Erica Timko Olson’s path from nursing to nature-based interventions didn’t begin in a laboratory or a Forest Therapy training. It began with a phone call from her father. At the time, Erica was away from her native Minnesota, navigating a new work culture, a demanding PhD program, work, and life with six children. She was researching spirituality, resilience, and anxiety among nursing students, while personally experiencing a deep sense of disconnection. Then her father asked her a simple question: “When’s the last time you’ve seen the horizon?” She didn’t know.
His advice was equally simple: “You need to find the sunset and the sunrise. Every day.” For Erica, those words became much more than an exchange between father and daughter. They helped her recognize something she had known instinctively throughout her life: nature could restore a sense of place, connection, and perspective.
Today, Erica is an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, where her research focuses on integrative nursing, wellbeing, nature-based interventions, and the psychological and social wellbeing of pediatric, adolescent, and young adult cancer survivors. Her work also extends into planetary health and the relationship between human well-being and nature. But behind the research is a deeply personal relationship with nature and a conviction that its role in health deserves to be taken seriously.
From Personal Experience to Nature-Based Research
Erica had spent most of her life in Minnesota. She grew up on a farm, surrounded by woods and water, where playing outside was simply part of everyday life. “When I needed to make decisions, I went to nature. When things were good, I went to nature. When things were bad, I went to nature.” She had never needed to intellectualize that relationship. Nature was simply there.
Erica became intentional about spending time outdoors with her own children, paying attention to the seasons and the rhythms of nature. And as she continued her doctoral work, another question began to emerge. She was seeing anxiety, burnout, and compassion challenges among young people and healthcare providers. “I’m like, I don’t need to study this anymore. What’s the intervention?” The answer, increasingly, seemed to be something she had been carrying with her all along.
After completing her PhD, Erica began looking more closely at the role nature could play in wellbeing. A faculty fellowship at the University of Arizona gave her the opportunity to study Forest Bathing more formally.
The pieces began to come together: her nursing background, her research into resilience and wellbeing, her lifelong relationship with nature, and an emerging scientific literature exploring what happens when people intentionally reconnect with the natural world. That connection has since become a defining part of her academic work. Her research focuses on nature-based interventions, wellbeing, and self-care, with a particular interest in nature and Forest Therapy for young people affected by cancer. But another deeply personal experience would shape the direction of her work.
The “Forgotten” Cancer Survivors
Erica’s brother died of stomach cancer at just 35. She had already worked in oncology and hospice, but his death changed the way she thought about survivorship. “I always knew that, at some point, this would really drive and change how I practice,” she says.
That experience helped lead her toward a population she believes is often overlooked: young adult cancer survivors. Cancer care frequently speaks about children or older adults, but young adults can find themselves in an uncomfortable gap. “They’re in significant transitions with growing up, career, independence, financial independence, finding a career, finding a mate, and all of those things are halted when they face their mortality.” Surviving cancer does not necessarily mean returning to the life that existed beforehand. Young adults can live for decades with physical, psychological, and social consequences of treatment. For Erica, nature-based approaches offer a way of supporting that longer journey.
Her current research is exploring how nature can be integrated into existing survivorship programs, including through language that reflects nature’s cycles of change. Instead of simply talking about “times of distress,” participants might explore “seasons” of distress, storms and recovery, or what emerges after a fire. “What comes out of the fire is very different from what was there previously,” Erica explains. “Not having the ability to go back, but to recognize what is new.”
The intervention combines this nature-based language with practical nature experiences, reflection and journaling. The goal is not to pretend that cancer has not happened. It is to offer another framework through which people can understand what comes next.
Making Nature-Based Interventions Safer and More Flexible
Working with cancer survivors also means that “going outside” cannot simply be treated as a universal prescription. Treatment can leave people dealing with fatigue, neuropathy, mobility limitations, immune-system vulnerabilities, and sensitivity to sunlight or weather. Even something as ordinary as walking through a forest may need to be carefully adapted. “Safety is always what we’re talking about first,” Erica says. That means considering air quality, distance, opportunities to rest, weather conditions, and the individual participant’s medical circumstances.
It also means recognizing that not everyone will feel comfortable participating in a group. One of Erica’s studies has explored different levels of participation, such as in-person sessions with a forest therapist, audio-guided experiences, and independent nature experiences. For some participants, an audio guide can remove barriers related to immune status, geography, or mobility. This is particularly relevant in Minnesota, where large rural areas can make traveling for a specialized intervention difficult. “The audio guide is something that opens it up to more people,” she explains. This flexibility is central to Erica’s approach. Nature-based interventions do not have to look identical for everyone. “People could do what they were physically and emotionally comfortable doing, independently, in a group or by themselves.”
Where Science Meets Experience
Erica’s growing interest in nature-based interventions does not mean leaving scientific rigor behind. Quite the opposite. Her work is grounded in research, measurement and the careful evaluation of what happens when people engage with nature. Her studies incorporate biometric monitoring, looking at heart rate, sleep, stress levels and heart-rate variability. She also uses standardized measures to explore nature connectedness and psychosocial outcomes including loneliness, anxiety, depression, pain and sleep.
At this stage, much of her work is focused on feasibility and building the evidence base. And that comes with a particular challenge: studying nature in the real world is considerably messier than studying an intervention in a controlled laboratory. “The hard part is doing these large-scale studies that are, you know, the randomized control trial that works in a laboratory is difficult outside to control for all the structures.”
There are, however, things that numbers cannot easily capture. Erica has heard cancer survivors describe the experience of being in nature in ways that reveal something beyond a conventional clinical outcome. One participant told her “When I’m in nature, I don’t feel like I have cancer, because the world is so big, and I’m so small.” For Erica, that matters enormously. “If I can have you not feel like you have cancer for 10 seconds, like, even just a blip, like, what a gift.”
Participants have also described peace, connection and a renewed sense of agency. Some speak about feeling less alone in nature, even when they are physically by themselves. “They’re isolated in nature by themselves, and they feel that they’re not alone. When they’re in a room of 20 people, they feel like they’re alone.”
Erica wants nature-based interventions to be taken seriously within healthcare as an area of practice that deserves the same careful attention to safety, methodology and outcomes as other interventions. The detailed research matters. Biometrics matter. Standardized measures matter. They help us understand what is happening and build a credible evidence base. But Erica’s work also suggests that there is a second kind of knowledge worth paying attention to: what people tell us happens when they step outside, slow down, reconnect and briefly experience themselves as something larger than their illness. “It’s really profoundly beneficial for many people,” she says. “And it’s that important.”
From Individual Wellbeing to Planetary Health
Erica’s work has increasingly expanded beyond individual health toward planetary health and environmental justice. That connection feels natural to Erica. If people develop a relationship with the natural world, she believes they are more likely to care about it. But access to nature cannot be taken for granted. “There is a justice aspect to it,” she says. “Nature isn’t accessible for everyone.” Socioeconomic inequality, racial disparities and geography can all shape who has access to safe, welcoming green spaces.
In Minneapolis, Erica points to the city’s extensive network of parks and lakes as one example of how urban nature can be made more accessible, while acknowledging that access is far from perfect. For her, the question is not how to convince everyone that nature matters. “I’m not trying to convince people of this.” Instead, she focuses on the people who want to explore the relationship between nature and health, and on building the evidence and opportunities that allow them to do so.
“You Cannot Love What You Do Not Know”
There is one phrase Erica returns to again and again: “You cannot love what you do not know.”
For her, nature connection begins before therapy, before research protocols, and before outcome measures. It begins with noticing. When people come to know nature, Erica believes, they can begin to care for it. And through that relationship with the natural world, they may also come to know themselves and others differently. “If they know nature, then they’ll know themselves. And then they’ll know others.”
It is an expansive vision for nature-based health, one that moves from the individual to society, and from human wellbeing to the wellbeing of the planet. And it brings Erica back, in a way, to the question her father asked her years ago. When was the last time you saw the horizon? Perhaps the answer is less about what we see there than what happens when we stop long enough to look. For Erica, that pause became the beginning of a research career, a way of supporting cancer survivors, and a deeper understanding of what it means to be connected to nature, to place, and to one another.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are nature-based interventions in cancer care?
Nature-based interventions use structured time outdoors, guided nature experiences, and reflection to support recovery and wellbeing alongside standard cancer care. Researchers such as Erica Timko Olson study how these approaches affect stress, sleep, and psychological outcomes in survivors, combining biometric monitoring with participants’ own accounts of what changes for them outdoors.
Why do young adult cancer survivors need different support than children or older adults?
Young adults are often navigating career, independence, and relationships at diagnosis, and cancer interrupts those transitions in ways pediatric or older-adult care models do not fully address. Olson’s research treats this group as frequently overlooked, exploring how nature-based approaches can support them through years, sometimes decades, of physical and psychological effects.
Is it safe for cancer survivors to spend time outdoors or take part in forest therapy after treatment?
Safety comes first: researchers assess air quality, distance, rest opportunities, weather, and each participant’s medical history before recommending any outdoor activity. Because treatment can cause fatigue, neuropathy, or immune vulnerability, programs are adapted to the individual rather than offered as one universal outdoor prescription, and options range from group sessions to solo, audio-guided walks.
What is an audio-guided nature experience, and why is it used in this research?
An audio-guided nature experience lets someone move through a natural setting independently while following recorded guidance, without an in-person guide or group session. In Olson’s research, this option removes barriers linked to immune status, mobility, or distance in rural areas like much of Minnesota, so more people can take part on their own terms.
How does nature connection research relate to planetary health?
Researchers in this field argue that people who develop a personal connection to nature are more likely to care about protecting it, linking individual well-being to environmental stewardship. Olson also points to unequal access to safe, welcoming green space as a justice issue, since socioeconomic status, race, and geography all shape who benefits from nature-based approaches.
