# Twenty-six healthy adults took three 6-minute walks at the same pace and the real seaside route delivered higher enjoyment than both a treadmill and its virtual coastal copy while the VR version came closer on mindfulness and peak heart rate

> Twenty-six adults walked for only six minutes at a time, yet the setting changed the experience sharply. In a crossover study published in late 2023 and carried in a 2024 journal issue, the same people completed an outdoor coastal walk, a standard...

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Byline: ARGO.net Editorial Team
Published: 2026-08-13T09:10:02+00:00
Categories: Explainer, Humans

![A tranquil coastal path under a blue sky, perfect for peaceful walks and nature appreciation](https://www.argo.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/coastal_walking_path.jpg)

Twenty-six adults walked for only six minutes at a time, yet the setting changed the experience sharply. In a crossover study published in late 2023 and carried in a 2024 journal issue, the same people completed an **outdoor coastal walk**, a standard **indoor treadmill** walk and a treadmill walk paired with a recorded **virtual reality** version of the same seaside route.

The results gave the real coast a clear edge on enjoyment. They also showed that the virtual version did not simply copy everything that happens outdoors. A [Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology study](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10801470/) found that the seaside session produced higher enjoyment than both indoor conditions, while some other measures, especially mindfulness and peak heart rate, stayed closer between the outdoor and VR walks.

The experiment matters because walking is simple, popular and easy to scale. If a headset and treadmill can reproduce part of what a coastal path gives people, that could help when weather, location, health, or time block outdoor activity. The same findings also show that a real shoreline still offers something harder to reproduce: a more enjoyable experience that may help people want to come back.

## Three six-minute walks on one route

The study used a **crossover randomized controlled** design, which means every participant completed all three walking conditions instead of being assigned to only one. That matters because each person served as his or her own comparison. The group included 26 healthy adults, 14 men and 12 women, with a mean age of 25.2 years.

Each walk lasted six minutes at a fixed speed of 4.5 kilometers per hour. The **OUT condition** took place on a seaside pedestrian path. The **IN condition** used a treadmill indoors with no immersive visuals. The **INVR condition** also used a treadmill, but participants wore a headset and headphones while watching a 360-degree recording of that same coastal path.

Researchers then compared physiological and psychological responses across the three sessions. They measured average heart rate, maximum heart rate, enjoyment through the PACES-It scale and state mindfulness for physical activity through the SMS-PA scale. Because the same coastal route was used to build the VR content, the study could test how much of the outdoor response depended on moving through the real place rather than only seeing it.

## The real coast produced the strongest enjoyment

The clearest result came from **enjoyment scores**. Outdoor coastal walking scored significantly higher than both indoor walking and the VR treadmill version. The difference was not small. The paper reported large effect sizes for the outdoor advantage over each indoor condition.

That outcome fits a wider line of evidence that walking in natural settings feels better than moving in built or enclosed spaces. A [World Health Organization fact sheet](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity) notes that regular physical activity supports mental health and well-being and walking is one of the most common ways people do it. The new experiment narrows that broad message to a more specific comparison: even when pace is fixed and the scenery is copied into a headset, the real coastal setting still feels more rewarding.

The study also helps explain why the title claim needs careful wording. The outdoor session clearly beat both indoor conditions on enjoyment, yet the same broad statement does not hold for every measured outcome. A reader who assumes the real coast won every category by the same margin would miss the more interesting point, which is that the benefits split into parts. Some stayed strongly tied to the real place, while others traveled surprisingly well into the virtual version.

That split matters for exercise adherence. People tend to repeat activities they enjoy. If a real shoreline makes a walk feel more satisfying, then the coastal setting may support longer-term consistency in a way a headset only partly matches.

## Virtual reality kept up better on mindfulness than on enjoyment

The most interesting psychological result may be the one the outdoor walk did not dominate. The **mindfulness score** for the coastal walk was higher than the score for standard indoor walking, but it was not significantly different from the VR coastal session. In plain terms, the headset version appeared able to reproduce much of the focused, present-moment quality that people felt on the real route.

That does not mean VR became a full substitute for the coast. It means the immersive scene may have helped participants attend to the experience in a way ordinary indoor walking did not. The article's own reference list points to a [review of virtual reality mindfulness interventions](https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-021-01783-6) that describes how immersive digital environments can support mindful attention. In the new walking trial, that possibility showed up in a narrow and measurable form.

A second source from the paper's references also supports the outdoor side of that comparison. A [2019 meta-analysis of nature-based mindfulness](https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16173202) found overall positive effects from moving mindfulness practice into natural settings, while also warning that the evidence base was heterogeneous and often low in quality. The coastal walking study did not test a formal mindfulness program, but it fits the broader idea that a natural setting can shape how attention feels during movement.

The practical takeaway is specific. For enjoyment, the real shoreline stayed ahead. For mindfulness during a short walk, VR came much closer. That makes immersive walking technology look less like a full replacement and more like a partial bridge for people who cannot reach the coast.

## Heart rate changed even when the pace stayed fixed

The physiological results were also more nuanced than a simple outdoor-versus-indoor story. The seaside walk produced a higher **mean heart rate** than both indoor conditions, even though all three sessions used the same speed. That suggests the outdoor setting changed how the body responded, perhaps through terrain, sensory stimulation, wind, visual flow, or subtle shifts in gait and attention.

Maximum heart rate followed a slightly different pattern. The outdoor condition was higher than standard indoor walking, but the gap between outdoor walking and the VR treadmill session was not statistically significant. In other words, the headset version came closer to the coast on peak effort than it did on average exertion.

This pattern lines up with other work cited by the paper. A [Frontiers in Sports and Active Living study](https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2022.1036777) examined environmental elements of outdoor training trails, while another cited paper on walking outdoors reported that going outside can raise heart rate without necessarily making the activity feel harder. The coastal comparison adds a more focused test by holding speed steady and comparing a real shoreline with a visual copy of that same place.

The body, then, may be responding to more than what the eyes see. A real outdoor environment includes air movement, ambient sound, depth cues and the changing sensory detail of a place that is not limited by a headset screen. The study cannot isolate which of those features mattered most, but it does show that copying the view alone did not fully copy the average cardiovascular response.

## What the crossover trial can and cannot prove

The design gives the results real value. Using the same 26 participants across all three conditions reduced some of the noise that appears when different groups are compared. The researchers also measured both physical and psychological responses, which helps prevent the story from collapsing into a single headline number.

Even so, the limits are clear. This was a small study of healthy young adults recruited from the **University of Bari** and each session lasted only six minutes. The paper does not show what would happen in older adults, clinical populations, children, or people using VR over weeks or months. It also does not prove that virtual coastal walking will improve long-term health outcomes or exercise adherence outside the lab-like setting.

The findings support a careful conclusion. A real seaside path gave participants the most enjoyable short walk. The VR version preserved some of the outdoor response, especially **mindfulness during walking** and part of the heart-rate pattern, while standard indoor treadmill walking generally trailed behind. For people who can reach a coast, the real environment still offers the fuller experience. For people who cannot, immersive VR walking looks like a plausible fallback that carries over more than a flat indoor session does.

That is a more useful result than a simple win-or-lose headline. It shows which parts of the outdoor experience remained strongest in the real world, which parts survived digitization and where future studies should look next: longer sessions, larger samples and a closer breakdown of what the coast contributes that a headset still cannot capture.