On trial in Food Court

For every notion that someone comes up with, someone says, "Hey! Let's do a scientific study on that thang!" And even though most people know from empiric experience that putting hot sauce on food makes it spicy and that people who have a choice between ice cream and stewed prunes for dessert are more likely to hit the Breyer's, they have to draaaaaaaaag it out over a six-month period of testing, evaluating, reporting, and appearing on "Dr Ooze."

So here is the latest thought that got the million-dollar treatment: You are more apt to get along with the members of your family after a walk in nature than you are after a trip with them to the mall.

Well, duh.

The study that proves this theorem concludes that "a quick walk in nature is a better way to tune out distractions and feel all warm and fuzzy about each other."

And get this - they have names for why it works.  When you get out and stroll among the tall tall trees and the pachysandra beneath, it relaxes the noggin and helps you reset your perspectives much better than, say, a trip to Best Buy, which is a store I won't even enter anymore because it is a pure assault on every sense except smell.

But the learned scientists want us to know that strutting through the park and seeing trees and little creatures and smelling God's fresh air is better than walking into Best Bye to buy a printer cartridge and seeing some 9-year-old launch a crime spree on "Grand Theft Auto" on the big screen with stadium-size subwoofers blasting in your ear. 

As they say in the Navy, "No ship, Sherlock!"

And as they say at the Department of Child and Adolescent Development at San Jose State University, that nature walk is part of "attention restoration."

Dina Izenstark is an assistant professor out there, and she says, "We know that nature has a powerful effect on individuals because it helps restore mental fatigue. We believe those individual benefits can translate to family interactions in that when family members are less mentally fatigued, they have the potential to get along better with one another."

So what she says is, when you aren't all tired and irritable, you are much less likely to be cranky.  Hold the presses! We got a bulletin here from San Diego!

They actually found some moms of kids between 10 and 12 and had them go to a mall for a while and them come back and solve math problems. ("If a mother takes three kids to the mall at 3 and one of them wants a Cherry Guzzle at 3:01, how long before they head home?")

No, that was not on the sheet of problems.  And then later, after everyone figured out what the math problems, they sent them on a walk in the park, the moms' attention levels increased! They had decreased after going to the mall, probably after shelling out all that money for Cherry Guzzles and Auntie Annie's yeasty pretzels.

The kids were sharper either way, the study found, so the best advice seems to be to take a kid to the woods. Or to the mall; it depends on the kid.  

Meanwhile, who knows how to get Cherry Guzzle stains out of a t-shirt?