ScienceDaily: Feeling chirpy: Being around birds is linked to lasting mental health benefits

“This improvement was also evident in people with a diagnosis of depression -- the most common mental illness worldwide -- indicating the potential role of birdlife in helping those with mental health conditions.

Published in Scientific Reports, the study used smartphone application Urban Mind to collect people's real-time reports of mental wellbeing alongside their reports of seeing or hearing birdsong.

This project was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC), National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre and the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration South London.

Lead author Ryan Hammoud, Research Assistant at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King's College London, said: "There is growing evidence on the mental health benefits of being around nature and we intuitively think that the presence of birdsong and birds would help lift our mood. However, there is little research that has actually investigated the impact of birds on mental health in real-time and in a real environment. By using the Urban Mind app we have for the first time shown the direct link between seeing or hearing birds and positive mood. We hope this evidence can demonstrate the importance of protecting and providing environments to encourage birds, not only for biodiversity but for our mental health.""`

Some Insights From This Article

• Did you know that hearing birds chirping can lead to better mental outcomes? There is now some correlational evidence that bird chirping in the environment can improve our general mental states.

• This supports a growing body of research that posits the benefits of nature to our mental health. However, what particular parts of nature specifically helps us? Studies like these aim to see which specific sensory cues lead to better outcomes.

Do you like the sound of birds chirping?

Full article is here!

#Birds #Chirping #Nature