Well-being and attending to nature

The other day, I came across an interesting piece of research exploring the psychological impact of paying attention to the natural world. It is Whitney Fleming, Brian Rizowy, and Assaf Shwartz (2024) ‘The Nature Gaze: Eye-tracking Experiment Reveals Well-being Benefits Derived from Directing Visual Attention towards Elements of Nature’. People and Nature, 4 June 2024 (available at https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10648). Here is the abstract:

1. The urban lifestyle has a profound effect on mental health, contributing significantly to the challenges faced by people who reside in urban areas. Growing empirical evidence underscores the potential of nature to alleviate these mental health burdens. However, we still lack understanding of which specific natural elements provide these benefits.

2. Using eye-tracking technology, we experimentally explored the relationships between intentional visual attention to natural (green) and human-made (grey) elements in urban areas and their association with well-being measures. Participants took a 45-min outdoor walk that simulates a walk to and from work, in which we examined pre- and post- measures of cognition, affect, anxiety and perceived restorativeness. Participants were prompted to direct their attention to green, grey or a mixture of both elements. By analysing participants’ eye movements and patterns, we determined adherence to experimental conditions and related visual attention to natural elements.

3. The experimental groups instructed to direct their visual attention to green, grey or a mix of both infrastructures exhibited differences in negative and positive affect, anxiety and perceived restorativeness, but not in cognition after a walk in an urban environment.

4. The percentage of time spent viewing natural elements showed that people who focused more on green features reported a decrease in anxiety and higher perceived restorativeness. In contrast, those who spent more time viewing grey elements reported increased anxiety and lowered perceived restorativeness. The percentage of time viewing natural elements was not linked to affect or cognition. Viewing trees showed the strongest association with well-being measures compared to other natural elements.

5. Together, our results indicate that a simple behaviour change (directing visual attention to elements of nature instead of grey elements) can produce mental health benefits in the form of reducing anxiety and perceived restoration for people in urban areas. Thus, efforts to integrate nature, especially trees, in urban areas and promote city dwellers to visually interact with it during their daily routine can improve mental issues associated with urban lifestyle.

Impostor syndrome strikes again

A couple of weeks ago I gave a presentation (via Zoom) to the annual conference of the St John Chrysostom Research Group (meeting this year in Tbilisi). And, once again, I found myself overwhelmed by impostor syndrome. As a relatively recent convert to Orthodoxy, what right do I have to talk Orthodox theology to a gathering of Orthodox theologians?

In one way or another, I have been practising theology for about forty years. And, while I only became Orthodox recently, I have for much of that time been in dialogue with Orthodox theology. One might think that by I would have developed a certain confidence about my work. In fact, the opposite is true. As the years go by, I simply become more conscious of how much I have not read, of how little I actually know with any degree of confidence. Perhaps that is as it should be. The subject of theology is, of course, infinite. How can I, a finite human being, even begin to grasp anything worth knowing? Finitum non capax infiniti.

There is an image, which I think was proposed by Sir Arthur Eddington to describe the quandary of the astronomer trying to make sense of the universe. He is like a bug in the hold of a ship trying to deduce the nature of the ocean from the movement of the ship. The situation of the theologian would be infinitely worse if it were not for the fact that God, in his grace, has revealed himself to us.

Thus I try to justify my impostor syndrome as something to be expected by a theologian. But the truth is, I have always suffered from impostor syndrome. I can still recall my surprise at getting half decent school exam results. And my shock when Dan Hardy congratulated me on getting my PhD. The surprise (and, yes, pleasure) on hearing Colin Gunton telling Robert Jenson how much he had learned by supervising that PhD. But then and now I am mainly conscious of how little I really know.

Facing the shadows

Just before his death from cancer, the theologian Alan Lewis wrote the following:

We face suffering, distress, and death with courage, faith and trust, not by maintaining serenity of psyche or buoyancy of soul within, but precisely by casting ourselves in all the times of emptiness, aridity, and wordlessness – as well as those still more spiritually dangerous times of optimism or elation – upon the gift of grace outside us and around us. God promises to do what we cannot do, and go where we need not go, to enter the dark valley ahead of us and defeat on our behalf the frightening foe. And the Spirit undertakes to pray for us, and stirs others to intercede on our behalf, just when we feel awful, overwrought in body or in spirit, when faith eludes intellect or consciousness and our tongues have lost all utterance.(Between Cross and Resurrection, p. 430f.)

There’s not much one can add to that, except perhaps ‘Amen!’ And, of course, this applies as much to times of darkness and depression as to when facing terminal illness.

Winter is coming

 The clocks have gone back. The nights have drawn in and the sun is setting by about 4.00 p.m. And the first frosts have arrived. Autumn is giving way to winter.

And with the arrival of winter, many of us just want to hibernate until spring. We feel down. Some of show signs of full-blown depression. With winter come the first signs of seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

Time to get out the daylight lamps. But what else can we do to combat the winter blues?

A team of researchers from Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities has created a set of resources to help people affected by SAD to manage their winters more proactively and creatively. A couple of weeks ago, I attended a presentation which introduced them and found the afternoon very helpful. I am particularly looking forward to working through the online course they have prepared in conjunction with the Living Life to the Full team. Details of it and of the other resources are available on their website (here).