Urban life has the tendency to be faster paced than rural life. In addition to an already fast-paced and crowded lifestyle, the rise of smart phones have brought an added stress – there is always an email you should be writing, a text you should be answering, a picture you could be capturing. Luckily, recent studies have been looking into the relationship between green spaces and improved mental health in cities. Let’s take a more in depth look at the link between green space and improved mental health.
Benefits of Urban Green Space
In December 2013, researchers from the University of Exeter published a study that compared the fluxing mental health of participants that had moved to greener urban areas and less green urban areas over the course of five years. By analyzing mental health data for 1,064 participants, the researchers found that participants that moved to greener urban areas showed higher mental health scores within the first year of their relocation.1 The study also found that these higher mental health scores persisted until the study ended three years later, meaning that the benefits of green urban space are lasting. These findings are important because they challenge the hedonic treadmill theory, which claims that most of us have a baseline level of happiness, regardless of our circumstances. Ian Alcock, the lead author of the study, stated, “These findings are important for urban planners thinking about introducing new green spaces to our towns and cities, suggesting they could provide long-term and sustained benefits for local communities.”2 The University of Exeter’s study opens up the possibility that access to green space is a way to permanently increase a person’s happiness.
Impacts on the Workplace
iGreen space does not necessarily have to be outside. The average American spends 52 hours per week at a desk, according to the 2000 census. This sedentary lifestyle under fluorescent lights has caused workers to report low job satisfaction and high stress levels.3 Dr. Tina Marie Cade, an Associate Professor of Horticulture at Texas State University, decided to study the effect of “green space” in offices. She had employees who worked in office environments with live plants and window views and employees in office environments without these amenities fill out online surveys about job satisfaction and quality. When she compared the results, Cade found that the employees without live plants or windows described themselves as “dissatisfied” with their quality of life, while the employees with these amenities rated their life and job quality more positively.4
If your office is not willing to add some live plants to the general décor, buy some plants for your personal desk! Succulents are great desk plants because they are drought-tolerant, meaning they can live for a long time, and require very little water and care. If you are interested in making your office a more environmentally sustainable business
Impacts on Children with ADHD
The American Journal of Public Health published a study in 2004 that examined the impacts of green space on children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states, “If untreated, a person with ADHD will struggle with impairments in crucial areas of life, including relationships with peers and family members, and performance at school or work.”5 Current ADHD treatments offer limited relief from symptoms and sometimes cause serious side effects. To analyze the possible beneficial effects of green space on children with ADHD, Dr. Frances E. Kuo and Dr. Andrea Faber Taylor had parents nationwide rate the aftereffects of 49 afterschool and weekend activities on their children’s symptoms. The activities were in a mixture of indoor, built outdoor, and green outdoor settings.6
Doctors Kuo and Taylor found that outdoor activities in green spaces reduced ADHD symptoms significantly more than activities in other settings, despite other factors such as age, gender, income, or geographic region. The children’s symptoms were reduced after spending time in green outdoor settings, despite whether they had spent that time alone, in pairs, or in a larger group. Interestingly, children’s symptoms were also decreased after spending time alone or in pairs in built outdoor settings, but not if that time had been spent in a large group. Similar results were found for indoor settings if the child had spent time alone or in pairs. However, if the time spent indoors was as part of a large group, the study found that children’s symptoms were significantly exacerbated. These results were consistent among children living in a range of settings, from rural to urban.7 The study concluded that adding time in green settings to the daily routine of a child with ADHD will provide relief from symptoms and will help that child function better at school and at home. It may even reduce the dosage of medicine needed to effectively manage ADHD symptoms.8
Improved quality of life at home, at work, and for children with ADHD are just three ways that access to green space is so important for humans. Hopefully moving forward, more will consider the results of these studies when choosing how much green space to incorporate into urban areas.
