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Medicine Science

There's a Curious Effect Urban Trees Might Have On Depression (sciencealert.com) 81

Posted by BeauHD from the more-trees-please dept.
omfglearntoplay shares a report from ScienceAlert: There's already a long list of reasons to like trees, we know. Warding off depression could be the latest entry on that list, based on a study of 9,751 residents in Leipzig, Germany. For a more consistent measure, researchers used antidepressant prescriptions rather than self-reporting to gauge the mental health of communities, and then cross-referenced these statistics with the numbers of street trees in each area. They reported that more local foliage within 100 meters (328 feet) of the home was associated with a reduced likelihood of being prescribed antidepressants -- findings that could be very useful indeed for city planners, health professionals, and governments.

The reduction in antidepressant use linked to street trees was particularly prominent in socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. While it's important not to take such findings too far, the results do hint that urban trees could act as a simple and affordable way of boosting mental health and assist in closing health inequality gaps across society. The research has been published in Scientific Reports.
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There's a Curious Effect Urban Trees Might Have On Depression More

There's a Curious Effect Urban Trees Might Have On Depression

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  • Trees and birds? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by malkavian ( 9512 ) on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @10:25PM (#61021588)

    There's a lot of work that's been done correlating visibility, and audibility of birds to mental health.
    Essentially, if you see and hear birds in your day, you tend to feel more relaxed. There's a lot of philosophical discussion as to why this may be (we've evolved alongside birds, and they're a great indicator of danger as they see it before we do, and so on), but it's a minor, but statistically significant effect.
    Birds prosper when there are a greater number of trees (places to perch and roost in safety, and find food, as trees attract insects).

    More trees, and you'll have more birds, so more chance of that effect. If you get that effect by trees alone, then even better!

    • You beat me to it! I was chatting with my wife and mused how perhaps it's not the trees, but birdsong. But now all I can do is agree with you.

      • I know for myself it's literally looking out on trees that improves my mood... birdsong might be another positive factor, but it's not required for the effect.

        I'd also suggest the people linking money and happiness are skipping the step where money gets you better views which helps increase happiness; but it's realistic for everyone to have access to trees, ocean views are harder to come by.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by malkavian ( 9512 )

          Yeah, I've always had depression, and it hit just as hard when I was quite affluent as it does now (I'm comfortable, but actually happier doing what I do now for far less cash)..
          The thing that I found really helped was building up the local bird population (before I started, there were almost no birds in the area, after a good 5 years of tending them, there are now always loads of birds around, and big broods every year that I do my best to feed, house, and keep healthy.
          I also carry a small bag of bird seed

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by kenh ( 9056 )

            The thing that I found really helped was building up the local bird population (before I started, there were almost no birds in the area, after a good 5 years of tending them, there are now always loads of birds around, and big broods every year that I do my best to feed, house, and keep healthy.

            Do you own a car wash in the area?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by pjt33 ( 739471 )

            Do you live in the UK? British robins tend to be very comfortable around people, but continental robins tend to be much more wary.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by narcc ( 412956 )

            Sounds like you're living life right.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          I don't know... I mean, I've had a crow screech outside my window every day for a week. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have done anything other than make me want to toss something at said crow. Though, it is not a good idea to harass corvids since they can get revenge. Especially corvids that are known to recognize human faces and communicate it to other corvids in the area.

    • Not many birds in city trees
      Those trees are usually heavily cut. Leaving way too much insight into the crowd, for birds to feel comfortable (or trees to be healthy, btw.).

      I lived on streets with trees and next to a park and next to a forest, and the difference is extreme.
      Also, a 15 minute circus show of cute squirrels with bushy ears doing acrobatics and stealing eggs each morning gave me much more joy than any "cold" birds ever did. :)

  • Here's a quote from the paper:

    "this relationship was marginally significant when confounding factors were considered."

  • I am not a scientist, and I have no studies to back up what I am about to write, but it is obvious to me that being around nature makes people happier, more relaxed human beings. I have lived in environments where I am surrounded by nature, and I have lived in environments surrounded by concrete and buildings. Absolute no brainer that the former is healthier. I imagine our brick and mortar world goes against hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.

    One corollary from my non-scientific opinion: cities

    • Exactly! I understand that we need data and an actual scientific approach to confirm ideas and hypothesises, but sometimes it doesnt take a genius to realize the obvious. Humans have, for millions of years, lived surrounded by greenery and nature. In the last 100 years, this natural backdrop has nearly completely disappeared from our daily lives.
      The fact that a scientific paper is needed to confirm this idea is the worrying part.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dwywit ( 1109409 )

      You don't have to be a scientist to figure that out - just a parent. Watch for the look in the eyes of city children who visit a rural home - one that's got trees and forests nearby.

  • Seems there's a mental health benefit to living in the 'burbs or rural areas. Perhaps we're not wired from hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to live in small concrete rooms in concrete jungles. Urbanization isn't healthy in many, many ways - including psychologically.

  • Trees can work (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SimonInOz ( 579741 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @01:00AM (#61021920)

    In my inner city Sydney suburb, we had a rather troublesome street. The council noticed it was rather wide, so went to a lot of trouble building a central divider, and populating it with trees and flowers.
    It seems to have worked. It certainly feels nicer, and we seem to have somewhat less trouble.

    Good work!

  • I come from country town in NSW Australia called Kyogle. That place just seems to hate trees, even though it gets very hot there (45+ degrees C during peaks in summer). But for some reason they have less trees in the streets now than when I was a kid. Pretty often the Kyogle FB group has queries about beautification, about what to change in the town and often there are calls for more trees, there are also some that seem to hate the idea of shade - usually quoting some lame excuse like having trees would ta

    • The secret is that trees require maintenance.
      Streets need to be cleaned a lot more. Dead branches need to be cut before they fall down and mayyyybe in a thousand years hit someone.

      Of course if one actually uses one's brain, the leaves and such are not a problem, but fun to walk on, and naturally rot away by themselves. And the branches just require some common sense and not being ignorant of one's surroundings when walking. Just like in a forest.

      But insurance and people in a walking daze all day every day a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dwywit ( 1109409 )

      That's a shame. I'm in SE Qld and there are local councils here who seem to recognise that trees and greenery in town spaces are a good thing.
      When I see people just sitting under a tree in the street, it's a good thing.

      • When I see people just sitting under a tree in the street, it's a good thing.

        When I see someone just sitting under a tree in the street around here, I wonder what went wrong - New Orleans, where 30C is a cool summer day, and 90% humidity is rather dry....

  • To the extent that is an actual effect, it might be not specific to trees but more generally that beauty is uplifting.

    There was another much earlier experimental finding that people who live in cities crave trees, but I can't seem to Bing it up right now. I know that when I lived in Manhattan I did.

    At any rate, having admired old city and town photos which predate the Dutch Elm disease epidemic in the United States, I am very conscious of the magnificence of a mature tree-lined street. That is a specific

    • > to Bing it up

      Microsoft Headquarters: WE FOUND SOMEBODY! WE ACTUALLY FOUND SOMEBODY WHO USES THAT PHRASE!! *pops Champaigne bottle cork*

      _ _ _ _
      filter error: don't use so many caps. it's like yelling.

  • Those are highly addictive hard drugs!!
    Don't just freakin give them to people if there is any way ro avoid it! Definitely not just for your stupid study!

    But I'm already wondering: There are still people living in east Germany?? ;) I thought they had all fled to somewhere else, with all the apartments being empty and there being no jobs amd nothing anymore. How many of them were N@zis? All of them or all of them? ;) (Only Germans will get this. Americans: Just ignore it. :)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      A sarcasm tag would have helped - and I doubt there were any more N@zis in East Germany than there were in West Germany - before the wall went up, a great number of Germans were members of the N@zi party.

      Again, your sarcasm was noted.

  • "Nature knows no boredom. It is an invention of the city dwellers." -- Schopenhauer

  • For a more consistent measure, researchers used antidepressant prescriptions rather than self-reporting to gauge the mental health of communities, and then cross-referenced these statistics with the numbers of street trees in each area. They reported that more local foliage within 100 meters (328 feet) of the home was associated with a reduced likelihood of being prescribed antidepressants.

    What flipping pseudo-science.

    Perhaps, living in a community with more foliage means you are among the more affluent in an area - leading to a reduction in depression.

    For those that either didn't go to law school, study latin, or watch The West Wing, the subject "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" loosely translates to "after this, therefore resulting from it". We have no reason to believe the trees have any influence over the levels of depression, simply by assessing the number of tress in a given area, then count

  • This mantra can't be repeated enough. Just because you have high correlation doesn't mean that it's in any way related and it seems this "research" didn't even consider that. You know what else is directly related to number of trees? Location. It's much more likely that it's the location of the subject that is related to depression, number of trees has nothing to do with it.

  • Streets with trees are usually where moe well-off people live, as the apartments cost more. And more well-off people can afford things that give them better chances at being mentally healthy.

    We should check the available money and the rents in those places.

  • Quite a number of posts assume that an area with more trees is more affluent than an area with less trees, so that the apparent benefits of trees near your home is actually due to better income, which no doubt has some benefits to mental health, when compared to poverty. But I would challenge the assumption that having trees near your home indicates better income. In my particular area of Birmingham, England, there are quite a few mature trees, some in gardens, some in public spaces. I do not consider my ar

  • Since the dawn of time, many cultures, and their religions, ascribed special properties to trees. In turn, they often advocated a specialized (or ritualized) personal outdoor experience as part of the life of faith.
    Urban planning has long embraced the concept of urban forests. What started out as a design asthetic was quickly realized to have other benefits: the presence of trees made people happier. As the middle class grew, the urban forest spread out from the enclaves of the wealthy into m

  • Humans are not very well designed for living shoulder-to-shoulder in crowded urban hellholes, particularly those with zero aesthetic merit (eg no trees). I'd quite like to see effects on brain chemistry as a subject wanders around different areas of a big city, from the utilitarian concrete boxes and out to the leafy suburbs.
  • I'm originally from Sheffield in the UK [madeinsheffield.org], and hopefully that picture speaks for itself. Despite being the UK's 4th largest city, it is also referred to sometimes as "England's largest village".

    A prime reason for this was the spectacular turnaround in air quality and environment due the greening of the city during, I believe (could be earlier), primarily the 80s. I came to simply expect this all around me, and I have to say that moving to other cities when I was younger was quite a change. There were alway

  • What could trees do within 100 meters?

    Green is nicer than brick and concrete: 3/10 - subjective
    Fresher air: 4/10 - minimal
    Leaves dull traffic sounds: 5/10 - a lot
    Reminder of spring, christmas, vacations, and better times: 7/10 - subjective
    Leaves dull traffic lights: 8/10 - entirely
    Trees are legally protected: 9/10 - can't cut them down, can't run too many power lines.
    Birds chirp: 10/10 -- absolutely

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