Lily Lake in Colorado, August 2008, Photo by Chuck Pierson
Jonah Lehrer, over at Frontal Cortex, highlights the latest research on how natural scenery is good for your brain, and how it might make you more compassionate:
I’ve written before about the powerful mental benefits of communing with nature – it leads to more self-control, increased working memory, lower levels of stress and better moods – but a new study by psychologists at the University of Rochester find that being exposed to wildlife also makes us more compassionate. Nature might be red in tooth and claw, but even a glimpse of greenery can make us behave in kinder, gentler ways.
Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.
Upper Michigan, July 2009, Photo by Chuck Pierson