The Beyond-Human Natural World: Providing Meaning and Making Meaning.

Much academic and media attention has been focused on how nature contributes to psychological health, yet, most of this focus has been on happiness or hedonic well-being. Although numerous writers and researchers have linked connecting with nature as a pathway to meaning in life, an integrated overview has not yet (to our knowledge) been offered. Our manuscript is thus of both theoretical and practical importance with respect to finding meaning in life. In this hybrid commentary/review paper, we examine the link between meaning in life and relating to the beyond-human natural world. Through presenting supportive empirical research and interdisciplinary insights, we make the case that connecting with the natural world provides us with meaning in various ways. We discuss how nature is a common source of meaning in people's lives and how connecting with nature helps to provide meaning by addressing our need to find coherence, significance/mattering, and purpose (the three aspects comprising the tripartite model of meaning life). We also consider how connecting with nature enhances our experiential appreciation for life, a fourth aspect of meaning in life recently proposed. Our discussion then expands to examining nature as a place of attachment. Going beyond how nature provides us with meaning, we consider how engaging in nature-based activities provides an avenue for many people to build meaningful lives. We close by considering how threats to nature are a threat to meaning in life.

Wellbeing in Winter: Testing the Noticing Nature Intervention During Winter Months.

The main objective of this 2-week RCT study was to test the efficacy of the previously developed Noticing Nature Intervention (NNI) to boost wellbeing during winter months. The NNI consists of noticing the everyday nature encountered in one's daily routine and making note of what emotions are evoked. Community adults (N = 65) were randomly assigned to engage in the NNI or were assigned to one of two control conditions. Paired t-tests revealed significant increases pre- to post-intervention in the NNI group for positive affect (d = 0.43), elevation (d = 0.59), nature connectedness (d = 0.46), and hope agency (d = 0.64), and a marginally significant increase in transcendent connectedness (d = 0.41). No significant pre-post difference emerged for any aspect of wellbeing in the control conditions. Analysis of qualitative findings revealed that negative emotion themes were 2.13 times more likely to be associated with built photos than with nature photos. Feelings of peace, awe, happiness, humbleness, and hope were more likely to be associated with nature photos, while feelings of annoyance, loneliness, curiosity, uncertainty, anger, yearning, and comfortableness were more likely to be associated with built photos. Overall, results indicated that engaging in the NNI can provide a wellbeing boost, even in the cold of winter. This study is the first (to our knowledge) to test any nature-based wellbeing intervention during colder, winter months, and to directly assess the impact of a nature-based wellbeing intervention on levels of hope.

Viewing nature scenes reduces the pain of social ostracism.

In a series of four studies (Ns = 245, 135, 155, 222), we explored the effects of viewing nature scenes on promoting recovery from ostracism. We first manipulated experiences of ostracism, then randomly assigned participants to view photos of either nature, urban scenes, or neutral objects. Across all four studies, participants who viewed nature photos reported significantly lower levels of state social pain, along with significantly higher levels of affect balance and self-esteem. Moreover, when asked to look back and recall how they felt at the time of being ostracized, participants who viewed nature photos reported significantly higher levels of retrospective satisfaction of basic emotional needs than did participants in control conditions. An internal meta-analysis revealed an effect size of d = 0.58. These studies are the first, to our knowledge, to provide experimental evidence of how exposure to nature can alleviate the pain of social ostracism.

Reducing university students' stress through a drop-in canine-therapy program.

BACKGROUND: Increasingly colleges and universities are offering canine therapy to help students de-stress as a means of supporting students' emotional health and mental well-being. Despite the popularity of such programs, there remains a dearth of research attesting to their benefits. AIMS: Participants included 1960 students at a mid-size western Canadian University. The study's aims were to assess the stress-reducing effects of a weekly drop-in, canine-therapy program and to identify how long participants spent with therapy canines to reduce their stress. METHODS: Demographic information was gathered, length of visit documented and a visual analog scale (VAS) was used to assess entry and exit self-reports of stress. RESULTS: Participants' self-reported stress levels were significantly lower after the canine therapy intervention. Participants spent an average of 35 min per session. CONCLUSIONS: This study supports the use of drop-in, canine therapy as a means of reducing university students' stress. The findings hold applied significance for both counseling and animal therapy practitioners regarding the dose intervention participants seek to reduce their stress.