Loveall wrote:It's been said many times before here at the nexus: being in nature is healing.
Here is a press release for new research showing the reduction in stress hormones from being in nature for only 20 minutes.
Title of paper:
Urban Nature Experiences Reduce Stress in the Context of Daily Life Based on Salivary Biomarkers. Frontiers in Psychology, 2019; 10 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00722
There are probably many factors contributing to these stress reducing effects, like the absence of traffic, pollution and noise.
But i think there is another factor. In a "kurzgesagt" video it is said that people who live in a beautiful city, are happier than people who live in an ugly city.
And the reason for this is that a lack of variety in visual stimuli, also causes stress.
So it is not just too much stimuli that can cause stress, but also a lack of stimuli, or a lack of variety in the stimuli we're being exposed to, too much of the same thing, that causes stress.
Well, urban environments just tend to be more monotonous. Unfortunately that is just the way it is. Even the most beautiful historic cities do not have the same degree of variation and richness in visual content as a forest.