Put down your phone if you want your brain to reap the benefits of nature, says study

Spending time in nature can help boost brain power, but only if you also take a break from your mobile phone, says new research.

Previous research has shown that being in natural surroundings can help the brain recover from mental fatigue and restore its ability to focus attention on a task.

However, researchers from the University of Illinois and the University of Hong Kong, China, wanted to investigate whether using electronic devices such as smartphones and laptops would counteract the restorative effect of nature on the brain's attention capacity if they were used while resting in green spaces.