You've read about all the health perks of spending time outside. Now doctors are actually prescribing nature time.

• Why it matters: Getting outdoors has a range of science-backed benefits, from reducing stress to improving sleep. But Americans have been spending less and less time outside.

🩺 Zoom in: Dr. Robert Zarr, who doubles as a nature guide, launched an organization called Park Rx America around 2016, offering doctors protocols for prescribing nature outings, AP reports.

• The guidelines call for talking with patients about what they like to do outside — walking, sitting under a tree, maybe just watching leaves fall — how often to do it and where to go. That all then gets included in a prescription, and Park Rx America sends patients reminders.

Stat du jour: Nearly 2,000 providers have registered with the organization across the U.S. and other countries.

• They've issued more than 7,000 nature prescriptions since 2019.

💡 Between the lines: It might sound silly — waiting on doctor's orders to get outside. But sometimes a formal prescription can make people take that simple advice more seriously.

• The money quote: "When I bring it up, it is almost like granting permission to do something they may see as frivolous when things seem so otherwise serious and stressful," Dr. Suzanne Hackenmiller, a Waterloo, Iowa, gynecologist who has written nature prescriptions, told the AP.

A duck swims through the reflection of fall colors on The Pond at Central Park yesterday.