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How Trees Calm Us Down

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Re: How Trees Calm Us Down

#61

Post by Ntrails »

rangibaby wrote: post #19
greggman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who suffers from hay fever being around trees can be weeks of pain for me every year

There is a massive, recent hayfever problem in Japan because cedar trees planted to be used for timber after WWII weren't as construction methods changed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hay_fever_in_Japan

The thing that always gets me is that when I spent summers in canada I experienced not an iota of hayfever, but I get pretty significant symptoms in the UK. I think it's about the only strong draw to emmigration at some point in the future!

Re: How Trees Calm Us Down

#62

Post by JustSomeNobody »

Interesting. I love walking among the southern live oaks around where I live. They're just amazing trees. There was one that got hit by lightening a couple weeks back and split down the middle. I actually felt empathy for it. These trees are usually hundreds of years old.

Re: How Trees Calm Us Down

#63

Post by frankquist »

nxzero wrote: post #9
eggy wrote: post #6

I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, but moved out to rural NJ in my thirties. I bought a house on a lake with no motorboats, plenty of black bears and raccoons and lots of trees. I now live in the rice fields of East Java, Indonesia, so I guess you can say I love the outdoors. I do question the science or numbers in the study as much as I believe the basic premise to be true, however, correlation does not automati…

Agree, wildlife & wilderness is great, but my guess is that there's a confounding factor such as wealth, population density, etc. that has more of an impact on health than trees. Personally, tree are exciting to me, not calming.

The study accounted for both income and area income. So while there may be a confounding factor, I assume wealth is out of the picture. It doesn't seem to have accounted for population density however.

Re: How Trees Calm Us Down

#64

Post by ghettoCoder »

ObeyTheGuts wrote: post #30
anilgulecha wrote: post #7

One hypothesis is that we've also evolved to associate greenery with healthy land and lifestyle. I can see why these signals from millions of years can have the 1% quoted effect.

I think its obvious, we like rivers, mountains, flowers, greenery as they all represent fertillity of the land! (Mountains mean that there will be water even in draughts)

Only if you consider Coors Light, the mountain beer, to be water (which it is).

Draught is the british (and Canada, other places as well) spelling for draft as in draft beer. Not trying to be grammar nazi, just thought it was funny cause the typo was somewhat well placed.

Re: How Trees Calm Us Down

#65

Post by frankquist »

bagacrap wrote: post #52
mkolodny wrote: post #17

From what I've seen living in Toronto, NYC and Montreal, streets with nicer houses/apartments tend to have more trees. Those neighborhoods also tend to be quieter. Take the example of NYC. The Upper East Side and Clinton Hill are two neighborhoods with a relatively large number of trees. Both of those neighborhoods are two of the most expensive and quiet neighborhoods in Manhattan/Brooklyn. So it could just be that q…

In cases like this, trees are a luxury for the rich. Not being gripped by poverty might have a calming effect.

The study controls for income & area income, so that calming effect should already be accounted for.

Re: How Trees Calm Us Down

#66

Post by nxzero »

abrookewood wrote: post #18
nxzero wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, wildlife & wilderness is great, but my guess is that there's a confounding factor such as wealth, population density, etc. that has more of an impact on health than trees. Personally, tree are exciting to me, not calming.

What about the evidence of earlier discharge at the same hospital? It wasn't clear how carefully that was evaluated, but surely that would nullify wealth, population density etc since the only difference was the room that people were put in.

First, just to be clear, issue at hand is the title, which states trees CAUSE calmness which CAUSES health.

All the research shows is there's a link between trees and health; aka there's a correlation, not causation.

Best example I'm aware of of "confounding factor" is that there's an obvious correlation between an increase in people drowning in pools and ice cream consumption rates. Eating ice cream does not cause drowning, nor do drownings cause people to eat ice cream. Hot weather causes people to swim more, which increases the odds someone will drown.

All I'm saying is this research does not show causation or look for confounding factors, which might show the correlation itself is a false positive.

Re: How Trees Calm Us Down

#67

Post by cylinder »

mkolodny wrote: post #17

From what I've seen living in Toronto, NYC and Montreal, streets with nicer houses/apartments tend to have more trees. Those neighborhoods also tend to be quieter. Take the example of NYC. The Upper East Side and Clinton Hill are two neighborhoods with a relatively large number of trees. Both of those neighborhoods are two of the most expensive and quiet neighborhoods in Manhattan/Brooklyn. So it could just be that q…

The term is "leafy suburbs" or "leafy neighborhoods."

Re: How Trees Calm Us Down

#68

Post by purplerabbit »

elcapitan wrote: post #15

Having trees in the city is nice, and Berlin has an ok level (at least where I live). But I recently started to do long weekend day hikes in the area around the city, and the effect is even better. The constant change of natural forms while moving really frees up my mind and floods it with new impressions that I don't have on my work days. I used to have a meditative effect from running, but it has become a bit too m…

I fully agree. Trees (and plants in general, and rocks) are more fractal, and contain interesting detail on many levels... There's something pacifying about being around them vs flat, rectangular urban surfaces.

Re: How Trees Calm Us Down

#69

Post by amelius »

infinite8s wrote: post #53
amelius wrote: post #37

I can see a market for a VR movie/game which allows the user to walk/drive through (or just sit in) a forest :)

I think that would only work if you could capture the olfactory sensations from being in a forest, and the exposure to the sun's UV rays (which trigger production of Vitamin D, which has been linked to depression and mental state).

So when you have a cold and cannot smell anything, you don't enjoy a walk through the forest?

Re: How Trees Calm Us Down

#70

Post by boxy310 »

nxzero wrote: post #66
abrookewood wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the evidence of earlier discharge at the same hospital? It wasn't clear how carefully that was evaluated, but surely that would nullify wealth, population density etc since the only difference was the room that people were put in.

First, just to be clear, issue at hand is the title, which states trees CAUSE calmness which CAUSES health. All the research shows is there's a link between trees and health; aka there's a correlation, not causation. Best example I'm aware of of "confounding factor" is that there's an obvious correlation between an increase in people drowning in pools and ice cream consumption rates. Eating ice cream does not cause d…

This is why studying marginal effects -- like when the Emerald Ash Borer invaded county-by-county and caused a discrete time-series event that you can analyze before-and-after, as mentioned in the article -- is so critical.
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