The human brain has actually been designed to love nature. This phenomenon is called biophilia (bio=life, Philia = love). Living amid nature and appreciating it not only calms down the mind but also improves its performance. In a recent study, conducted by IIT Delhi and it was found that even brief experiences of nature (like a walk-in park, garden; taking care of plants in the garden, viewing greenery) can help people to concentrate on their tasks in a better way. For a long, nature has been seen as a source of peace and energy. Nature has also been sought for increasing health and well-being, as well as inspiring creativity.
However, it’s only recently that the scientific community has begun to examine the restorative attributes of nature. There is a growing interest to understand the underlying transformative processes- psychological, cognitive and neurophysiological, that are activated while in natural surroundings.
Image Source: Rampages
This study is an attempt to map the effects of nature experience on our brain processes. Participants were observed while they were presented with nature audio/ video as stimuli to evoke an experience akin to being in nature albeit in lab settings.
The brain activity was examined during the nature experience and while a task was performed both before and after the experiment’.
Findings of this study suggest that nature experience enhances attention as the participants after their nature experience were able to overcome distractions more efficiently. The underlying neurocognitive processes of inhibitory control mechanisms in the frontoparietal regions of the brain get enhanced post nature experience. Enhanced alpha in frontal and theta in frontocentral regions of the brain indicating a state of relaxation and internalized attention was found associated with nature experience.
Source: Science Monitor (RSTV)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment