Relaxing scenery nature12/3/2023 Environmental psychologists have discussed aesthetic and affective responses to the outdoor environment and the preference for natural scenery over urban landscapes, which lack natural elements. Since the late 20th century, the restorative effect of nature has been gradually gaining attention in the fields of environmental psychology and public health. In 2008, more than half of the world’s population lived in urban areas and by 2050, 69% of humans will live in urban areas. Urban environments, which account for a mere 0.01% of dwelling environments in human history, remain an unfamiliar environment for the human body. The start of the industrial revolution in the UK in the 18th century led to the rapid growth of industrialization and urbanization and significantly changed our living environments. Therefore, the physiological functions of human bodies developed in response to the natural environment. Accumulation of scientific evidence of the physiological relaxation associated with viewing elements of nature would be useful for preventive medicine, specifically nature therapy.įor approximately 6–7 million years, human beings have evolved in the natural environment. Studies that used real nature stimuli reported that visual contact with flowers, green plants, and wooden materials had positive effects on cerebral and autonomic nervous activities compared with the control. The majority of the studies that used display stimuli, such as photos, 3D images, virtual reality, and videos of natural landscapes, confirmed that viewing natural scenery led to more relaxed body responses than viewing the control. Thirty-seven articles presenting evidence of the physiological effects of viewing nature were selected. The articles were analyzed for their stimulation method, physiological measures applied, groups of participants, and outcomes. In this systematic review, we examined current peer-reviewed articles regarding the physiological effects of visual stimulation from elements or representations of nature in an indoor setting. A variety of physiological indicators adopted for use in indoor experiments have shown the benefits of viewing nature. Compared with studies of the other senses, studies investigating the visual effects of nature have been at the forefront of this research field. With any luck, you'll have released some pressure in the mind too, leaving you free to drift off to dreamland unencumbered.Contact with nature has been proposed as a solution to achieve physiological relaxation and stress recovery, and a number of scientific verification outcomes have been shown. Go slow, and deepen your breath to further sink into this soothing technique.īy the end of the practice, you may note that the tension you've been storing in your body throughout the day has dissipated. Then, gradually move down your body and repeat the process with as many muscle groups as you can. Focus on how relaxation feels following moments of tension. Starting at the forehead, simply contract your muscles and pull your eyebrows together, holding a tense, furrowed face for a few seconds. The beauty of this method is that it's easy and free to do whenever you could use some help in the sleep department. More recent research on 60 healthy college students showed that the technique, when paired with deep breathing and guided imagery, was "effective in improving relaxation states 2 at both the psychological and physiological level." One older study in the 1970s found that the progressive relaxation method was able to reduce participants' sleep onset time 1 (the time it took to fall asleep) by an impressive 22 minutes on average. There's some research to back up this camp folklore. This methodical tightening and relaxing always helps me, and I remember teaching it to my kids when they were younger." She taught us to contract each muscle in our body fully, then relax it, starting at our heads and working down. Take it from Amy Wechsler, M.D., who recently wrote about her nightly wind-down routine on mindbodygreen: After long days working as a dermatologist and psychiatrist and grad school student, she inevitably feels stressed come bedtime from time to time.įor nights when this happens, Wechsler writes, "I learned a great pre-sleep relaxation technique from a counselor at a sleepaway camp back when I was 12 (yes, really!).
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