One explanation is that nature holds our attention without demanding it. Attention Restoration Theory, developed by Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, suggests that natural environments help replenish the focused attention that everyday life constantly draws on.

Roger Ulrich’s Stress Reduction Theory adds another dimension, looking at how time in natural environments can help us recover from stress.

More recent research backs this up. A 2019 study in Scientific Reports, involving nearly 20,000 people in England, found that spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature was linked to better self-reported health and wellbeing. What I love about this one is that it didn’t seem to matter whether those two hours happened all at once or across shorter visits during the week.

To be clear, access to nature isn’t a substitute for professional care. But it does tell us something useful about how we design cities. The places we move through every day can either add to our mental load or give us small moments of relief from it.

In the Gulf, designing for that relief takes more than adding greenery. A landscape that needs excessive water, struggles in the climate or is too uncomfortable to use for much of the year may look appealing, but it won’t necessarily build a real relationship between people and place.

For me, the more interesting question is how landscapes can work with local conditions, using shade, native and climate-adapted planting, biodiversity and careful use of water to create places where people actually want to slow down and spend time.

A little nature, often

Urban planner Tim Beatley, founder of the Biophilic Cities Network, offers a helpful way to think about this: the Nature Pyramid. Much like a food pyramid, it suggests we need a broad base of everyday nature (the trees on our street, birdsong, a shaded courtyard), topped up by weekly visits to parks, monthly trips further afield and, every now and then, time in real wilderness.

The message is simple. The small, frequent doses matter most.

This sits beautifully with positive psychology, which focuses not only on treating illness but on helping people feel well and flourish day to day. Regular time in nature is part of how we maintain our wellbeing, in the same way that sleep, movement and good relationships are.

Nature also has a growing place in healthcare itself. Doctors in countries such as the UK and Canada now prescribe time outdoors through green social prescribing programmes, alongside other forms of care rather than instead of them.

It isn’t a question of prevention or treatment. Nature supports both, which is why everyday contact with it needs to be possible for everyone. Heat, mobility, safety, accessibility and cultural expectations all shape whether an outdoor space feels restorative, so how we design these spaces really matters.

A shaded route between buildings. Somewhere to sit beneath a tree. A school garden buzzing with insects. Native planting outside an office. A neighbourhood space where birds, butterflies and people can all find somewhere to pause.

None of these ideas are dramatic. But together they form the base of the pyramid, and their value comes from being part of everyday life.

Nature as part of the city

Dubai is a city of ambition and momentum, and I don’t believe stillness has to be at odds with that.

The opportunity, I think, is to see nature not as an escape from city life, but as part of the infrastructure that makes city life more liveable.

That means creating landscapes that belong here rather than imitating somewhere else, recognising biodiversity as something people can encounter every day, and leaving room in the city for experiences that ask nothing of us.

Nature doesn’t have to compete with the city’s speed, growth or appetite for what’s next. It can be part of that story: woven into the places where we live, work and gather, and felt in small, everyday moments of connection.

Sheena Khan

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Nature doesn’t have to be green to help us unwind