ECOPSYCHOLOGY SCIENCE

Antidepressants discovered in soil

Mycobacterium vaccae (bacteria commonly found in soil) “were associated with increases in serotonin metabolism” & “is likely to play an important role in the neural mechanisms underlying regulation of the physiological and pathophysiological responses to both acute and chronic immune activation, including regulation of mood during health and disease states.”

90 minute walks lower rumination

“Participants who went on a 90-minute walk through a natural environment reported lower levels of rumination and showed reduced neural activity in an area of the brain linked to risk for mental illness compared with those who walked through an urban environment.”

View through a window may influence surgery recovery

“Records on recovery after cholecystectomy of patients in a suburban Pennsylvania hospital between 1972 and 1981 were examined to determine whether assignment to a room with a window view of a natural setting might have restorative influences. Twenty-three surgical patients assigned to rooms with windows looking out on a natural scene had shorter postoperative hospital stays, received fewer negative evaluative comments in nurses' notes, and took fewer potent analgesics than 23 matched patients in similar rooms with windows facing a brick building wall.”

The mental and physical health outcomes of green exercise

“The control was running without exposure to images. Blood pressure and two psychological measures (self-esteem and mood) were measured before and after the intervention.” “We conclude that green exercise has important public and environmental health consequences.”

Touching Earth, Finding Spirit: A Passage into the Symbolic Landscape

“To consider landscape from a depth psychological perspective involves a downward movement toward the roots of our being and the wellsprings of our soul. Without a living connection to these roots, we are left only with a dried up and withered perspective of nature and of ourselves. The dig begins in the human psyche, through unpleasant complexes, unruly projections, irrational dreams, and finally reaches down to archetypes and the collective unconscious, to the place where the psyche and the world are the same.”