Our Mental Health Is Improved By Seeing And Hearing Nature, Especially For City Dwellers
Do you live in the city? Surrounded by buildings, oftentimes not even very many trees in sight? I know how you feel!
Life is full of stress, there are so many things to worry about and we all often end up with so many responsibilities. The stress of the daily grid of life can really wear you down after a while. You may not even realize that you are stressed sometimes, but your body will know!
Those of us that love the outdoors can tell you, there is just something about being outside in nature. It really helps finding a sense of calm inside, it's relaxing, it's refreshing. But of course that's all just anecdotal! There isn't any actual research showing a benefit to mental health from being out in nature...
Or Is There?
This post describes work published January 13, 2017 in the journal BioScience titled "Doses of Neighborhood Nature: The Benefits for Mental Health of Living with Nature."
Why Were The Authors Even Studying This?
They discuss in their introduction that anxiety is a huge economic drain on society. They state that in Europe alone anxiety and mood disorders cost over 180 billion Euros in lost revenue.[2] That's quite a lot of wasted potential productivity!
The authors cite a variety of articles (some just opinion pieces) which postulate that one of the drivers of the ever increasing issues with depression and other mood disorders in modern society are derived from us living in cities, living sedentary lives and generally being disconnected from nature.[3]
It is important to note also that the authors recognize the actual causes of depression are complex, [4] but there have been a number of studies performed discussing how nature does have some psychological benefits.[5] As well as a variety of theories (the attention-restoration theory and stress-reduction theory are mentioned by the authors) which postulate that exposure to nature both helps you overcome mental tiredness from doing tough tasks, and helps prevent a negative bodily response when exposed to a source of stress.
They Wanted To Answer Two Questions
- What components of nature are linked to positive mental-health outcomes?
- For those linked components is there a threshold for the mental-health response?
So they wanted to see what it is about nature that gets people feeling better, and how much of that nature component was necessary before people had a positive mental effect.
Answering That First Question
They polled people through an "urban lifestyle questionnaire" to get information on general stress levels of people in a given area (they were looking at cities in England: Milton Keynes, Luton, and Bedford). They then tried to quantify some "key" aspects of nature, which they defined as:
- Amount of Vegetation
- Abundance, variety and "richness" of the singing of birds present at various times of the day including morning, and afternoon.
What Did They See?
They correlated their investigations of amount of vegetation and birds in the areas where the polled people lived, with their responded level of stress, anxiety and depression. The above plot shows these relationships. If you see ** that means that p<0.001 and if you see * then that means p<0.05 (the smaller the p value, the more statisitically relevant a result is). What does this plot show us?
Well it shows that the people reporting the highest amounts of stress, anxiety and depression all had a statistical correlation with being around less "nature", they had less vegetation surrounding them, and less exposure to birds. However the greatest effect was having vegetation.
Answering That Second Question
The second question was: is there an amount of "nature" that is needed to result in a mental health benefit? The biggest benefit was in having vegetation around, so they plotted the amount of vegetation against the odds of being either depressed, anxious or stressed.
Here in these plots the higher the number on the Y axis, the less likely one is to be (depressed, anxious, stressed) and as we can see depression shows a markedly better result (especially at greater than 20% vegetation cover), as the amount of vegetation increases. So being around even a little bit more plants just makes people happier. The response for stress and anxiety IMO show a non significant correlation in this regard (their error bars are just huge). Still, a benefit to depression rates is still very interesting!
The Authors Conclusions
The authors state that this study shows a quantifiable reduction symptoms of poor mental health if even a minimal threshold of vegetation is met. They feel that this serves as a justification for modifying the plans for neighborhood design in cities to ensure that enough vegetation is present.
What Does This Mean To Me?
Get out and into nature if you are feeling depressed, this study does indeed put a some numbers onto what many of us have anecdotally known. Being in nature does really help calm us down on the inside! Nature is wonderful and being in tune with it can help you live a happier and more fulfilled life. It can be hard sometimes to make time for being outside and taking a break from our hectic schedules, but the health benefits seemingly there. You just have to walk outside, take a deep breath and spend some time in a place with a bit less glass and concrete, and a bit more green.
Sources
- https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/biosci/biw173
- http://www.braincouncil.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Cost-of-Disorders-of-the-Brain-in-Europe-EurNeuro2011.pdf
- https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4dac/c3048f7c1fd9cbc3708384ed5a11848d3281.pdf
- http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/206/6/456
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4204431/
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Great reminder! When I lived in Lisbon (our big city) I had the pleasure to cross a nice park every morning and when returning home. I always felt better and thought it was because I usually see people doing sports, playing with their child's, enjoying the sun on the cafeteria...and probably it was the trees! :)
Yeah! This is one of the great things about city parks :D
I've lived in cities most of my life till we moved to a pretty green and semi-rural area near a town of just 10,000, some 10 years ago. Even though I am older (mid-50's) now than when I was a city dweller, I feel healthier and more balanced than I did at 35... and certainly less stressed. Of course, I'm just "one data point" but I feel there's a lot to the points outlined here.
Long before living in more natural surroundings, I always used to characterize my spirituality as "Nature is my Church." On reflection, I think there's more to that than merely a clever saying.
I think your anecdotal data point fits right in with this study. We evolved in nature it makes sense that our surroundings are important. I agree, it's not just a saying, it's a biological drive.
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Good to see people running the data that comes along with these posts! :D
Indeed! There are a lot of great analytics going on around here. :)
For me its the ocean :)
I go to sleep many nights to the sounds of waves. There is just something about that which really calms me.
I like the sound of rain on the roof:) This study is certainly interesting and it seems consistent with what many people would intuitively know. It will be interesting to see if the results get replicated.
I honestly have added this to my list of things I will be on the look out for follow up study's of. It seems so intuitive that I'm not surprised at all by the reported data. However I want more studies rather then leaving this to be just confirming my biases.
If I have the choice of beach or mountains I will go beach most of the time. I do love the mountains, too.
Although your conclusions are things I 100% agree with, i am not super convinced by the article. At the end of the day, we have one correlation and one possible correlation. Nothing more. Even if all of this sounds logical.
Thanks for your input :)
It's not my article :D
Yeah, the error associated with their data and sampling method seem to be one which people wouldn't reveal the true extent of their feelings. This is the difficulty with studying the social sciences it seems.
By your article, I was actually thinking "the article you wrote a post about". Sorry for the language abuse ;)
I knew what you meant man :D
Well the fact is serenity of an environment imparts on health generally and induces harmony in mind n body functions. I think a key word here is serenity, which varies with our states of mind, emotion n environment per time.
Nature is everywhere, in the city, countryside, river side, desert, etc. One's state of mind plays a role in harmony with ones environment. Serenity begins from within.
Yet some environments are cleaner and healthier than others. Yet may not impact a disturbed mind.
Quite a study with many variables.
That is not what the data studied or indicates.
Great blog @justtryme90, we use to go to the Nile river it is obvious that our mood change when we reach there, we looks happier, I think most people feel that when they out in natural place, I like that you backed it up with scientific evidence based on research
resteemed :)
Thanks for reading man :)
I would like to see the Nile some day.
I hope you will my friend, it is the longest river in the world, running in 4 countries.
i am starved of nature!
Honestly I think I am too. I could use some more nature in my life!
It's better to have both: after day in the woods, meeting elks and foxes, returning back to the big city lights.
This article is more about having more green space around in cities themselves. Suggesting that a bit more trees and a bit less concrete would make people happier and less stressed.
Ah, sorry.. But I personally like another vision (seen it somewhere). Compact vertical cities (glass/steel/concrete), surrounded by untouched nature: woods, sea etc...
Great detailed article. For me it's lying in the grass half-way up a mountain in the Alps ideally during Autumn.
Mmmm, that sounds fantastic. Especially during autumn, such a beautiful time of year.