Improve Mood/Increase Feelings of Wellbeing

Yuen and Jenkins link time spent in parks and higher feelings of wellbeing.  The team learned that “visitors from three urban parks completed a short questionnaire evaluating SWB [subjective well-being] (with two components: affect [emotion] and life satisfaction) immediately before and after their park visit. . . . Results indicated a significant improvement in SWB, affect, and life satisfaction scores of park visitor participants from before and after their visit. Duration of park visit was . . . associated with SWB scores, and . . .

Neill and colleagues have confirmed that there are benefits to spending even short amounts of time in nature.  They conducted “Two studies . . . with university students to examine whether the duration of nature contact influences the magnitude of benefits for both hedonic (positive and negative affect [emotions]) and self-transcendent emotions. Study 1 investigated whether 5 minutes of sedentary nature contact influenced both emotion types, and Study 2 examined whether mood improvements are sensitive to the duration of nature contact (5 vs. 15 minutes).

There are clear advantages to exercising in green environments.  Wooller and colleagues determined that when “Fifty participants were randomly assigned to one of five groups: REST [sitting quietly on a cycle ergometer in front of a gray screen], exercise, exercise with nature sounds, exercise withnature visual and exercise with nature sound and visual. . . . Results showed that green exercise improved mood and stress scores more than exercise alone or REST.

Valdimarsdottir and colleagues studied depression levels among a hospitalized group; they linked lighting conditions and depression.  The team reports that “Over a third of multiple myeloma (MM) patients report clinical levels of depression during autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) hospitalization. . . .Patients . . . scheduled to receive an ASCT . . .