There's plenty of evidence for the idea that humans thrive when
we have frequent exposure to nature - even when it's just a patch of
greenery in the midst of a city's concrete jungle.
Studies have found that, after looking at nature scenes,
people are kinder and more charitable.
They've suggested that children with ADHD have an easier time concentrating when they spend time outdoors.
A 2008 study even found that, for office workers, a mere glimpse of green through a
window or a live plant on their desk were, on the whole, associated with
lower stress levels and higher job satisfaction.
A new study published last week in
Environmental Science & Technology underscores
just how important green spaces are for our long-term well-being.
When a
group of researchers from the UK's University of Exeter looked at five
years' worth of mental health data for 1064 participants who moved their
residence during the study period, they found that those who moved to
urban areas with more surrounding green space showed higher overall
mental health scores - meaning that they were happier and had lower levels
of anxiety and depression - for the very first year after their
relocation compared to the years prior to moving.
Even more important, they found that these benefits lingered.
Participants who'd moved to greener areas showed higher mental health
scores for a full three years after their relocation, when the study
stopped collecting data.
The data came from the
British Household Panel Survey, a
project
started by Exeter researchers in 1991 that annually collects
information on all sorts of socioeconomic trends from thousands of
British households.
By parsing the data, the researchers found 594
households that moved to urban areas with more green space, and 470
households that moved into parts of cities with less of it, based on
residence addresses collected in the survey and
databases of green space in England.
To gauge mental health, the researchers analyzed the answers
provided by the people in response to questions like "How much stress
have you felt in the past few weeks compared to usual?" or "How hard has
it been for you to concentrate in the past few weeks compared to
usual?" Responses were collected periodically over the next few years.
After running statistical regressions to eliminate the influence of
confounding factors
such as income, employment, education and personality traits, they
found that for three full years after their move, people in greener
areas showed markedly better mental health scores compared to the two
years prior to moving.
This is a metric that not only includes stress
levels and the ability to concentrate, but also the ability to make
good decisions, a person's level of confidence, overall happiness and
other factors.
Interestingly, people who moved in the opposite direction - from
greener to less green areas - showed the opposite effect, but for unclear
reasons, it happened in the year
prior to relocation.
After
moving, their overall mental health metrics returned to baseline levels,
perhaps indicating that they moved because of a dissatisfaction with
other elements of their lifestyle.
Regardless, the fact that people who moved to greener spaces
experienced a bump in mental health that stuck around for years
afterward is an important finding.
As
the Atlantic Cities points out,
some psychologists believe that, regardless of circumstances, most of
us have a baseline level of happiness regardless of our circumstances, a
theory called the
hedonic treadmill.
We might briefly become happier due to various factors (like moving to a
greener area), the thinking goes, but the thinking goes that ultimately
we'll return to the same innate level of mental health and satisfaction
we'd have had otherwise.
But the new study suggests something different - that, when it
comes to the level of nature and green space in our immediate
surroundings, we can become happier in a long-term, durable way.
If you
move next to a park, the benefit for your mental health isn't a novelty
that goes away, but something that sticks around for years.
This is meaningful for people deciding where they might relocate
next, but it's also significant on a much broader level too.
"These
findings are important for urban planners thinking about introducing new
green spaces to our towns and cities, suggesting they could provide
long term and sustained benefits for local communities,"
Ian Alcock, the study's lead author, said in a
press statement.
To hear more about the study in Alcock's own words, watch the video produced by his research team:
