that reduced social skills may lead to the development of anxiety symptoms. It can also set up a negative feedback loop, with anxiety hindering social skills and exacerbating feelings of isolation, which further fuels anxiety.
A 2019 research article reviewing the important role of natural ecosystems in childhood cognitive and physical development concluded that “several domains of children’s development – social, cognitive, and emotional – are supported by contact with nature. Just as children require good sleep patterns and nutrition for proper development, they also may require interactions with nature.”
Photo credit: George Pak
At the summer program in Vermont where he serves as Director of Camps, Jarod Wunneburger says nature sets the stage for cooperative play. Unstructured time, child-directed problem-solving, and low-competition activities help the kids at Farm and Wilderness Camps build social skills. “Learning what it means to be in community in a really rustic setting puts kids in a space to get out of themselves for a few weeks,” he says.
But while unstructured time in nature may help build social skills that can prevent anxiety in kids, Wunneburger says it often evokes anxiety in adults. “Often the adult anxiety is the real issue at play, which is totally valid. You can also create the illusion of unstructured play, so maybe it’s about creating small moments of unstructured time,” he says. “But any kind of wilderness camp is a great way to offer unstructured time. There are lots of scholarships out there that make it accessible.”
Pro says adults can also incorporate simple acts of service, such as feeding squirrels in wintertime or creating homes for birds, to help kids build foundational elements of prosocial behavior, such as empathy, respect, and connectedness. “They are so reverent when they’re outside. Not everyone comes to us that way, but little by little, they learn respect,” she says.
Boost self-worth
In addition to social engagement, immersive nature experiences have been shown to boost self-esteem. A 2019 study by University College London revealed that a staggering 4 out of 5 children reported feeling more confident in themselves after participating in outdoor activities.
That confidence-building aspect of nature immersion extends to older children, as well. Adolescents have a natural desire to test the physical limits of the natural world, which brings self-confidence, self-esteem, and a clearer sense of identity.
There is a documented link between self-esteem, anxiety, and access to nature. A 2003 study found that rural children living near nature tested lower for anxiety. Interestingly, these children ranked themselves higher on self-worth measures than their peers who resided in less natural settings.
What is it about nature that reminds children of their worth? The answer may once again point to unstructured free play. Undirected play in natural environments requires autonomy, competence, and creative problem-solving that can develop children’s self-efficacy and help them feel like empowered individuals.
“Climbing a tree, you need to be confident in your physical skills and in your ability to observe where the branches are,” says Pro. “When the children can climb to the top of the hill, they are the king of that hill. They are proud of themselves.”
She says this is especially important for children who learn differently or don’t function as well in classroom environments due to attention disorders or sensory processing issues. “If they are outside, they take initiative. They can move. And outside they become the leaders, not the ‘troublemakers’. Now this changes how the children feel about themselves,” she says.
It’s an oxymoron, but structuring unstructured time may be the key to supporting youth with anxiety, and even preventing its onset. In an overscheduled, overstimulated, and high-tech world, nature effortlessly sets the stage for unstructured play—for everyone.
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