Saturday, August 13, 2011

Nature Objectively Aids Healing (Article)

From the article:


“… post-surgery patients resting in rooms overlooking trees recovered better and faster than those in rooms with a view only of a brick wall … [and] women with breast cancer who walked in a park, watched birds or tended gardens recovered more quickly and were in better spirits than those with little or no contact with the natural world.” (McKinney J 2011)

Three years ago, University of Michigan scientists reported on two “experiments that show that walking in nature or viewing pictures of nature can improve directed-attention abilities … thus validating attention restoration theory.” (Berman MG et al. 2008)


Encouragingly, those who had the most stress reported the greatest relief from time in relatively untamed nature.
However, those who needed nature the most were the least likely to seek it out:
“the more worries about money and work a person had, the more stressed a person had felt during the last year, the less energetic s/he had felt, the lower was the number of visits to the favorite place (during the last 6 months) and the lower the typical level of restorative experiences.”
Also check out this previous blog post

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