Pictures and parks

"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,

3) a busy, commercial district with concrete buildings and heavy automobile traffic.

The brain wave read-outs were compared, looking for patterns related to excitement, frustration, engagement, mental arousal, and meditation. Their findings:

“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