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 Want to be healthier? Listen to the birds sing

Story by RICHARD SIMA • Washington Post • Illustration by NURI DUCASSI • Star Tribune

Looking to improve your mental health? Pay attention to birds.

Two studies published in Scientific Reports said that seeing or hearing birds could be good for our mental well-being.

And research has consistently shown that more contact and interaction with nature is associated with better body and brain health.

Birds appear to be a specific source of these healing benefits. They are almost everywhere and provide a way to connect us to nature. Even if they are hidden in trees or in the underbrush, we can still revel in their songs.

"The special thing about birdsong is that even if people live in very urban environments and do not have a lot of contact with nature, they link the songs of birds to vital and intact natural environments," said Emil Stobbe, an environmental neuroscience graduate student at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and author of one of the studies.

Recent research also suggests that listening to recordings of birdsong, even through headphones, can alleviate negative emotions.

Everyday encounters with birds are associated with better mental health.

In one study, researchers found a significant positive association between seeing or hearing birds and improved mental well-being, even when accounting for other possible explanations such as education, occupation or the presence of greenery and water, which have themselves been associated with positive mental health.

And those benefits seem to persist well beyond a bird encounter. If a participant reported seeing or hearing birds at one point, their mental well-being was higher, on average, hours later even if they did not encounter birds at the next check-in.

Ryan Hammoud, a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King's College London and an author of the study, called it a "time-lasting link."

Intriguingly, the birds benefit both healthy participants and those who have been diagnosed with depression.

This has an interesting implication for trying to protect and preserve environments to sustain bird life, Hammoud said, "because people with depression do show positive effects toward birdsong and birdlife in the area."

A second study found that listening to short — just 6-minute — audio clips of birdsong could reduce feelings of anxiety, depression and paranoia in healthy participants.

"Listening to birdsong through headphones was able to hit the same pathways that might be beneficial toward mental well-being," said Hammoud.

"That's a very, very nice finding," Researchers asked 295 online participants to self-assess their emotional states and to take a cognitive memory test. Then they randomly assigned the participants to listen to birdsongs or traffic noise, of more or less diversity.

The researchers then had the subjects remeasure their emotional and cognitive states.

Participants who listened to more diverse birdsongs (featuring the acoustic acrobatics of eight species) reported a decrease in depressive symptoms in addition to significant decreases in feelings of anxiety and paranoia. And those who listened to less diverse birdsongs (two bird species) also reported a significant decrease in feelings of anxiety and paranoia.

(This study was conducted in Europe, and the birds featured were also European.) By contrast, listening to more or less diverse traffic noise worsened symptoms of depressive states.

The research shows the "healing aspects of nature, or also the not-so-positive effects of urban surroundings," said Stobbe, an author of the second study.

Previous research on the health effects of nature sounds found that they could even confer cognitive benefits, though the second study did not replicate that finding.

Better concentration

Birds help us feel more connected with nature and its health effects, Stobbe said, and the more connected we are to nature, the more we can benefit from those effects.

One hypothesis on nature's salubrious effects, known as the attention restoration theory, posits that being in nature is good for improving concentration and decreasing the mental fatigue associated with living in stressful urban environments. Natural stimuli, such as birdsong, may allow us to engage in "soft fascination," which holds our attention but also allows it to replenish.

Nature — and birdsong — also reduce stress. Previous research has found that time spent in green outdoor spaces can lower blood pressure and cortisol levels, Hammoud said.

It is not yet understood how birdsong affects our brains, but neuroimaging studies have found brain responses of stress reduction to other forms of nature exposure.

Walking in nature vs. an urban setting decreased self-reported rumination, linked to depression and other mental illnesses, and decreased activity in a part of the brain's prefrontal cortex associated with rumination. Viewing green scenery engages the posterior cingulate cortex, associated with behavioral stress responses and which may help regulate the reduction in stress responses from nature exposure.

Going out to see birds also tends to encourage more physical activity, which has its own panoply of mental health benefits, and exercising outdoors may, in turn, magnify the health benefits of exercise.

Birdsong can be used to soothe our minds in a stressful world, or in a clinical setting to treat patients with anxiety or paranoia, studies suggest.

"People can use easy, accessible treatment or prevention techniques by just listening to an audio CD of things representing nature," Stobbe said.

"Or, of course, also going inside nature and trying to seek those effects."

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