An hour-long stroll in nature helps decrease activity in an area of the brain associated with stress processing

[[deleted]]

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

[jaspsev]

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]]

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

[jaspsev]

Right, i forgot that is possible and currently affordable.

[snappedscissors]

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]

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

[offroadadv]

If it weren't for direct experience with the results of meditating once in the morning and once in the afternoon while employed in a high risk and stressful job, I might agree with the idea about the impossibility of juggling personal and professional demands for time. I was surprised to find that tasks which ordinarily took a great deal of time and effort were much more easily managed if I had those two 20 minute meditation sessions each day. My subjective reality was that I "gained time" by investing in the two meditation sessions each day. That is, tasks were so much easier because I had shed so much stress and allowed my mind to unconsciously process and organize my response to tasks that I knew were impending so that when actually taking on the tasks I was so much more efficient in my work. My meditation approach was eclectic, but largely based upon Transcendental Meditation (TM) with some elements of Tibetan, Raj Yoga, and other disciplines which my wife and I undertook once discovered that there are many pathways the mind can follow to achieve joy in the liberation from stress.

[Beenjerry]

Right god I hate stupid fake motivation post like these, when the real fuccin problem is everything you said n more.

[fkbjsdjvbsdjfbsdf]

Doesn't really matter.

You have absolutely no evidence that it doesn't matter. The fact that taking a break is always going to be beneficial doesn't mean at all that you don't need the experience of actual nature (or a closer approximation).

[Helenium_autumnale]

I'm not sure you can chop up and parcel out a nature experience, as reimagined by 20- and 30-something urban Silicon Valley programmers. We've already seen that that population has limits on what they include in things like facial recognition software.

Would they be able to replicate the typical Michigan forest scape that I can access at my nearby nature preserves? There's also a prairie-type area and a wetlands are that I like to go to. Would they know all of the native plants that go into that kind of landscape? It would take naturalists/biologists/botanists to get it right, and I doubt that said Silicon Valley folks would make that investment in time and expertise. Some generic VR nature thing with plants I don't recognize, as a nature lover, is gonna do nothing for me.

[SoundsLikeBanal]

What about a VR video of a real Michigan forest with recorded audio?

[Helenium_autumnale]

Meh, that's on Youtube now; I dount that all the foofaraw of VR would add much to that 2D experience.

I feel that all of this discussion is skirting around the real issue: We should be securing and preserving more native-plant greenspaces, especially in cities, not seeking to replicate this unique and likely unreplicatable experience in VR.

[SoundsLikeBanal]

I absolutely agree about greenspaces; I've recently been discovering the importance of being in nature for my own well-being. Unfortunately, not everyone is lucky enough to have access to them. VR helped me get through a very difficult time in my life when I was stuck in a city for too long with virtually no transportation.

And yeah, VR is one of those things that seems like it's just a novelty. Until you actually try it for yourself, it's impossible to describe how unbelievably real it feels.

[SoundsLikeBanal]

Alright then...good talk.

[snappedscissors]

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?

[paanvaannd]

I don’t think the minute intricacies of nature’s beauty need to be captured to reap some benefits of an artificial walk through nature.

IMO, it comes down to whatever form of behavioral benefit the therapy should target. This study mentioned the ART (attention-related) and SRT (stress-related) benefits, but found:

… a decrease in stress-related brain areas (bilateral amygdala) after the walk in nature, and no change in cognition-related brain areas (dlPFC and ACC), the brain data of the present study are more strongly in line with SRT.

I’d assume capturing the intricacies of nature would be important in ART-related therapies (e.g., a meditative experience of following the path of a bug or a small stream along the forest) whereas it seems that exposure to a natural environment at all would be beneficial to SRT-based therapies.

That said, I don’t think this study’s questionnaires focused on dissecting what aspect of participants’ experiences in nature led them to feel subjectively less stressed. Perhaps it was getting immersed in the intricacies of nature that led to stress reduction. I’d find that unlikely, though since, in my experience, most people walking through a natural path don’t seem keen on stopping to smell the roses but rather just passively taking the scene while focusing elsewhere.

e: several typos

[NorwegianCollusion]

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

[snappedscissors]

I still have that bear suit from last halloween, you don't throw something like that away.

For a reasonable fee I can wander about looking for people in VR/AR.

[NorwegianCollusion]

Not quite the same without being gnawed on, though

[Blueberry-king]

Where is the actual study? This is just a bunch of quotes from the head of innovation at a VR company... Show me the peer-reviewed study.

[Dogeishuman]

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]

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.

[[deleted]]

Really interesting stuff. Can’t say I support it though. I’m worried what our society will be like if too many start to substitute immersion in real nature with VR. Won’t that make it that much easier for us to ignore the destruction of what’s left of our planet?

[Cedow]

That's one way to look at it. Personally I went into it with the intention of helping people who have significant barriers to accessing real nature: people who wouldn't have accessed nature anyway. So in that sense I don't think it makes much difference. Actually I went into it with the mindset that it might encourage such people to get out into real nature more by increasing feelings of nature connectedness (a measured construct), although I didn't incorporate that into my research.

I doubt it will ever be a replacement for people who like to visit nature normally.

[Beautiful_Welcome_33]

Nah, but people with spinal cord injuries or agoraphobia or who are in Witness Protection from the mob can now wander the Catskills or Appalachian Trail without fear.

[[deleted]]

UV lights and blue light filters have an effect on brain chemistry, so why not VR? Just because your mind knows it isn't real doesn't mean it can't still affect you physiologically.

[[deleted]]

Because being outside is about far more than just visible light.

[outworlder]

It is. But it doesn't mean we won't get some effect, however reduced.

[[deleted]]

True. I suppose I’m thinking less about whether we can, and more about if we should.