Author: Nicole Siller, Max Planck Learn
Compilation: Gongzixin
When you hear the cheerful bird song,
You should stop and listen~
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Human Development in Germany and the School of Medicine of the University of Hamburg (UKE) have shown that listening to bird songs can reduce anxiety and paranoia. The results of the study were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
In this study, the researchers studied how traffic noise and bird songs affect mood, paranoia, and cognitive function by conducting a random online experiment on 295 participants. Participants listened to typical traffic noise or bird calls for 6 minutes, different numbers of traffic sounds or bird calls. Before and after listening to the recording, participants filled out a questionnaire that assessed their mental health status and performed a cognitive test.
"Everyone has a certain psychological tendency. Healthy people can also experience anxious thoughts or temporary paranoia. These questionnaires allow us to identify people's tendencies without being diagnosed with depression, anxiety and paranoia and investigate the effects of bird singing or traffic sounds on these tendencies." said Emil Stobbe, first author and member of the Environmental Neuroscience Group of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
Current research shows that listening to bird songs can reduce anxiety and paranoia in healthy participants. In this experiment, bird calls seem to have no effect on the depression state, but traffic noise often aggravates the depression state, especially when the audio clip contains a variety of different traffic sounds. The positive effects of bird songs on emotions are already known, but the authors say the study reveals for the first time the impact of bird songs on paranoid states. This has nothing to do with whether the birds’ songs come from two or more different birds. The researchers also found that neither bird singing nor traffic noise affects cognitive performance.
In the researchers' view, the explanation for these effects is that bird song is a subtle hint of a complete natural environment that distracts people from stressors , which could otherwise be a serious threat signal. Taken together, these results provide interesting avenues for further research and application, such as proactively manipulating background noise in different situations, or examining its effects on patients diagnosed with anxiety or paranoia.
bird song can also be used to prevent mental disorders. "Listening CDs is a simple and easy intervention. But if we could already show this effect in online experiments conducted by participants, we could assume that this effect is even stronger outdoors in nature," Stobbe said.
"A recent study we have shown that walking in nature for one hour can reduce stress-related brain activity," added Simone Kühn, head of the research team. "At present, we cannot say which characteristics of nature - smell, sound, color, or combination of the three - are the causes of this effect. However, the current study provides a further basis for clarifying this issue. It is certain that nature can improve mental health and happiness." If you live in the city, you can also go to suburban forests and
. The central park of the street is also possible.
Reference source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01720-6
