Health Impact of Nature Views from Windows
Nature Contact in Built Environment for Health Improvement
Apr 21, 2009
Nature contact and its impact on human health is complex. Howard Frumkin, MD, MPH, DrPH reviewing the evidence on healthy places in peer reviewed journal American Journal of Public Health (September 2003) writes "wilderness experiences may be salutary because of the benefits of companionship, being physically active, taking a vacation, or meeting a challenge, and not because of nature contact per se" about nature contact and outdoor recreation.
Benefits of Nature Contact for Some People
Rachel and Steven Kaplan of the University of Michigan argue that nature contact can reduce stress and improve work performance in The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 1995). Outdoor recreation and other nature contact by viewing from a window may have beneficial effects on some people in some places.
Health Impact of Nature Views from Workplace Windows
Examining closely the people-plant relationship, Paula Diane Relf's chapter in edited book Horticulture as Therapy Principles and Practice (CRC Press, 2006), reports on "the finding that simply the knowledge that the view [of natural elements trees and flowers] was available was important to the employees , even if they did not take advantage of it" and other results from a Project Report of the USDA Forest Service 1988 by the Kaplans and Talbot that employees with views of nature through a workplace window "experienced less job pressure, were satisfied with their jobs and reported fewer ailments and headaches" compared to employees with no nature contact within the built environment.
Green Landscaping and Health Improvement
Soft landscaping on display through a window, healthy looking vegetation, has been suggested to have health-related benefits in some people in some places including speeding up recovery in post-operative patients, reported in R.S. Ulrich's paper published in premier journal Science (1984).
Research into working in windowless workplaces, published in Environment and Behaviour journal (1986) reported that workers were more likely to put up nature scenes compared to workers with a view from a window. Dentists have been using pictures of the outdoors including mountain range, wildflower meadows, streams as a way of reducing anxiety in their patients for over 40 years. Nature contact has been linked to lower blood pressure in dental patients, reported Howard Frumkin in 2003.
Research tries to throw light on how views of vegetation growing outside can improve health for some people in some places. Being able to look out of a window may offer some restfulness and mind uplift. As the scientific debates about nature contact and health impact continue, landscape architects, amentity horticulturalist and construction professionals discuss whether workplace windows have views of trees, shrubs and flowers.
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