Fresh air might be your most underrated performance enhancer

Product & Experience

So much for the controlled experiments, but what about people’s behaviour out in the wild, as it were - that is, in the real world? In one study, more than a million alerts were sent out to 20,000 people in the UK via their iPhones at various times of day over a six-month period. The phone’s satellite GPS was used to locate the owner to within an area of twenty-five square metres. No matter where they happened to be, and regardless of what they happened to be doing (driving excepted, one hopes), the smartphone app prompted the user to report how happy they were feeling and what they were up to at the time. The results were unambiguous: those who were quizzed when outdoors were simply much happier (significantly and substantially happier, according to the study’s authors) than those who responded while inside. Furthermore, various confounding factors, such as the weather, daylight, activity, companionship, time and day of the week were all controlled for with this particular experimental design.

The study sent more than a million prompts to 20,000 people. Outdoor respondents reported substantially greater happiness, with several obvious factors included in the analysis.

That is worth taking seriously. It is also narrower than “fresh air boosts performance”, a headline that already overclaims the evidence.

Happiness was reported in different settings. The design cannot turn every difference into clean causation, and happiness is only one outcome. People may go outside when they have freedom, company or a pleasant destination. Statistical adjustment helps; it does not recreate random assignment.

Still, indoor life is treated as the neutral default with astonishing confidence. Hours pass under artificial light and stale air, then low energy is diagnosed as a personal discipline problem. Changing place is considered frivolous while buying another productivity system appears responsible.

The honest experiment is modest. Move one suitable activity outside: reading, a break, a conversation that needs no private material. Compare mood, attention and the practical annoyances. Repeat it in ugly weather as well as sunshine. Include people for whom access, mobility or air quality changes the choice.

Perhaps nothing improves. Perhaps the work becomes harder and the person returns inside. That result is allowed.

One respondent answers the prompt beside a road. Another answers beneath trees. Both are technically outdoors. The dataset contains the category; their lungs contain the difference.