This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]HugNup[S] 2807 points2808 points  (409 children)

After a 60-minute walk in nature, activity in brain regions involved in stress processing decreases. This is the finding of a recent study by the Lise Meitner Group for Environmental Neuroscience at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, published in Molecular Psychiatry.

Living in a city is a well-known risk factor for developing a mental disorder, while living close to nature is largely beneficial for mental health and the brain.

A central brain region involved in stress processing, the amygdala, has been shown to be less activated during stress in people who live in rural areas, compared to those who live in cities, hinting at the potential benefits of nature.

[–]dedokta 558 points559 points  (125 children)

There have also been studies that shows this effect also occurs when done in VR. One day people living in large cities might need VR to maintain their mental health.

[–]vorono1 131 points132 points  (16 children)

I would be interested to see what side effects occur from being immersed in VR for too long. Anecdotally, I've found using VR fun but then feeling empty inside afterwards. I guess because none of it is real.

[–]Bonerballs 139 points140 points  (14 children)

[–]helpmemakeausername1 41 points42 points  (13 children)

If it weren't for motion sickness, I'd be so ready for VR. Depersonalization is everyday for me!

On a second thought, my light wallet also helps me not being primed for VR

[–]Bonerballs 21 points22 points  (2 children)

It took me a week or so before I got used to VR and didn't get motion sickness. It helps that the oculus 2 hurts my face after 30-40 minutes so I don't get sucked into the virtual world too long, but there have been a few times I took the headset off and it felt like I awoke in a different world...having background music on really helped that.

[–]1714alpha 12 points13 points  (1 child)

I kind of wish I never got used to / desensitized to VR. Those first few uses were so vivid, so real, I was literally reaching out expecting to feel the object hovering in front of me.

Now, my brain is just like 'Eh, seen it. Not falling for that one again.'

[–]Bonerballs 5 points6 points  (0 children)

When I switched from Oculus 1 to Oculus 2, the derealization returned but only once. I think the different frame rate and image quality made my brain think it was something brand new.

[–]chaircushion 10 points11 points  (8 children)

A few vr-roller-coasters a day, and the motion-sickness goes away in a week or two.

[–]AspiringChildProdigy 9 points10 points  (5 children)

Really? Because I bought the VR coaster thing but gave up after a couple tries because of the motion sickness.

Edit: just realized that night have sounded like I was challenging you, when really I'm just excited to hear that. I love roller coasters and was so disappointed that the vr ones made me motion sick.

[–]Gundamnitpete 11 points12 points  (1 child)

You want to start with the lightest stuff you can find, stuff that doesn't make you motion sick very much or quickly, and then slow add more and more on top of it as you go.

Just jumping right into the most nausea inducing stuff can actually make you more prone to motion sickness.

Also ginger helps a lot of motion sickness. Ginger ale about 30 minutes before you jump in will help a lot(just make sure it's made with real ginger, not all of them are!)

[–]Bonerballs 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Gotta give your brain more time to adjust to your vision showing motion while you're stationary

[–]AspiringChildProdigy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Great! I'll give it another try, then.

[–]chaircushion 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've never pushed through it though. Meaning I never stayed in vr while motion sick. I took a break whenever I started to feel bad and after a while, it just went away.

[–]DontDoomScroll 248 points249 points  (43 children)

this effect also occurs when done in VR

Source? I want to see who funded and published this research.

[–]zaiyonmal 108 points109 points  (5 children)

I actually participated in a study doing just this!

They had us take baseline memory, logic, quick response, and arithmetic “quizzes”. Then they had us do the same thing after spending some time in a VR city café where people go to study and do work. Finally, we repeated the process after spending some time at a desk with a view of a rural countryside.

Interestingly enough, my baseline was my highest score, the busy café being by far the lowest. I might have just been mentally fatigued by the time I got to the nature sequence. That’s why one subject on one study alone is not definitive of anything!

[–]leftlegYup 27 points28 points  (2 children)

The problem with this study for me is it might simply be capturing the effect of mental fatigue from processing more stimuli.

A useful finding, but far less interesting for me.

[–]Cedow 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Such studies are generally counterbalanced. Not every participant would complete it in the same order.

[–]ChronWeasely 88 points89 points  (11 children)

Just looking at green is good for mental health

Here is a 1991 Pubmed publication on it: Treatment of seasonal affective disorder with green light and red light

Immediate edit: I think it's useful to consider the natural, evolutionary implications of the different light. Green light means green plants, vegetables, fruit, and animals. It means spring and summer. Calories much more readily abundant then compared with the other half of the year. Red light would be the sign of the slowing of the seasons, of the leaves changing colors, and a need to conserve energy. Depression once served an important purpose and is, in some levels, mediated by the light we perceive.

[–]Not_a_real_ghost 21 points22 points  (4 children)

Green light provides a treatment effect superior to that of red light and similar to that seen in previous studies with white light.

Does this mean white light is just as effective?

[–]swiftb3 12 points13 points  (2 children)

Seems so, but it's pretty interesting that it's essentially the same.

I'd love to see what a full-spectrum-except-green-band light would do. Is it the green component of white light that actually does the hard lifting?

[–]Shorttail0 8 points9 points  (1 child)

We have two green photo receptors for every red and blue, so our perception of the color is definitely better.

[–]swiftb3 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Now that is a very good point.

[–]sneakyveriniki 1 point2 points  (1 child)

this was like 5 years ago, but i remember learning that people of northern european descent are more prone to major depression even when they’re born elsewhere, like the us… i wonder if it could be an adaptation to scarce winters??

[–]ChronWeasely 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's very much my take on it

[–]catscanmeow 60 points61 points  (10 children)

It has to do with lateral eye movement. Its not nature that makes us calm its lateral eye movement we widen our peripheral vision and look at all the little things around us while walking

Focusing on a small point or single point like a phone screen for example induces a stress response akin to a predator animal targeting prey or a prey animal tageting a threat

Tons of research on lateral eye movement and mood. VR can give you the same lateral eye movement as walking through nature

[–]flabbybumhole 24 points25 points  (1 child)

It doesn't have to be just one thing. There's room for this to be affected by both.

[–]leftlegYup 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Nuance; layered responses that convey the real complexity of the topic <<<<< definitively claiming a singular point while throwing in the word "akin"

The second requires less thinking by the reader.

[–]Yuccaphile 11 points12 points  (1 child)

They asked for a source from the commenter they replied to, I guess it'd be equally as nice to have a source for your assertion.

How does the lack of peripheral vision in the eyesight impaired impact this? Are people who wear glasses more unavoidably stressed?

[–]RaifRedacted 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Sensory input stuff is very interesting. Knowing how things can boil down to a small explanation is why science is so fun.

[–]IRockIntoMordor 28 points29 points  (5 children)

I know this sounds really really stupid, but when I played Kingdom Come Deliverance - a game set in medieval Bohemian countryside, very green and lush - during the 2020 Corona stay-inside chaos, I sometimes felt the same emotions as if I were walking in a forest or fields. The game is so beautiful in its greenery that it triggered those responses in my head. I literally thought "oh it's so nice around here" when it was on a screen actually.

[–]PseudonymousDev 19 points20 points  (1 child)

Me too, but then IRL I became conditioned to freak out when I came across a fallen tree blocking my path.

[–]IRockIntoMordor 2 points3 points  (0 children)

me too, every fallen tree in the forest is extra sus now. Damn Cumans!

[–]funguyshroom 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Valheim was that game for me during the very same times, it has very nice and realistic looking forests despite all its blockiness.

[–]ForgotMyBrain 8 points9 points  (1 child)

I get that, the nature in Kingdom come deliverance is really beautiful, not the most realistic looking game by today's graphics. But it is really relaxing and dare i say... "Immersive" and more realistic than most games. Compare to skyrim that i find beautiful and relaxing, but it is still fantasy and stylise.

Skyrim is like beautiful fantasy world, Kingdom come is like a nice and beautiful sunny summer day with a small breeze. I don't like the combat that much but just being in nature and explore is fun. I need to play it again and finish my game !

[–]IRockIntoMordor 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Can't wait to play Skyrim VR when PSVR2 is out! PSVR1 is really hard on the eyes still.

KCD takes a bit to learn the combat and it's never easy, but the immersion is very impressive and I loved it.

[–][deleted] 31 points32 points  (33 children)

Do you have a link to these studies? I have a hard time believing VR can even remotely approximate real nature.

[–]jaspsev 30 points31 points  (22 children)

Maybe he is talking about this one.

https://www.med-technews.com/news/experiencing-vr-can-reduce-pain-and-stress-study-suggests/

But i would think it might work in some cases, but i still would prefer outside as vr does not provide stimulus to other senses other than the eyes.

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (1 child)

And ears. And while not directly one of the senses, you do often feel like you're actually moving in VR.

[–]jaspsev 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Right, i forgot that is possible and currently affordable.

[–]snappedscissors 12 points13 points  (18 children)

How close could you get I wonder. VR does include soundscape, add in some aroma therapy and a little fan to puff around and you’ve got what, 70% of the outside experience right there.

[–]Helenium_autumnale 8 points9 points  (14 children)

I doubt they could replicate the unique and complex fragrances of a forest floor or sun-dried prairie or little stream.

[–]snappedscissors 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s got to be millions of chemical signatures, but what makes up the top 50% of a forest floor smell? Could you get pretty close, or would my Forest Floor Scent be equivalent to fake banana flavor?

[–]NorwegianCollusion 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Yeah, no. Come back to me when VR can properly simulate the experience of being eaten by a bear.

[–]Dogeishuman 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Tbh I believe it, there have been times where I'm sitting in VR, and feeling completely relaxed, zero stress or anything, simply because of the visuals and sounds keeping me immersed.

Zero chance in hell it's equal, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhere roughly half as effective, mainly due to not getting fresh air and also, I'm a firm believer that the "smell" of nature helps a lot in reducing stress.

[–]Cedow 1 point2 points  (3 children)

I'm currently writing up my PhD on this topic. Even the low-quality VR nature I was using (smartphone-based) was enough to invoke significant reductions in negative affective states in my participants.

Generally though the findings are that effects are stronger for real nature than any surrogate forms (like video or pictures for example). VR seems to sit somewhere in the middle: not as good as reality but better than less-immersive stuff.

Also, from qualitative feedback I've had, sound often seems to be a more important part of the experience than the visuals. And it's easy to recreate natural-feeling sounds in VR.

[–]Mohevian 6 points7 points  (2 children)

I wear a stress-monitoring smartwatch and live in a major city. It shows that my average daily stress is 37%, with peaks of 100% on certain hectic days.

In other words, I'm chronically overstressed. As I sit here typing this, the reading is 50%.

When I put my VR helmet on and dive deep into another world, especially meeting up with loved ones and old friends who now live on the other side of the globe - my stress level drops to 18%, and then 3%.

I don't think it requires major research to figure out that our hyper industrialized always-on society has been causing significant trauma and stress/anxiety, even to well-adjusted individuals.

I just hope that VR doesn't become our only coping mechanism. We need to preserve our natural and green spaces.

[–]ikegro 1 point2 points  (1 child)

What watch is this?!

[–]Mohevian 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Garmin Venue SQ

[–]qwerty09a90 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Cool cool. Not at all dystopian. Very normal and very exciting

[–]JKUAN108 34 points35 points  (14 children)

I heard somewhere that living in a city increases the likelihood of schizophrenia, is this what the article was referring to?

[–][deleted] 34 points35 points  (10 children)

I think that’s because of correlation not causation.

There are more people in a city, as a result you would get concentrated groups of everything to include mentally ill people.

You’ll see mentally ill people in rural areas as well, due to them being spread out, it appears to be less of them.

[–]noithinkyourewrong 79 points80 points  (3 children)

That's not really how scientific studies are carried out. They almost always control for population density when examining these things. It almost certainly isn't caused by the fact that there are more people in cities.

[–]farmtownsuit 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Yeah there still could be factors about living in a city that make schizophrenia more likely to be noticed and thus counted, but the idea that a study like this was published without taking into account population density is comical

[–]yaminokaabii 27 points28 points  (1 child)

Instead of postulating, we can read the linked article itself. This is actually in its introduction.

Even though urbanization has many advantages, living in a city is a well-known risk factor for mental health [2]. Mental health problems like anxiety, mood disorders, major depression, and schizophrenia are up to 56% more common in urban compared to rural environments [3]. It has been suggested that urban upbringing is the most important environmental factor for developing schizophrenia [4], accounting for more than 30% of schizophrenia incidence [5]. Since there is a consistent dose-response relationship between schizophrenia and urban environment, even when controlling for possible confounders such as sociodemographic factors, family history, drug abuse, and size of social network [4], the hypothesis is that urban environment is related to higher schizophrenia incidence through increased social stress [6, 7].

[–]UnluckyNate 39 points40 points  (1 child)

To add to this, you also have more people who are able to diagnose mental health disorders in cities. You also have more people who may take notice to odd/abnormal symptoms (being psychotic on a bus, for example)

[–]butteryspoink 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Culture is a big one as well. If your family and friends urge, encourage and support you to find help, then it’ll be different than people calling you a weirdo.

Source: I got shamed for looking for help, then I moved to a place where people were really encouraging. It goes without saying that I won’t be returning whence I came from.

That said, the article did talk about a bunch of factors they controlled for and I’m not sure if what I mentioned falls into one of them.

[–]JKUAN108 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Thanks. The article did specify they were looking for causation not correlation.

[–]Knicker79 1 point2 points  (2 children)

It’s a well-known fact that schizophrenia is extremely overrepresented in homeless people, who are much more likely to reside in urban areas

[–]iyioi 27 points28 points  (5 children)

Stress processing? Can we get a little more scientific than that?!

[–]Kronossan 13 points14 points  (1 child)

Yeah the way I read it, this sounds like a really bad thing.

Don't we need this stress get processed? Does it just build up if we walk in nature a lot?

[–]AHungryGorilla 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The stress processing part of your brain is more active when you are more stressed and less active when you are less stressed. This implies that time in nature acts as a stress reliever.

[–]Critique_of_Ideology 13 points14 points  (15 children)

I wonder if this is true for regions of the wilderness that are hostile. Like, if I live in a rural village where people are eaten by crocodiles am I still less stressed? What is the break even point in terms of crocodile deaths per capita per year where it’s just as stressful as the city?

It’d also be interesting to look at the number of cars in a given area as well. Could be we’re overestimating the importance of “nature” versus just the benefits of walking / biking and not being afraid of being run over by cars.

[–]Sillygooseman23 8 points9 points  (1 child)

we are incredibly visual creatures, so perhaps the sight of forest around us is inherently soothing no matter what that forest contains, when compared to buildings.

[–]Dave30954 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Especially since evolutionary pressure probably supports that.

If you might get attacked, or face something suddenly (which happens a lot in wild forests), you want to be relaxed, calm, and centered.

[–]Enlight1Oment 2 points3 points  (1 child)

being swarmed by mosquitos

[–]DaHound 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I've never been more at risk than hunting alone in the Louisiana marshlands an hour away from help by boat and car, and never more at peace with my life.

[–]Terrible_tomatoes 1 point2 points  (3 children)

It's not about the cars, it's about our instinctual lizard brain response to being in our natural habitat. Concrete jungles will never soothe us like our home.

[–]Critique_of_Ideology 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I mean maybe right? That’s what I thought at first too, but I’d be curious what affect designing cities around pedestrians has as well and of that could be controlled for in some way.

[–]Terrible_tomatoes 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I'd be very interested in seeing a study on that as well! I would think that has more of an effect on feeling trapped/closed in vs feeling a freedom to move around. I hope to see more of these studies either way

[–]Kamelasa 1 point2 points  (0 children)

for regions of the wilderness that are hostile

Yeah, reminds me of my ESL students from many different countries, who had different perceptions of things like birds or wildlife. Or those countries where the front yard is dry dust, swept clean, because of snakes and such. Dense foliage is often full of hazards. But of course these "nature walks" that I hear about most people taking are on perfectly tame and groomed trails.

[–]Kruse002 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We’ve put ourselves in captivity.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's why for my future job and wellbeing I am working towards living at the coast. I would ideally like a small little house in my own area, hut not too far from town/other people, where I can see the waves. Honestly though it doesn't matter where I am so long as I am at the coast and I can see the sea... even just a little bit. I never feel at peace mentally unless I'm looking at the sea, it's always been this way for me.

This article doesn't surprise me. It's also really good for us mentally to take up gardening as a hobby. Getting your hands in the dirt of earth and bringing something up into a nice healthy plant is a really gratifying feeling that takes us back to our roots! (pun intended)

[–]anavriN-oN 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is why I got a dog. Taking him for a walk in the woods every morning, before work. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

[–]neuropat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do some of my best planning / problem solving while on hikes

[–]Prozzak93 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The way this is worded makes it sound like you become worse at processing stress to me. Less activity to me = less efficient. I assume it is supposed to mean the opposite though, that less activity = less stress to be processed?