Looking At Nature Makes You More Focused At Work
Nitya Rajan
By the time I've finished
writing this story I would have checked Instagram, Facebook,
Twitter and my Emails at
least once, maybe twice.
As much as we may want to
deny it, the constant barrage of notifications
that light up our
smartphones can be a little distracting.
Science has come up with a
surprisingly simple solution to deal with our growing attention deficit: stare at a green roof.
According to a study from
the University of Melbourne,
images of greenery work
better to boost our attention.
They took 150 participants
and split them into two groups.
One cohort were shown a concrete roof during
their micro-breaks
while the others could look out to a "flowering meadow
green roof."
The results: the "green
roof" group made "significantly less errors
and demonstrated superior
concentration on the second half of the task,
compared to those who viewed the
concrete roof."
While most of us don't have
the luxury of working in an office with a view,
the researchers suggested
that images of nature could also help boost attention.
Lead researcher Dr Kate Lee,
from the University of Melbourne Faculty of Science, said:
We know that green roofs are
great for the environment,
but now we can say that they boost attention too.
Imagine the impact that has for thousands of employees working in nearby
offices," Dr Lee said.
"This study showed us
that looking at an image of nature for less than a minute
was all it took to help
people perform better on our task.
What Lee and her team should
have included in the study is
whether a 40-second micro-break on a smartphone works in the
same way as nature.
Surely scrolling through
Instagram's offering of mountains and meadows is equally helpful?
Well, we're off to check
Instagram in the name of science.
We'll strictly be looking at
#Greenroof of course.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/05/26/nature-screensavers-will-make-you-more-focused_n_7441042.html
40-second green roof views
sustain attention:
The role of micro-breaks in
attention restoration
Highlights
Neuroscience techniques
provide direct empirical support for attention restoration theory.
A micro-break viewing a
green, but not concrete roof city scene, sustains attention.
The green roof city scene
perceived as more restorative than concrete roof city scene.
Results suggest city nature
is valuable for healthy cities and workplaces.
Abstract
Based on attention
restoration theory we proposed that micro-breaks spent viewing
a city scene
with a flowering meadow green roof would boost sustained attention.
Sustained
attention is crucial in daily life and underlies successful cognitive
functioning.
We compared the effects of 40-s views
of two different city scenes
on 150 university students' sustained attention.
Participants completed the
task at baseline, were randomly assigned to view a flowering meadow green roof
or a bare concrete roof, and completed the task again at post-treatment.
Participants who briefly
viewed the green roof made significantly lower omission errors,
and showed more
consistent responding to the task compared to participants
who viewed the
concrete roof.
We argue that this reflects
boosts to sub-cortical arousal and cortical attention control.
Our results extend attention
restoration theory by providing direct experimental evidence for the benefits of
micro-breaks and for city green roofs.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494415000328
Turbo Charged Reading: Read
more>>>Read fast>>>Remember all>>>Years later
Contact M’reen at: read@turbochargedreading.com
You can TCR software/engineering manuals for spontaneous
recall – or pass that exam.
I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times
faster and rememberwhat I’ve read.
I
can TCR an academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.
Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook
group ?
Perhaps you’d like to check
out my sister blogs:
All aspects of regular, each-word reading
and education.
Turbo Charged Reading uses these skills
significantly faster
www.innermindworking.blogspot.com
many ways for you to work with the stresses of life
www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com
just for fun.
To quote the Dr Seuss
himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn; the
more places you'll go.”
No comments:
Post a Comment