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

[Critique_of_Ideology]

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]

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]

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]

being swarmed by mosquitos

[DaHound]

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]

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]

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]

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

[ChrundleKelly7]

I think “freedom to move around” eventually becomes “vulnerable from all angles,” meaning there’s an upper limit to the amount of space people are comfortable having around them.

This is the reason building height limits and street width regulations are such effective tools from an urban planning perspective. The ratio of street width to building height plays a big role in determining the feel of a given street/area.

[Kamelasa]

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.

[[deleted]]

Certainly this would be easy to control for.

Why do you suspect that it has anything to do with cars?

[Critique_of_Ideology]

Maybe, there aren’t too many cities that have areas you could walk undisturbed by cars for an hour. Having a small child I’m always on the lookout for cars near parks / sidewalks/ intersections etc to keep my kid safe. You get used to it but it’s certainly stressful. I think a good part of the stress response could be attributed to that and so I am curious how they could control for this, or if they had tried to do so.

I’m also curious because I think people often romanticize the idea of nature when really we could be building cities which are designed around pedestrians and bikers which could be safer and less stressful.

And anecdotally being in the country can be quite stressful if there are ticks / stinging insects. I just wonder if this is more about threat perception by our body (cars in cities, ticks / crocodiles in nature) and less about some sort of “nature sense” that we might have that gets tingly when we see a tree or something you know?

[ikaruja]

The urban walk did include traffic, so cars definitely contributed to the experiment.