The idea that being close to nature is good for mental health may have a lot to commend it, not least after a new study indicated people living in areas with greater bird diversity tended to have better mental health.
Researchers at Carleton University in Canada studied data on bird diversity in the US state of Michigan, provided by citizen scientists. They found that areas with a smaller range of bird species had higher rates of mental health hospitalisations. The findings were published in the journal Geo: Geography and Environment.
Lead author Dr Rachel Buxton suggested the findings indicated that a decline in biodiversity could be “intricately connected” with increased anxiety and mood issues.
Because of this, supporting nature “should not be viewed as a luxury, but a necessity, and evaluated in the context of the support for wellbeing it offers individuals and communities living in urban or nature-scarce environments”, she added.
For those living in west London, urban living may provide all manner of strains that therapy can help with, one of the benefits of this being that it can help people to relax, slow their thoughts down and live in the moment with a less cluttered mind.
It may also be that part of the solution to mental health problems could be sending more time in some of London’s big parks, which not only offer oases of green space, but often have a wide variety of bird life. This could have the same effect of calming the mind.
The Canadian research backs up previous findings reached here in London. Last year, the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London produced research indicating that seeing or hearing birds can give people a mental health boost that lasts for up to eight hours at a time.
Lead researcher Ryan Hammond said the study had shown a “direct link between seeing or hearing birds and positive mood” for the first time.