Life, events and nature
On the role of nature in helping to manage the emotional impact of life events.
Hello. Welcome to this edition of Compassionate Nature, the weekly research digest, which this week looks at life events and how nature can perhaps help with related emotional distress.
Before that I would like to thank everyone who read the last edition which was prompted by the death of our family dog. I have had some rather lovely and supportive comments over the last week or so, with each and every one meaning a great deal.
You have probably heard the phrase ‘life event”. It is often accompanied by other words such as stress, traumatic or resilience, although those last two words can be over-used or not used in line with their appropriate psychological meaning.
Within psychology a life event has a few definitions. Scott Monroe and George Slavich writing in The Oxford Handbook of Stress and Mental Health highlight a life event occurs when there is a change in a context or situation which has a specific start point and places a level of psychological demand upon those involved. Examples include bereavement, moving house, starting or ending employment, and having a baby. Many of these events will occur to us all, which Monroe and Slavich suggest can make such events seem obvious or relatable which in turn may undermine the perception by some people of how stressful they can be. The related stress and emotional burden varies by situation and by individual, which may mean that generalisation of the impacts can sometimes cause issues and misunderstandings. Broadly some life events are seen as positive, for example starting a new job, or as negative, for example developing a serious illness.
But how do we define what is a major or a minor life event ? Is it by how the event is perceived socially or culturally, or is it by the unique impact it can have on someone ? More importantly, is the context within which the life event occurs the key determining factor of whether they are positive or negative?
Psychologists and researchers often assess the impact to people based on number of life events they experience and a calculated related stress level, although more recently this has been challenged with more emphasis on considering the context around the event and how that contributes to how the individual experiences the event as a positive or negative one. Whether the life event is seen as positive or negative, it can often involve stress.
As nature can play an important part in helping with psychological distress, by offering a restorative environment which may help reduce stress, nature may therefore be a moderating factor on the impacts from emotionally demanding life events. With a major life event of our own upcoming I did a quick Google Scholar search for research on nature and life events. This produced a couple of papers which specifically looked at that relationship in different ways although they were not published as recently as usual for the research digest. There will be other papers which look at specific life events and nature, such as responding to an acute chronic illness, but I wanted to look at what research was available which considered how nature may help generally with life events.
Green space
Agnes van den Berg and a Dutch research team published a paper in 2010 that considered the relationship between greenspace, health and impact of life events. The research team wanted to explore whether living in areas with access to greenspaces helped reduce the severity of the overall health impacts from life events and whether greenspace afforded a buffer to the related stress. Based on other research the authors highlight that natural environments provide spaces to reflect on life, priorities and choices following a life event, with some of that research suggesting this was most helpful in greenspaces that were not local and were away from home.
The study used data from just over 4500 Dutch adults (18 years old and over) which provided information on their recent health and experience of life events. Greenspace was calculated within 1km and 3km (excluding spaces within the first 10m) of their postal code. The participants reported any actual health issues within the previous two weeks, their perception of their health, and experiences of life events across their life and during the previous three months. Most life events were included based on an existing research measure, with the exclusion of illness or injury given this would influence the health dimension. Demographic variables such as gender, age, income and education were factored into the analysis.
The results suggested a significant relationship between life events upon increased number of health conditions and lower perceived mental wellbeing. From the overall sample, 866 participants had experienced a life event within the previous 3 months, and the data suggested that the more greenspace within 3km of these participants the more likely they were to report less health conditions and higher perceptions of overall health. However no effect was noted in mental health levels within the 3km threshold and no significant effects at all were noted within 1km.
So while this can be interpreted as suggesting that access to greenspace further away from home may provide some respite from stressful life events, which may support having fewer health issues and a perception of good health, it did not show any evidence for buffering effects from nature. The results are limited as no casual relationship can be inferred, the effects were all small sized, and the actual use of greenspace by individuals was not captured. The authors suggest that the results may support the idea of reflection after life events in greenspaces away from the local area. For me there are a lot of confounding variables which may also account for the results, some of which are not connected to life events or indeed greenspace.
Walking
While that study considered a passive engagement or exposure to nature, Melissa Marselle and colleagues 2019 paper looks at more active contact, by looking at the role of walking within natural environments and how this may help with managing the mental wellbeing impacts of stressful life events.
Walking is seen as a relatively inexpensive, accessible physical activity and studies have shown benefits from nature-based group walks upon mental wellbeing, so the authors wanted to see if this activity could be beneficial to address impacts from life events. The study considered whether life events were less impactful on those who regularly walked in nature and if frequency of walking influenced the benefits.
The study sample consisted of just over 1500 participants, with 1081 nature-walkers, of whom 631 were classed as frequent walkers (undertook a walk at least once a week). The remaining 435 participants were not nature-walkers and provided a comparison sub-sample. There were no differences across the walking sub-sample and comparison sub-sample in terms of life event frequency, although there were more health conditions reported in the comparison sub-sample and greater physical activity levels in the walker sub-samples.
The emotional impacts from life events was found to be similar across both walking and comparison sub-samples. No significant relationship was found between nature-walking and mental health, which suggests that the activity did not provide a buffer to the impacts of life events. Frequency of walking was also found to have no influence. More granular analysis found that participants experiencing at least 1 recent life event were more likely to report higher stress, more depressive symptoms, greater negative emotions and fewer positive emotions. Overall participants in the nature-walking sub-samples were more likely to report less stress, fewer depressive symptoms, less negative emotions and more positive emotions. So while no buffering was found which may have lessened the impacts of life events, the authors suggest that walking in nature may provide help in recovery from the impacts. They also wondered if the social element of walking in groups reduced the opportunity for personal reflection and required higher attention levels which may have reduced some of the mental restoration that being in a natural environment can provide. Again no causality can be established. The participants in the comparison sub-sample may have undertaken other nature-based physical activity and individuals with overall better mental wellbeing may have been more likely to take part in the walks, both of which would influence the results.
So overall while both studies have some results which may be interpreted as nature helping towards mitigating the impacts of life events, the evidence from these correlational studies is small and comes with a number of caveats. I wondered if the results were also due to the the studies considering a wide range of life events, which may share being stressful but could have various accompanying emotions specific to the event, such as grief, which may effect mental wellbeing in different ways. It could also be the case that exposure to nature helps with specific elements of the distress from a life event in different ways rather in the more generalised way that the studies looked at.
“The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.”
Whenever I think about life and the way that life events crop up I am often reminded of the quote from Terry Pratchett’s Moving Picture novel. It can feel like we make life up as we go along, navigating the small and the big events as best we can. Some of those events are joyful, they bring happiness and contentment. Some events are hard, emotionally challenging and introduce changes that we would rather not have happened. The effects of events can last for months or years.
While the research does not show clear links of nature to help buffer the effects of stressful life events, they hint at the reflection and restoration that many people experience from being in nature, away from daily life. If you add this to the wider evidence base then I think you can make the argument that being in nature, connecting with it, can provide some respite from the stress that events in life can bring.
Another part of managing stress, both generally and especially around life events, is thinking about how you can sustainably navigate through the related emotions. Having experienced the life event of losing our dog last week, we also have another major life event coming up next week, which prompted this post. So I have been listening to my compassionate self and the weekly posts will be paused for a few weeks so I can fully focus on that. I will be back writing soon, publishing weekly posts again, and looking further ahead, the beginning of November marks the first anniversary of Compassionate Nature, which I am especially looking forward to celebrating with you.
Until then, take care of yourself and if you find you are missing the weekly posts, please do take a look back over the previous editions- I am rather proud of all 46 of them and hopefully there may be a topic or two that is of interest that you perhaps hadn’t read before.
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References
Van den Berg, A. E., Maas, J., Verheij, R. A., & Groenewegen, P. P. (2010). Green space as a buffer between stressful life events and health. Social science & medicine, 70(8), 1203-1210.
Marselle, M. R., Warber, S. L., & Irvine, K. N. (2019). Growing resilience through interaction with nature: Can group walks in nature buffer the effects of stressful life events on mental health?. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(6), 986