A new neuroimaging report says merely looking at nature can help ease how people experience pain by reducing the brain activity linked to pain perception.
It is well known to reduce feelings of anxiety and depression as well, and the report serves as a reminder of how much good the great outdoors can do for the heavily-medicated US population.
Published in the journal Nature Communications and led by a team from the University of Vienna and University of Exeter, the research offers a “promising foundation for new types of non-pharmacological pain treatments”.
“This study highlights how virtual encounters can bring the healing potential of nature to people when they can’t get outside,” Dr. Alex Smalley, a coauthor from the University of Exeter, explained at the release of the study.
“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 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.”
In the study, researchers monitored the brain activity of 49 participants in Austria, using an fMRI scanner, as they received pain delivered through a series of small electric shocks.
When they were watching videos of a natural scene compared to a city or an indoor office, participants not only reported feeling less pain, but scans showed the specific brain responses associated with processing pain changed too.
The study used advanced machine-learning to analyse the brain networks which are related to pain processing.
The team discovered that the raw sensory signals the brain receives when something hurts were reduced when watching a carefully designed, high quality, 5-minute, virtual nature scene. What’s more, when shown the five-minute video of the urban scene, it was also rated as a highly beautiful space, as it included (like the nature scene) a body of water disturbed by wind ripples, only surrounded by man-made elements like walls, chairs, and pathways rather than trees and hills.
This finding suggests that beauty or orderliness (the third, indoor scene was a perfectly ordered office space with the soundtrack of a fan and far away traffic) wasn’t a key factor in the pain reduction effect observed.
The study confirmed previous findings that suggest nature can reduce subjective reports of pain, and also marks the first clear demonstration of how natural environments influence the brain, helping to buffer against unpleasant experiences.
“Numerous studies have shown that people consistently report feeling less pain when exposed to nature,” said University of Vienna PhD student Max Steininger, the lead author of the study. “Yet until now, the underlying reasons for this effect were unclear.
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“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.”
“Our findings suggest that the pain-relieving effect of nature is genuine.”
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The paper also helps shed light on a longstanding mystery of the healing potential of natural settings.
Over forty years ago, a seminal study from pioneering American researcher, Roger Ulrich, showed how hospital patients used fewer painkillers and recovered faster when their windows overlooked a green space instead of a brick wall.
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Yet following decades of research, the mechanisms underlying this effect remained unknown.
The new findings provide the first “robust” explanation of why Ulrich’s patients might have experienced less pain, and demonstrate how virtual nature encounters could bring these benefits to anyone, anywhere—providing a non-invasive, accessible pathway to pain management.
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