Human history has largely emerged in rural environments, where ancestors lived for thousands of years, while cities are a radically new type of habitat that, despite their many advantages, often leads to mental health stress.
According to what was published by the site Science Alert Citing Molecular Psychiatry, research has linked urban environments to an increased risk of anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems, including schizophrenia.
Physical and psychological benefits
Fortunately, research also points to a simple solution. Even a brief visit to the landscape can help with a range of mental and physical health benefits, including lower blood pressure, reduced anxiety and depression, improved mood, focus, memory, better sleep, and faster recovery. .
Numerous studies have supported this association, but there is still much to be discovered and learned in this regard.
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development have sought an answer as to whether walking can spark beneficial changes to the brain in a new study focused on fMRI-assisted functional magnetic resonance imaging.
The researchers examined the amygdala in the brain, a small structure in the center of the brain involved in stress processing, emotional learning, and the fight-or-flight response, because research suggests it is less active during stress in rural versus city dwellers, but that doesn’t necessarily mean rural life is the same. Which causes this effect, as it can be the opposite, and people who have this trait are more likely to be living normally in the countryside.
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1 hour walk
The researchers asked 63 healthy adult volunteer participants to fill out questionnaires and perform tests of a working memory task as well as undergo fMRI scans while answering questions, some of which are designed to induce social stress.
The subjects were then randomly assigned to walk for one hour in either an urban area (a busy shopping district in Berlin) or a natural environment (the 3,000 hectare Grunwald Forest in Berlin).
The researchers asked each group to walk a specific route in either location, without deviating from the track or using their mobile phones along the way. Then each study participant had another fMRI scan of their brains, after they performed an additional stressful task and filled out another questionnaire.
Beneficial effects of nature
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) showed decreased activity in the amygdala after a walk in the woods, the researchers reported, supporting the idea that nature can lead to beneficial effects in areas of the brain associated with stress. And it looks like it can happen in just 60 minutes.
“The findings support a previously putative positive relationship between nature and brain health, but this is the first study to demonstrate a causal link,” says environmental neuroscientist Simon Kohn, chair of the Lise Meitner Environmental Neuroscience Group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
Participants who walked in the woods also reported regaining more attention and enjoying the same walk than those who walked in urban areas, a finding consistent with the results of the fMRI study as well as previous research.
The researchers also learned something interesting about the people who walked in urban areas. Although amygdala activity did not decrease as much as those who walked in nature, it also did not increase, despite spending an hour in a crowded urban environment.
The researchers said that the results favor walking in natural environments, as opposed to urban exposure, which can cause additional stress for humans, but there may be a positive sign for city dwellers, which is that the stress effect may be less strong or widespread than other studies indicate, if it is Walking.