A prescription for plants

Plants and green spaces offer more than just aesthetics. Exposure to plants provides a variety of physical and mental benefits for people including lower anxiety, lower blood pressure, stress relief, better concentration, and increased overall happiness. It’s an impressive list of benefits that is backed by science. This month we take a closer look at some of those studies. But are people really getting the message? Dive into the research yourself, then share it with your employees and your customers, as well as your local and national lawmakers.
 

A calming effect

Research at the Landscape and Human Health Lab (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) has shown that performing activities in green settings can reduce children’s Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder symptoms. In an initial, Midwestern-based survey, parents of children with AD/HD were more likely to nominate activities that typically occur in green outdoor settings as being best for their child’s symptoms and activities that typically occur in indoor or non-green outdoor settings as worst for symptoms. Also, parents rated their child’s symptoms as better, on average, after activities that occur in green settings than after activities in non-green settings.

In the subsequent, nationwide survey, parents again rated leisure activities —such as reading or playing sports — as improving children’s symptoms more when performed in green outdoor settings than in non-green settings. A more recent study tested children with AD/HD in a controlled setting after they had walked in one of three environments that differed from one another in the level of greenery: a park, a neighborhood, and a quiet downtown area. The findings confirmed that the attention of children with AD/HD functions better after spending time in more natural settings.

AD/HD affects up to 7 percent of children. Those afflicted have chronic difficulty paying attention and focusing on tasks and can be impulsive, outburst-prone and sometimes aggressive. These behaviors often result in family conflict, peer rejection and academic failure. Current treatments, drugs and behavioral therapy, do not work in all cases and in many cases offer only limited relief, says Frances Kuo, director of the Landscape and Human Health Lab.

“These research findings suggest adding trees and greenery where children spend a lot of time, such as near homes and schools, and encouraging kids with AD/HD to play in green spaces may help supplement established treatments to improve children’s functioning,” she says.

For more: http://lhhl.illinois.edu/index.htm

Help for the elderly

Having access to nature and the outdoors has long been considered therapeutic for elderly residents in long-term care settings. Research is beginning to confirm that spending time outdoors may improve sleeping patterns, reduce pain, decrease urinary incontinence and verbal agitation, speed up recovery from disability and even increase longevity, according to Susan Rodiek, assistant professor at the Texas A&M School of Architecture. Unfortunately, in spite of potential benefits, outdoor areas at long-term care facilities are often reported as underutilized by residents.

Rodiek led research that assessed how landscape design influenced outdoor usage at assisted living facilities. After evaluating 68 randomly selected facilities in diverse climates and surveying 1,560 residents and staff, several landscape features were found to be strongly associated with outdoor usage. Those features include: has a variety of plant materials; walkways have good views; has views of vehicular activity; and viewable from windows.

Although several landscape design guidelines have been published, very few outcome-based studies have attempted to measure the effect of landscape features on outdoor usage. This study addressed the lack of evidence by measuring how the landscape impacted outdoor usage. The findings can help landscape architects design to support the actual needs and preferences of frail, elderly long-term care residents, and in doing so, contribute to public health by improving the well-being of those residents in long-term care settings.

Aside from questions relating to the main outcomes, a number of personal variables were considered that might influence outdoor usage: gender, age, health, vision, history of falls, mobility, assistance needed with daily activities, urban vs. rural background, and attitudes and preferences about the outdoors. These items were included in the survey, and tested for their significance in the model; those found to be significant were controlled for in the analysis. This allowed each of the rated landscape features to be considered separately, to see how they influenced outdoor usage.

For more: rodiek@tamu.edu

Cure plant blindness

The wealth of benefits provided by plants is not ingrained knowledge in modern day American culture, says Susan Barton, extension specialist at the University of Delaware. Humans often have difficulty in even seeing plants in their own environment, much less connecting plants to tangible benefits, Barton says.

“For most people, plants are the subconscious sector of mental life, perceived as the backdrop, not the actors, in the playing out of our everyday lives,” she says..

James Wandersee called it “plant blindness,” she says. Plant blindness aside, it remains difficult for humans to clearly track the cause and effect between presence of plants and resulting benefits due to the cumulative nature of these benefits.

“Further research and widespread education – especially of city planners and local governments – may serve as the best tool for helping us recognize the advantages of green spaces.”

For more: sbarton@udel.edu

Stress relief

Life in urban areas can present many demands and challenges. Stress is one of the most important factors related to ill-health in modern times, and is a malady that includes psychological, physiological and behavioral components, says Kathleen Wolf, projects director at the University of Washington’s College of Forest Resources.

Unresolved, long-term stress can lead to secondary symptoms and illnesses. The experience of nature is one antidote to stress, and the body’s positive response is remarkably fast. The region of the brain that reacts to stress is linked to the autonomic nervous system, which controls basic physiological functions. When experiencing stress our attention heightens, muscle tension increases, blood pressure rises, the pulse quickens, respiration increases, the digestive system slows, and the body produces more adrenaline, she said.

The cumulative effect of everyday, low-grade, chronic stresses (such as demanding driving conditions or work pressures) can have a greater impact on health and well-being than ‘acute’ or extreme events that occur at infrequent intervals (such as loss of a family member or divorce).

Humans are able to manage moderate and high stress levels for a short period of time. Chronic stress, with little opportunity for recovery, can lead to unhealthy levels of psychological and physiological reaction. The experience of nature appears to be an antidote to the stress effects of urban living. In a key experiment, people who viewed a video of a natural setting after viewing a visual stressor, displayed faster and more complete physiological recovery than those seeing built environments.

Exposure to nature in the form of trees, grass and flowers can effectively reduce stress, particularly if initial stress levels are high. Measureable recovery benefits are detected solely from visual encounters with nature.

Mental restoration is also gained from spending time in an urban green space, and increased length of stay (up to 1½ hours) increases the restorative effect.

Studies in Japan of Shinrin-yoku, or forest walking and breathing, have found effects of improved immune system response, lowered stress indicators, reduced depression and lower glucose levels in diabetics.

For more: www.naturewithin.info