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Background: We aimed to assess moderation of affective and cognitive effects of a brisk walk by urban environmental characteristics and the immediate social context. Methods: We conducted a field experiment with time (pre-walk, post-walk), type of environment (park, street), and social context (alone, with a friend) as within-subjects factors. Twenty university students reported on affective states and completed a symbol-substitution test before and after each of two 40-minute walks in each environment. The routes differed in amount of greenery, proximity to water, and presence of traffic, buildings, and other people. Results: On average, walking per se increased positive affect and reduced negative affect. Feelings of time pressure declined to a greater extent with the park walk than the street walk. Revitalisation increased during the park walks to a greater degree when alone, but it increased more during the walk along streets when with a friend. We found an inconclusive pattern of results for performance on the symbol-substitution test. Conclusions: Some psychological benefits of a brisk walk depend on the influence of the immediate social context and features of the outdoor urban environment, including natural features such as greenery and water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: People who perform paid work may benefit from psychological restoration afforded by a leisure home and its natural surroundings. This may hinder the development of some forms of life-threatening illness. Using longitudinal register data for 108,114 employed Swedes, we assessed the prospective association between leisure home ownership and death before age 65. Among men, but not among women, leisure home owners had lower odds of early death, after adjustment for sociodemographic and residential characteristics (OR=0.875, 95% CI=0.702–0.980). The results bear on natural environments as health resources, inform debate on urban densification, and broaden the discussion of residence and health [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: People have been bringing plants into residential and other indoor settings for centuries, but little is known about their psychological effects. In the present article, we critically review the experimental literature on the psychological benefits of indoor plants. We focus on benefits gained through passive interactions with indoor plants rather than on the effects of guided interactions with plants in horticultural therapy or the indirect effect of indoor plants as air purifiers or humidifiers. The reviewed experiments addressed a variety of outcomes, including emotional states, pain perception, creativity, task-performance, and indices of autonomic arousal. Some findings recur, such as enhanced pain management with plants present, but in general the results appear to be quite mixed. Sources of this heterogeneity include diversity in experimental manipulations, settings, samples, exposure durations, and measures. After addressing some overarching theoretical issues, we close with recommendations for further research with regard to experimental design, measurement, analysis, and reporting. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Shifting the focus from fear, guilt, and indignation related to deteriorating environmental quality, the authors hypothesized that people who see greater potential for restorative experiences in natural environments also do more to protect them by behaving ecologically, as with recycling or reduced driving. University students (N = 488) rated a familiar freshwater marsh in terms of being away, fascination, coherence, and compatibility, qualities of restorative person-environment transactions described in attention restoration theory. They also reported on their performance of various ecological behaviors. The authors tested a structural equation model with data from a randomly drawn subset of participants and then confirmed it with the data from a second subset. For the combined subsets, perceptions of the restorative qualities predicted 23% of the variance in general ecological behavior. As the only direct predictor, fascination mediated the influences of coherence, being away, and compatibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on psychological restoration and restorative environments is a needed complement to work on stress and environmental stressors. Two laboratory experiments tested the utility of two restorative environments theories, one concerned with directed attention capacity renewal and the other with stress reduction and associated changes in emotion. Various strategies were employed to distinguish restorative effects from other effects, to limit the role of arousal reduction in attentional restoration, and to begin mapping the time course for the emergence of outcomes. Both experiments tested for differential emotional and performance effects as a function of photographic environmental simulation (natural or urban environment). Across the experiments the natural environment simulation engendered generally more positive emotional self-reports. That consistent performance effects were not found in either study suggests that attentional restoration as reflected in performance is a more time-intensive process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]