'Researchers have just found city parks apparently give a boost to our moods and well-being that's equivalent to the one we get on Christmas morning.'
on our physical and mental health: It lowers our cortisol levels, calms our brain's natural fight-or-flight response, can reduce inflammation and lower our blood pressure, and can even aid in our recovery from illness or injury. One study earlier this year found spendingused a pretty unique method to measure just how much being in nature affects people: Twitter.
They looked at hundreds of tweets per day for three months in the San Francisco area and found people's language had a huge bump in positive sentiment while in parks."Yes, across all the tweets, people are happier in parks," said Aaron Schwartz, a University of Vermont graduate student who led the study, in a."But the effect was stronger in large regional parks with extensive tree cover and vegetation." In other words, greener park areas led to a bigger boost in mood.
Overall, they found the increased feelings of positivity people experienced from spending time in a park was equivalent to increased positivity documented in people on Christmas Day. That's pretty dramatic! The study also found people's use of self-centered words like"I" and"me" dropped significantly while inside a park, which the researchers say suggests"a shift from individual to collective mental frame." People's use of negative language also decreased after a visit to a park.
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