Vertical greenery can act as a stress buffer, study finds

Vertical greenery 'planted' on the exterior of buildings may help to buffer people against stress, an NTU Singapore study has found. Using VR headsets, 111 participants were asked to walk down a virtual street for five minutes. Participants were randomly assigned to either a street that featured rows of planted greenery or one with only buildings that had green painted walls in place of green plants. The study found that those who viewed buildings which only had green paint experienced a significant increase in stress as recorded by one measure of heart rate variability, while those who viewed the buildings with the green plants did not experience any change in stress. Participants reported feeling less positive when walking through the street with buildings covered by only green walls, while those walking through the street with buildings covered by plants did not report feeling either more or less positive.

Principal investigator of the study, Assoc Prof Lin Qiu from the Psychology program at the NTU School of Social Sciences, said, "With urbanisation, more people are expected to be living in urban areas globally in future. It is thus important for urban city planners and architects to understand factors that can contribute to healthy living, as urban planning can have a direct impact on quality of life for the population."

Read the article here.

Similar articles in Kolibri.press (Russia), Gamers Grade (India), 7thSpace (The Netherlands), ScienceDaily (US), Mirage News (Australia), Bioengineer (UK)

Photo: NTU