Natural sounds help combat city noise stress

Natural sounds help combat city noise stress, according to Swiss study Keystone-SDA

Green spaces reduce stress. Researchers have shown for the first time in Switzerland that urban greenery measurably reduces the stress levels of city dwellers.

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This result provides important information for legislators and spatial planners, wrote the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) in a press release on Monday.

For the study conducted by EMPA and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), researchers initially stressed test subjects in the laboratory. They had to solve tasks under time pressure while being exposed to traffic noise. Using virtual reality goggles, they were then shown either a quiet urban environment or a quiet landscape in the countryside close to the city.

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Both of these environments were equally loud. However, after immersing themselves in the virtual green space, the test subjects felt calmer, more relaxed and more focused than in the urban comparison scenario. The stress level was measured by the sweat production on the fingers and by the concentration of the stress hormone cortisol in the saliva.

The results from the laboratory were also confirmed in a field study. Researchers from EMPA examined around 230 volunteers in the city of Zurich who live in environments with varying degrees of noise pollution and greenery. They documented the participants’ surroundings with photos, took hair samples to measure cortisol and asked them how they felt.

Both the interviews and the laboratory analyses of the hair samples showed that green spaces in the neighbourhood promoted relaxation, EMPA wrote.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

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