Watching Nature Can Reduce Pain
I’ve said it before and new research is saying it again: Nature is a great healer.
A new study by researchers from the Universities of both Vienna and Exeter has found that just viewing nature can decrease activity in the brain linked to pain perception, thus helping ease our experience of pain.
Participants were given minor electric shocks and results showed they felt less pain from them viewing videos of natural scenes in comparison with schemes of offices or cities.
Max Steininger, the lead author of the study, said, “Numerous studies have shown that people consistently report feeling less pain when exposed to nature. Yet until now, the underlying reasons for this effect were unclear. Our study is the first to provide evidence from brain scans that this isn’t just a ‘placebo’ effect – driven by people’s beliefs and expectations that nature is good for them – instead, the brain is reacting less to information about where the pain is coming from and how intense it feels.”
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