It has been found to aid sleep and improve memory. Like white noise, pink noise is made up of all the sound frequencies audible to the human ear – but with less volume at the higher frequencies. The rush of river currents and the sound of waves washing ashore fall into the category of “pink noise". The sound of water can gently stimulate this non-directed attention, allowing our minds to rest. There are broadly two kinds of human attention: "directed", the intense concentration we might use when driving a car, and "non-directed", the involuntary attention we might give to distant noises or passing clouds. What if polluters footed the climate bill?Įven the sound of water can be enough to reduce stress in people.The climate films going beyond disaster.In improving our blue spaces, the benefits would be felt in not only health but also the climate crisis, urban liveability, flooding, water quality, biodiversity and community cohesion." "We should be spending more on preventative solutions and health promotion. "Our health systems are overwhelmingly biased towards treating problems when they arise," he says. Reeves says a medical focus on blue spaces could also help prevent health problems in the first place. The trials would evaluate nature as a treatment in the same way as medicines are assessed.
#The blue planet project full
This year, the University of Exeter is working with WWT and MHF’s blue prescribing team to lead a feasibility study that – if successful – will lead to a full clinical trial on nature prescribing over the next few years. Instead of having four days in my bed, I have one or two. "Now, when I feel down, I know to take a step back, breathe. By the end of the second, he couldn't wait to go back.Īkthar says being by the water has allowed his mind "to pan out, to rest". Then, in June this year, his doctor referred him to the Blue Prescribing scheme run by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), a charity.Īfter the first day, he didn't think it was for him. You'd rarely see me."įor years, Akthar tried a range of different therapies but didn't find any that helped him.
"I slept and ignored everyone including my family – and I love my family.
"When I had a bad day, it would take three to four days for me to come out of it," he says. "My depression comes in cycles," says Harune Akthar, speaking from his West London home.Īround ten years ago, the 27-year-old was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, ADHD, depression and anxiety. In fact, blue spaces are so good for your health they can be now prescribed by your doctor. For example, if a river is tree-lined, you have shade." "We know there are four main ways that blue spaces benefit health – through physical activity, stress reduction, providing a space for socialisation environmental factors that have a knock on impact on our health. "They love the sound of running water, having a reflective space to quietly sit, a place to clear your head away from the busy-ness of daily life. "People really value the therapeutic space," says Smith. The research also linked time spent in blue space to a reduction in body mass index (BMI) and a lower risk of mortality. Niamh Smith, a researcher at GCU and co-author of the study, says the team found an impact on both mental and general health from spending time in blue spaces. More recently, experts from Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) have found that spending time in blue spaces lowers the risk of stress, anxiety, obesity, cardiovascular disease and premature death. They collected over a million responses and found that people were by far the happiest when they were in blue spaces. The concept of blue health emerged almost 10 years ago when researchers at the University of Sussex asked 20,000 people to record their feelings at random times. Spending time in blue spaces, says Campbell, can feel like "returning home". Natural spaces that provided pre-modern humans with food, comfort and safety are likely to provide a similar sense of ease even in today's urban world. "The sound of the crashing waves, the smell of salty air, the crunching of sand beneath our toes…The sensations relax our bodies and tell our minds to switch off."Ĭampbell believes humans have "an innate predisposition" towards natural environments that once benefitted us as an evolving species. "Blue spaces provide us with distractions that take our mind away from the day-to-day hassles of life," says Kate Campbell, a health psychology researcher at Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. But many experts now believe blue spaces, such as lakes and rivers, could be even more beneficial than green ones.
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