Nature, even fake nature, heals. What are your thoughts on this? Check out this article. The fake outdoors: Nature that isnt real still heals 19 June 2013 by Naomi Lubick Magazine issue 2921. Subscribe and save Can virtual reality mimic nature’s restorative properties? It seems that simulated green spaces can have surprising health benefits STAND on the shores of Wembury Bay and let nature heal you. Here on Englands south-west coast, the gentle sway of the trees in the ocean breeze will lower your blood pressure, the sound of lapping waves will banish the stress hormones from your blood, and the pine scent will invigorate your immune system. On closer inspection, youll find that something is missing from this scene: namely, all of it. This is no shore. Youre in an intensive care unit 325 kilometres inland, in Birmingham. But the illusion will fool your body into healing itself, its creator claims. Decades of research have built a compelling case for the healing effects of nature. But because this field has been largely overlooked by medicine, it has been difficult to uncover the direct causes. At the same time, a growing body of evidence has begun to suggest that it is possible to hijack these effects to trigger the bodys healing mechanisms – without actual greenery. A small number of projects are now under way to apply the new theory. Although it is early days for this work, it could one day help everyone – from the bedridden to the office-bound – harness natures curative powers. To say nature is good for you is the stalest of clichés. Claims about its restorative effects go back at least 2000 years, when Taoists were drawing links between good health and tending greenhouses. In the 20th century, science finally began to weigh in. In 1984 the biologist E. O. Wilson linked the phenomenon to evolution. According to the biophilia hypothesis, natures restorative benefits occur because our brains evolved alongside and within the natural world. This evolutionary hard-wiring, he argued, primed us to respond involuntarily to environmental cues. For example, green trees and blue water were sure signs of natural resources, explaining our innate preference for such scenery and providing clues as to why such scenes might trigger restorative brain responses. A glut of psychological studies followed, building a body of evidence to show that nature mitigates a wide range of ailments. Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder who played in natural settings for 20 minutes, for example, experienced a boost in mental focus equivalent to that from taking a single dose of ADHD medication. And after volunteers spent several days walking in the wilderness, their creative reasoning was found to improve. In a 2011 review of the literature, Scandinavian researchers lamented a lack of controlled studies, but concluded that claims for the beneficial effect of nature were buttressed by a small but reliable evidence base (Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, vol 39, p 371). Whats more, biophilias effects appear to extend beyond psychology. Japanese researchers have found a host of benefits after observing people in the practice of shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing – simply put, going for a walk in the woods. Heart rates slowed, levels of the stress hormone cortisol dropped, and blood pressure was significantly lower than when measured in the city. But that wasnt all. A battery of heart and stress tests revealed that the autonomic and central nervous systems, as well as the endocrine and immune systems, were all positively affected (European Journal of Applied Physiology, vol 111, p 2845). Another group in Japan found that shinrin-yoku boosted the immune system by increasing production of natural killer cells, a kind of white blood cell that responds to viruses and tumours. But were the effects specifically down to biophilia, or were people simply benefiting from the exercise that getting out into nature almost inevitably entails? How could an experiment separate the effects of simple exposure to nature from the endlessly documented benefits of exercise? One study pointed the way. In 1984, Roger Ulrich, then a professor at the University of Delaware, published an analysis of people recovering from gall bladder surgery in a suburban Pennsylvania hospital in the 1970s and 1980s. When their hospital rooms had a garden view, Ulrich found that patients needed less pain medication than when their view was of a brick wall. And although most patients healed in about a week, those whose hospital rooms looked out at a garden healed a day faster, on average. They also had fewer post-surgery complications (Science, vol 224, p 420). Since they were bedridden, exercise could be ruled out as the cause of their improvement. The study also raised significant questions about just how much nature is necessary to prompt a healing response. Ulrichs research kicked off a spate of architectural changes in hospitals to incorporate more views of nature and gardens. Now Robert Stone, a psychologist and engineer at the University of Birmingham, hopes to take Ulrichs findings a step further. Stone has constructed a virtual replica of the Wembury Bay area at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, to investigate whether fake nature has any healing effects on a small number of volunteers. Green therapy Stone spent nine years in the defence industry, and became interested in such green therapy after seeing first-hand that highly realistic virtual reality could ease the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in soldiers returning from battle zones. When he discovered the pile of evidence for the restorative powers of nature, he realised he could recreate many natural environments for bedridden patients in intensive care, including people recovering from amputations and others whose conditions precluded even window views, which intensive-care units often cannot have. Stone has just begun to test the effects of his current system in a pain study. His volunteers have been outfitted with a suite of wearable and wireless sensors – including monitors of heart rate, brain waves and galvanic skin response – to measure their reactions. The simulation makes use of large flat-screen plasma displays positioned around the hospital bed. Using joysticks, the volunteers can navigate around a meticulous reconstruction of a 5-square-kilometre patch of Wembury Bay, woven together from three-dimensional topological maps. Every tree, plant, meadow, rock and stream is a faithful recreation of the real thing. The rendering of the scenery is exquisitely realistic; the team purchased the trees graphics code from computer-gaming design websites. To add to the realism, Stones environments feature simulated sunlight diffusing through leaves, the gentle sway of trees and plants under a virtual wind, changing reflections in virtual water, and light appropriate to the season. The design was influenced by a number of studies suggesting that exposure to artificial nature could confer some of natures more physical benefits. In 2003, Ulrich looked at blood donors in a waiting room, and found that both their blood pressure and heart rate were lower on days when a wall-mounted screen displayed a nature video, compared with days when it showed daytime television programmes. In 2010, Swedish researchers found that when people suffering from stress-related illnesses like burnout were shown real images of nature, as well as fake ones, both had similarly restorative effects, lowering heart rate and blood pressure (Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol 30 p 464). Natural advantage But was it specifically nature that generated these benefits, or would any pleasant scene do? This question was addressed in 2005 by Rita Berto at the University of Padua in Italy, who compared the cognitive effects of viewing nature and city scenes. She found that nature images improved volunteers performance on an attention capacity test, but looking at attractive abstract prints or busy urban scenes did not lead to the same improvement. Natural scenes, it seemed, were key (Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol 25, p 249). Purely visual stimulation might be enough to confer health benefits, but several previous studies suggest to Stone that sound is crucial, too. Experiments have shown how sounds from natural settings can distract people from pain, calming them while they are attached to mechanical breathing support, for example. Other work found that Alzheimers-related aggression was improved by exposure to images of natural scenes, accompanied by nature noises like birdsong. Last year, in a small pilot study of his virtual Wembury, Stone found that adding the sound of waves, wind and birds, for example, amplified the relaxing effects healthy volunteers experienced when they strolled through the simulation. So his present system incorporates actual sound from a Wembury walk, synchronised with the visual cues. And what about smell? In the same pilot study, Stone wafted several synthetic natural odours over the participants. He saw virtually no differences in their pulse rates or stress levels compared with a control group that smelled no special odours. However, other research has shown that some smells do have physical effects. The shinrin-yoku researchers had hypothesised that the immune boost they identified was in part due to volatile organic compounds called phytoncides that are emitted by pine trees. These substances include terpenes, long molecules that ward off microbes and fungi. Inspired by these ideas, Qing Li of Nippon Medical School in Tokyo, Japan, diffused pine essential oils into rooms in a hotel in Tokyo, where a dozen men slept for three nights. Subsequent urine and blood tests revealed increases in natural killer cells. His work showed that it is possible to separate nature smells from nature. Stone thinks this will be a promising addition to complete his system, once he finds the right smells to use. Stone has two more systems under development, which he hopes will show the effects of fake nature on different psychological and physical conditions, ranging from dementia to pain to hastening recovery after amputation. Ulrich, now at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, is in two minds about virtual nature. The unassailable fact is that in many situations its not possible to provide real nature, he says. However, he worries that an over-reliance on virtual reality will make hospitals even less inclined to include natural elements such as gardens in their design, which he thinks would be a mistake. Virtual reality cannot provide sunlight, for example, which is important to help stave off depression, among other things. While Stone agrees that nothing beats real nature, he nonetheless hopes that his work will travel far beyond the hospital. After all, the flip side of biophilia is that a lack of connection to nature could be harmful to health. The disruption of this connection has been linked to disorders ranging from obesity to schizophrenia. Stone hopes that one day fake nature systems like his could be used preventively in many places. Our virtual environments could provide schools with rich sensory experiences, he says. He thinks they could even give children the ability to take part in virtual field trips. He also sees potential for nature simulations in other institutions, especially care homes and prisons, and also in the workplace. Faking nature will help us home in on exactly how the real thing might be promoting healing, but more importantly, it might help bring natures benefits to those of us trapped in places where nature cannot follow. Naomi Lubick is a writer based in Stockholm, Sweden
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 18:26:18 +0000
Trending Topics
© 2015