The restorative benefits of nature
The restorative benefits of nature
Being surrounded by nature is not only inspiring, it is also beneficial for both body and mind!
According to Lucy Keniger and her team, as modern society emerged, and the human population condensed into urban areas, industrialization freed many people from reliance on direct consumptive interactions with nature.
As a result, a huge part of the population, worldwide, has lost that intimate relationship with nature, most obviously depending on it for subsistence and production.
“Urban environments can be very stimulating, requiring direct attention and negatively impacting cognitive function. In urban areas, attention must be directed towards avoiding potential hazards and coping with noise and visual stimuli. This directed attention requires effort in order to inhibit or address these distractions and this can lead to mental fatigue, resulting in a lowered ability to concentrate and perform cognitive tasks.”
Having lost that contact with the wild is not something negative per se. However, according to the study addressed here, there are many benefits that humans are not taking advantage of, mainly because of their isolation from nature.
Today, there is plenty of empirical evidence suggesting that interacting with nature delivers measurable benefits to people:
“Nature delivers a range of measurable human benefits, including positive effects on physical health, psychological well-being, cognitive ability and social cohesion.”
The following are some of the most relevant conclusions of the study in this regard:
1. Natural environments are restorative, contributing to attentional recovery and reducing mental fatigue.
2. The restorative benefits to park users increased with plant species richness in the green spaces. This highlights the importance of considering biological diversity.
3. Gardening can relieve the physiological effects of stress.
4. Interactions with nature can facilitate social interaction in adults and children, foster social empowerment, enhance interracial interaction and promote social cohesion and support.
5. The cognitive performance of students, as measured by three directed attention tasks, was significantly improved after viewing pictures of natural scenes rather than urban areas.
Interestingly, “indirect interaction with nature such as a window view or a picture of nature may also reduce the physiological effects of stress. A study in Taiwan used electromyography and electroencephalography to test participants’ responses to photographs of office environments with different configurations of indoor plants and natural views. Physiological condition improved when viewing a picture of an office with a view of nature and indoor plants, suggesting a reduction in the physiological effects of stress.”
Is this why we love so much landscape photography?
