The next time you get a headache or feel throbbing from a bruised knee, you might want to grab your phone and watch some baby deer on YouTube. A newly published scientific study is showing that watching scenes of nature can reduce a person’s experience of pain.
Researchers from the University of Vienna and University of Exeter believe this discovery could be a cornerstone in finding new ways to treat and manage pain without relying on oral or intravenous medication. The results also serve as an additional call to protect our environment and wildlife.
- YouTubeyoutu.be
“The fact that this pain-relieving effect can be achieved through a virtual nature exposure which is easy to administer has important practical implications for non-drug treatments, and opens new avenues for research to better understand how nature impacts our minds,” said co-author Alex Smalley at the study’s release. “But we hope our results also serve as renewed evidence for the importance of protecting healthy and functioning natural environments, encouraging people to spend time in nature for the benefit of both the planet and people.”
The study consisted of the scientists monitoring the brain activity of 49 Austrian participants as they received small yet painful electric shocks while watching various videos. When shown nature videos, not only did the participants self-report that they felt less pain but the brain scans showed that their brains were actually processing the pain differently, too. While there have been several subjective and anecdotal reports of nature exposure helping a person manage pain or an illness, there hasn’t been any hard proof of a connection until now.
“Our study is the first to provide evidence from brain scans that this isn’t just a placebo effect—driven by people’s beliefs and expectations that nature is good for them—instead, the brain is reacting less to information about where the pain is coming from and how intense it feels,” said lead author of the study, Max Steininger. “Our findings suggest that the pain-relieving effect of nature is genuine.”
Even prior to this study, going outdoors and experiencing natural settings are linked to several health benefits. The American Psychological Association states that exposure to nature, even just as simple as having a few plants or a garden near your apartment building, can improve a person’s attention span, memory, and cognitive flexibility. The National Library of Medicine found that exposure to “green spaces” led to lower stress and better sleep. Access and exposure to wider green spaces, such as parks, allow people to get more exercise and thus better physical health since it invites people to play and be more active.
- YouTubeyoutu.be
If you live in a concrete jungle, it might be worthwhile to get a plant or two into your home, maybe discuss planting a community garden, and make regular visits to the nearest nature park. While one can argue that you can just watch videos of nature for this particular pain relief benefit, doing such actions will ensure that actual nature spaces will be retained and preserved for in-person enjoyment and future videos to come.
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.