A few minutes beside trees or water can shift the brain into a calmer state. That change is not just a feeling. It shows up in brain scans.
A comprehensive review of 108 neuroimaging studies could provide additional insight into how our interaction with nature can create changes in our brains. The review was led by researchers from McGill University and Adolfo Ibáñez University in Chile and compiled data from neuroimaging studies including EEG, fMRI, MRI, and near-infrared spectroscopy. Their review produced the most complete picture of how our connections with nature can affect attention, stress, and emotional regulation.
“We can intuitively understand that being in Nature is good for us, however, through neuroscience, we are able to provide a way to quantify and validate the way in which we think about Nature when it comes to health policy and the spaces we build,” stated Mar Estarellas, the study’s co-author and a research associate in McGill University’s Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry.
Across all studies, there was a pattern observed in how people react when they are exposed to a natural environment.
When people first have the experience with a natural environment, their perception changes. Natural locations have many repeating patterns, or fractals, which makes it easier for the brain to interpret them than it does for dense urban areas.
Generally, the brain has less information to process when in a natural environment. As a result, people’s heart rates and breathing will decrease, and brain areas that monitor threats, such as the amygdala, will become less active.
After perceptions are made, attention is brought forth. In a concentrated period of time, we are more likely to use all of our concentration to perform a task (e.g., complete an application on our computers or watch our televisions). In contrast, when in a natural setting, our brains will move into a more relaxed state and become effortless when trying to achieve focus through nature’s guidance.
The term “natural resources” refers to the physical and biological systems that provide for the health and well-being of people. The ways in which nature replenishes mental and emotional energy are detailed in Attention Restoration Theory (ART).
The idea of how our experiences of nature can influence our emotional states and the way we think about ourselves and the world around us is gaining credibility through research. Studies are being completed and published at an ever-increasing rate.
Our experiences of nature, both actual and through technology, produce similar brain activity as experienced during meditation and have been shown to calm us down and promote more integrated brain function.
Research is showing a range of effects from spending time in nature. Some studies have found that the time spent in a natural setting, such as forest, ocean, or mountain, significantly affects the function of the brain in a positive way.
Many of these effects are produced within a few minutes of exposure to a natural setting.
There is a growing body of research documenting the potential effects of spending short periods of time in nature, including how quickly they occur.
Researchers studied brain activity patterns using EEG technology and found measurable brain activity changes that occurred after as little as three minutes of exposure to a natural environment.
Different types of exposure will produce different types of changes in brain activity, including what we refer to as “Induced Brain-Aware State.” “Spending three minutes in a natural environment will produce measurable changes; however, longer periods in a natural environment (i.e., more immersive experiences) will generally lead to larger, longer-lasting effects,” says Estarellas.
Real nature produces a larger effect than simulated nature. While both virtual reality and photographic technology can help provide the benefits of exposure to nature, the multisensory richness of experiencing nature in person seems to be impossible to mirror completely.
Some studies have found that blue spaces (e.g., lakes and wetlands) produce greater stress recovery than green spaces. Studies comparing blue and green spaces have found, in some cases, that they produce equal or quicker stress recovery.
A pattern that appears to emerge from the research is the similarity of brain activity patterns experienced during time spent in nature to those seen during meditation. Studies related to Electroencephalography (EEG) typically indicate an increase in both alpha and theta waves (which represent relaxed consciousness and inward-directed focal awareness), while decreases in the amount of beta wave activity (often thought about as reflecting stress and cognitive workload) are seen as being inversely related to increasing alpha and theta.
Commonalities among these diverse studies suggest that people can experience a calming effect from natural environments, even without purposeful training of the nervous system. As such, some researchers refer to natural environments (as based on our ancestors’ experiences with nature) as a “spontaneous regulator” of brain wave activity.
The research has shown that while a brief visit to a natural environment may alter an individual’s brain wave activity within minutes, longer-lived exposure to a more natural environment may have an even greater effect on how the individual’s brain develops over time.
Having conducted large-scale magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies, researchers have been able to demonstrate significant correlations between living in or near a green space and having a larger amount of gray and white matter, a greater thickness of cortical tissue in some parts of the brain, and an increased degree of organization of the white matter of the brain compared to people living in urban environments. These structural differences can be helpful in making inferences about cognitive capabilities (performance) and attention problems.
Furthermore, studies suggest that experiences with the natural environment may accumulate over time as an individual’s brain and body become resistant to, and build resiliency toward, stress.
Differences between individuals are important as well. Individuals’ responses to the environment may be very different.
For example, individuals who report feeling more connected to natural environments tend to exhibit the greatest changes in their neural connections and increased mood improvement. In addition, many studies indicate a correlation between how long a person has been exposed to a certain type of natural environment and how well they respond to that environment.
Many studies demonstrate that individuals raised in urban areas respond less strongly to natural environments than individuals raised in rural settings.
Finally, the duration of an individual’s exposure to a certain type of environmental setting is also important. Individuals who have short-term exposures to a natural environment will benefit from those experiences; however, if an individual has been exposed to that type of environment for 15 minutes or longer, more significant physiological changes may occur.
Despite the consistency of many of the patterns, the results of the studies vary based on research methodologies, sample sizes, and exposure types. Therefore, direct comparisons between the studies are difficult (if not impossible). Most of the research utilized healthy, normal adults; therefore, the results from the studies may not be generalizable to individuals within a clinical population.
The need for more longitudinal and multimodal studies, which combine brain-imaging techniques with real-world approaches to studying environmental impacts, has been stressed by researchers.
The increasing number of studies being performed in this area supports many of the previous notions from psychology, such as Stress Recovery Theory and the Biophilia Hypothesis, which proposes that humans have a natural inclination to be connected to nature.
Additionally, the present research supports notions regarding increased mental health concerns in association with children being raised in urban settings, as well as the increased prevalence of technology and screen time in our society.
“There is also an additional societal impact associated with the research results,” according to Mar Estarellas. “Research has shown that people who are more connected to the natural environment will tend to exhibit more pro-environmental behaviours than those who are not.
Therefore, caring for and being connected to the environment and caring for ourselves are not mutually exclusive concepts; they support each other.”
Research findings are available online in the journal Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.
The original story “What happens in your brain when you spend time in nature” is published in The Brighter Side of News.
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