Spending time in a park or anywhere near plants and nature is not only refreshing but can improve the performance of the human brain, reveals the latest study conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi.
In a recent study conducted at the User Experience Lab (UX) Lab, IIT Delhi, it was found that brief experiences of nature like walking in a park, gardening can help people to concentrate better. The study titled, ‘Effect of Nature Experience on Fronto-parietal Correlates of Neurocognitive Processes involved in Directed Attention: An ERP study’ has been published in Annals of Neurosciences in April 2021. The research was undertaken by Dr Pooja Sahni, Research Fellow and Prof Jyoti Kumar, IIT Delhi.
The human brain has actually been designed to love nature and this phenomenon is called biophilia. Living amid nature and appreciating it helps calms the mind and improves brain performance, claims the study.
“There is a growing interest to understand the underlying transformative processes- psychological, cognitive, and neurophysiological, that are activated while in natural surroundings. This study is an attempt to map the effects of nature experience on our brain processes”, said IIT-Delhi.
During the study, participants were observed while they were presented with nature audio or video as stimuli to evoke experience akin to being in nature albeit in lab settings. The brain activity was examined during the nature experience and while a task was performed both before and after the experiment.
The study also revealed that experience with nature enhanced attention among participants and they were able to overcome distractions more efficiently.
Dr. Pooja Sahni, research fellow, IIT-Delhi said, “Though there is evidence that suggests that viewing nature is inherently rewarding – producing a cascade of positive emotions, yet the underlying neural and cognitive processes have not been fully explored. This paper, in its novel contribution, provides empirical evidence for the neurocognitive processes underlying a mental state which is relaxed yet alert after a brief experience in nature.”
Dr Sahni added, “In our present day, most of us are spending more than 90 per cent of our time indoors – most of it in front of TV, computer and mobile screens, even before restrictions due to COVID-19 were imposed. There are reports that such a lifestyle is likely to increase the risk of attentional problems, especially in children. On the other hand, being outdoors with nature, or even a brief interaction with nature through tending to indoor plants can help us build focus in a big way.”
Prof Jyoti Kumar, Dept. of Design, IIT Delhi said, “This research is particularly useful where we often feel distracted and fatigued due to overarching demands on our attentional resources posed by our jobs. During such times perhaps a walk in the garden or even viewing nature through our window may help us get back to task in hand in a more focused way.”
“Interestingly, importance of nature experience had been emphasised in the vedic culture where ‘aranyakas’ (meaning deliberated in the jungle) were part of the ‘vedas’ emphasising the need to deliberate amidst nature in order to understand the deeper aspects of life,” he concluded.
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