Just looking at nature can help your brain work better, study finds
While still relatively novel in the United States, so-called “green roofs”
— urban rooftops covered with grasses, plants and other types of
greenery — are becoming increasingly popular around the world. In
France, newly built commercial rooftops must sport either greenery or
solar panels, according to a recent law. Facebook, meanwhile, recently installed a massive 9-acre green roof at its office in Menlo Park, Calif.
The
logic is obvious: Green roofs can reduce the retention of heat in urban
areas, help to cool down buildings and thereby lower their energy use,
and even pull some carbon dioxide from the air and feed it back into
plant growth. Plus, they look cool.
But the psychological benefits of green roofs to busy office workers may also be substantial, according to new research.
In a study published in the journal Environmental Psychology, the
University of Melbourne’s Kate Lee and a group of colleagues found that
interrupting a tedious, attention-demanding task with a 40-second
“microbreak” — in which one simply looks at a computerized image of a
green roof — improved focus as well as subsequent performance on the
task.
The
Vancouver Convention Center’s six-acre living roof in Vancouver,
Canada, on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014. According to the convention center
it’s the largest green roof in Canada. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press,
Darryl Dyck)
