Sweet chirrups of birdsong can lift mood for hours

BIRDSONG can boost mental well-being, with the benefits felt for more than four hours, scientists have found. Researchers who asked volunteers to record their moods on an app as they moved around cities found that even short exposures to nature were hugely beneficial.

The well-being improvement from birdsong, trees or seeing the sky was found to be present hours later, King’s College researchers found.

Dr Andrea Mechelli, a psychology expert from King’s College London, said: “The interaction ... is intriguing, as it suggests that nature could be especially beneficial to those individuals who are at risk of poor mental health. We hope this line of research will lead to the development of low-cost scalable interventions aimed at promoting mental health in urban populations.”

For the study, 108 individuals were monitored using the Urban Mind app and between them completed 3,013 assessments over a one-week period.

Lucia Robertson, a participant, said: “It encouraged me to think hard about what kind of city I want to live in.”