Fast Fact Library

The greening of three middle school schoolyards in Austria reduced students’ physiological stress levels and enhanced their psychological well-being. Students perceived the schoolyard to be more restorative...

Kelz, Christina, Gary W. Evans, and Kathrin Röderer. (2013). The restorative effects of redesigning the schoolyard: A multi-methodological, quasi-experimental study in rural Austrian middle schools. Environment and Behavior, 47(2), 119-139.

People place more value on the future after exposure to nature. The results of three studies -- two laboratory experiments and a field study -- reveal future discount rates 10-16% lower after nature exposure than...

van der Wal, Arianne J., Hannah M. Schade, Lydia Krabbendam, and Mark van Vugt. (2013). Do natural landscapes reduce future discounting in humans? Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences, 280(1773). doi: 10.1098/rspb.2013.2295

Exposure to green space can be associated with stress reduction and increased meditation as indicated by a 2013 Edinburgh study that used portable electroencephalograms (EEGs) to analyze brain wave patterns. Each...

Aspinall, Peter, Richard Coyne, Panagiotis Mavros, and Jenny Roe. (2013). The urban brain: Analysing outdoor physical activity with mobile EEG. British Journal of Sports Medicine.  https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2012-091877

In a study conducted in a Chicago public housing development, women who lived in apartment buildings with trees and grass immediately outside reported greater effectiveness and less procrastination in dealing with...

Kuo, Frances E. (2001). Coping with poverty: Impacts of environment and attention in the inner city. Environment & Behavior, 33(1), 5-34.

Memorial design can have an impact on war veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A study surveyed 62 Vietnam War combat veterans with PTSD before and after visiting Maya Lin’s famous memorial. Veterans...

Watkins, Nicholas, Frances Cole, and Sue Weidemann. (2010). The war memorial as healing environment: The psychological effect of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Vietnam War combat veterans’ posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. Environment and Behavior 42(3), 351-375.

Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) concentrate better after a walk in a city park than after walks in other urban settings.

Taylor, Andrea Faber, and Frances E. Kuo. “Children With Attention Deficits Concentrate Better After Walk in the Park.” Journal of Attention Disorders 12, no. 5 (2009): 402–9. https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054708323000.

Subjects recovered better from low-level stress when looking out a glass window at nature than when looking at a HDTV real-time display of nature through a plasma display, and recovered better when looking at the...

Kahn, Peter H., Batya Friedman, Brian Gill, Jennifer Hagman, Rachel L. Severson, Nathan G. Freier, Erika N. Feldman, Sybil Carrère, and Anna Stolyar. (2008). A plasma display window?—The shifting baseline problem in a technologically mediated natural world. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 28(2), 192-199.

Experiencing nature promotes recovery from crisis better than taking a walk or interacting with friends, and the benefits may be larger for those who are suffering the most. People with many experiences of nature...

Ottosson, Johan, and Patrik Grahn. (2008). The role of natural settings in crisis rehabilitation: How does the level of crisis influence the response to experiences of nature with regard to measures of rehabilitation? Landscape Research, 33(1), 51-70.

Elderly residents in a geriatric home had increased powers of concentration after a visit to a garden, compared to after relaxing in a favorite room indoors. 

Ottoson, Johan and Patrik Grahn. (2005). A Comparison of Leisure Time Spent in a Garden with Leisure Time Spent Indoors: On Measures of Restoration in Residents in Geriatric Care. Landscape Research 30, 1: 23-55.