{"id":39943,"date":"2016-06-29T09:48:43","date_gmt":"2016-06-29T13:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=39943"},"modified":"2016-06-29T09:48:43","modified_gmt":"2016-06-29T13:48:43","slug":"walking-in-naturalized-landfill-areas-improves-mood-connection-to-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2016\/06\/walking-in-naturalized-landfill-areas-improves-mood-connection-to-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"Walking in naturalized landfill areas improves mood, connection to nature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Need a pick-me-up? Just head out to the nearest landfill \u2013 one that\u2019s been converted to a park, that is.<\/p>\n<p>New Brock University research shows strolling through green space that was once a landfill has positive impacts on mood and physical health and encourages a feeling of connectedness to nature.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo one has really ever looked, experimentally, at the extent to which these naturalized landfills are beneficial for mood and overall well-being and yet, we\u2019re restoring these landfills all over the country and the world,\u201d says Shawn Geniole, graduate student and lead author of the <a href=\"http:\/\/online.liebertpub.com\/doi\/pdfplus\/10.1089\/eco.2016.0005\" target=\"_blank\">study published June 27<\/a> in the journal <em>Ecopsychology<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The research team divided 31 participants into two groups. At different times during a one-week period, those in the first group strode through the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.niagararegion.ca\/exploring\/gqns\/pdf\/GlenridgeNaturalization.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Glenridge Quarry Naturalization Site<\/a>\u00a0in St. Catharines while participants in the other group did the same in an adjacent business and commercial zone, which the team called an \u201curban\u201d area.<\/p>\n<p>Participants returned one week later \u2013 at the same time and day \u2013 to walk the opposite route, so that all participants eventually experienced both the nature and urban routes.<\/p>\n<p>Before each walk, participants underwent a battery of tests that measured their mood, alertness, attention level, and amount of cortisol and testosterone in their saliva.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers administered the same tests after each walk, with two additional questionnaires. One rated participants\u2019 relationship with the natural environment and the other asked them about what they noticed \u2013 air quality, number of trees and building, etc. \u2013 in both areas.<\/p>\n<p>By analyzing the before-and-after test results of each walk and then comparing these with results from the other walk, the researchers came up with a number of findings, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>both walks increased alertness and attention<\/li>\n<li>stress levels, as measured by cortisol levels, decreased after both the urban and the nature\u00a0walks to the same degree<\/li>\n<li>participants\u2019 mood improved with the naturalized landfill walk but not with the urban walk<\/li>\n<li>overall, the naturalized landfill walk increased participants\u2019 connectedness to nature more than the urban walk<\/li>\n<li>participants reporting high connectedness to nature showed almost equal benefits to nature, but for those saying they do not feel connected to nature, their mood decreased during the urban walk and increased during the naturalized landfill walk<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cThe main finding is that, although you get positive benefits from both walks, mood improvement was really specific to walking in nature,\u201d says Professor of Psychology Cheryl McCormick, the research team\u2019s leader.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, you can get some stress reduction and attention control increase in both walks, but the real psychological and health benefits \u2013 an improvement in mood \u2013 came from the naturalized landfill walk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Geniole says he hopes the team\u2019s research findings will translate into land use policies and measures that increase not only the number of revitalized landfill sites but green spaces in general in cities and towns.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a crazy amount of unused space in urban areas around the world called \u2018brownfields\u2019 where factories or landfills used to be,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cConverting these brownfields into nature areas presents people the opportunity to improve their quality of life without having to drive six hours up north to get away,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a mini-escape. What we\u2019re showing is some pretty big benefits in boosting mood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Geniole adds that the value of houses near these green spaces also goes up.<\/p>\n<p>The Brock study \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/online.liebertpub.com\/doi\/pdfplus\/10.1089\/eco.2016.0005\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cRestoring land and mind: The benefits of an outdoor walk on mood are enhanced in a naturalized landfill area relative to its neighbouring urban area\u201d<\/a> \u2013\u00a0comes at a time of rapid urbanization worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>The study quotes various research findings that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>more than half of the earth\u2019s population live in urban areas compared to 30 per cent in 1950<\/li>\n<li>people spend, on average, 93 per cent of their lives indoors, with nature-related recreational activities dropping by about 25 per cent since the early 1990s<\/li>\n<li>brownfields occupy anywhere from five to 25 per cent of major cities in North America<\/li>\n<li>there\u2019s an estimated five million acres of brownfields worldwide and half a million acres in the United States alone<\/li>\n<li>people living in cities are more likely to develop mood disorders than those living in the countryside<\/li>\n<li>the likelihood of developing schizophrenia increases with the degree of exposure to an urban environment<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cThose are the people who need nature most, the ones who are least connected with it,\u201d says McCormick. \u201cThey might be most susceptible to the harmful effects of urbanization.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Brock University research shows strolling through green space that was once a landfill has positive impacts on mood and physical health and encourages a feeling of connectedness to nature. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":39871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3319,4052,1,5,38],"tags":[4266,4268,4267],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39943"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39945,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39943\/revisions\/39945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}