Festive spirit
A camel with traditional designs sheared onto it at International Camel Fair in Pushkar, Rajasthan, on Friday. This multi-day annual fair is one of the largest camel and livestock fairs in the country. PTI TORONTO : Simply taking time to notice the nature around you can increase your general happiness and well-being, a study has found.
Researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada examined the connection between taking a moment to look at something from the natural environment and personal well-being.
The study involved a two-week ‘intervention’ where 395 participants were asked to document how nature they encountered in their daily routine made them feel. They took a photo of the item that caught their attention and jotted down a short note about their feelings in response to it.
In the study, published in the Journal of Positive Psychology, other participants tracked their reactions to human-made objects, took a photo and jotted down their feelings, while a third group did neither.
Holli-anne Passmore, a PHD psychology student at UBC, noted that examples of nature could be anything not human built: a house plant, a dandelion growing in a crack in a sidewalk, birds, or sun through a window. “This wasn’t about spending hours outdoors or going for long walks in the wilderness,” she said.
“This is about the tree at a bus stop in the middle of a city and the positive effect that one tree can have on people,” Passmore added.