"But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things." - Vincent van Gogh
"The Lord makes me lie down in green pastures, leads me beside quiet waters, refreshes my soul." - Psalm 23:2-3a
Maybe
I’m looking to rationalize some of my adventures upcoming: these couple of
studies caught my attention. Neither seem absolutely fool-proof (one likely
includes bias, the other a small sample size), though both seem intriguing.
~~ “Snappy makes
you happy” was
the headline from a news wire in the UK
in July of 2012 asserting that looking
at pictures makes us happier than eating chocolate, listening to music,
watching TV, or drinking wine. [It is significant to note that the funder of
the research is Orange (with lead investigator Peter Naish at Open University
in London), a company that makes a profit on folks taking and organizing
digital snapshots on their digital devices. Still, take a glance at the numbers
below, arrived at through standard
assessment techniques.]
11 to 1. Researchers found an overall lift in
mood of 11% in those viewing photographs (“mood” measurements were tracked in
areas of “relaxation, brightness, calmness and alertness, and even their sense
of being valued and popular”). In contrast, in those subjects using other common
pickups (chocolate, music, TV, wine) the overall mood lift was just 1%.
Viewing
pictures – “happy snaps” of memories – also was most effective in helping
relax: compared to wine at 14% and chocolate at 8%, those looking at photos recorded
an average relaxation score of 22%.
~~ Green spaces bring
on calm and reflection. This NY Times well.blog reports that in a new study “published this month in The
British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers at Heriot-Watt University
in Edinburgh and the University of Edinburgh attached these new, portable EEGs
(electroencephalograms) to the scalps of 12 healthy young adults. The
electrodes, hidden unobtrusively beneath an ordinary looking fabric cap, sent
brain wave readings wirelessly to a laptop carried in a backpack by each
volunteer.”
The
volunteers were sent out on a 1.5 mile walk through of Edinburgh, with each of three
sections consisting of about a half-mile stroll: 1) an historic shopping district with old
buildings and plenty of pedestrians but light vehicle traffic, 2) a path
through a park-like setting,
“When
the volunteers made their way through the urbanized, busy areas, particularly
the heavily trafficked commercial district at the end of their walk, their
brain wave patterns consistently showed that they were more aroused, attentive
and frustrated than when they walked through the parkland, where brain-wave
readings became more meditative.
While
traveling
through the park, the walkers were mentally quieter.
Which
is not to say that they weren’t paying attention, said Jenny Roe, a professor
in the School of the Built Environment at Heriot-Watt University, who oversaw
the study. “Natural environments still engage” the brain, she said, but the
attention demanded “is effortless. It’s called involuntary attention in
psychology. It holds our attention while at the same time allowing scope for
reflection.”
--
My
next five weeks include opportunities to take and view countless photos and see
natural spaces I’ve never experienced before: I’ll get to test out the findings
of the above studies. I am aware of how fortunate I am.
Here's a personal philosophy of what’s behind the benefit of taking pictures and being
in green spaces: it’s about love (often pictures I look at are of dear loved
ones) and beauty (which is synonymous with nature for me).
Now that spring is upon us,
it seems a little easier to expose ourselves to both love and beauty (and taking pictures and being in green spaces).
My
wish for you this month is for happy, calm, and reflective times as you you appreciate your loved ones, and enjoy
the unfolding of spring.
Of Goodness
How good
that the clouds travel, as they do,
like the long dresses of the angels
of our imagination,
or gather in storm masses, then break
with their gifts of replenishment,
and how good
that the trees shelter the patient birds
in their thick leaves,
and how good that in the field
the next morning
red bird frolics again, his throat full of song,
and how good
that the dark ponds, refreshed,
are holding the white cups of the lilies
so that each is an eye that can look upward,
and how good that the little blue-winged teal
comes paddling among them, as cheerful as ever,
and so on, and so on.
- Mary Oliver
