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Seeing or hearing birds is linked to a better mood that lasts for hours, according to a 2022 smartphone study of 1,292 people. Participants who noticed birds at one check-in also rated their mental wellbeing higher at the next one, hours later.

Scientific Reports, 2022

MindHealthScienceNature

The story behind the card

The study used Urban Mind, an app developed at King's College London that prompts people several times a day to say what they can see and hear at that moment and how they feel. Asking in the moment avoids the distortions of remembering one's mood later. Between April 2018 and October 2021, the 1,292 participants answered 26,856 of these prompts. The link with birdlife showed up both in healthy people and in those with a diagnosis of depression, the most common mental illness in the world. Because the study only observed people rather than testing an intervention, it cannot prove that the birds caused the lift: places with birds may be pleasanter in other ways too.

Türkçe oku
Kuş görmek ya da sesini duymak, saatlerce süren daha iyi bir ruh hâliyle ilişkili. 1.292 kişiyle akıllı telefon üzerinden yapılan 2022 tarihli bir çalışmada, o an kuş gördüğünü ya da duyduğunu bildirenler, saatler sonraki yoklamada da kendilerini daha iyi hissettiklerini söyledi.
Scientific Reports, 2022

Çalışmada, King's College London'da geliştirilen Urban Mind uygulaması kullanıldı. Uygulama gün içinde birkaç kez katılımcılara o an ne gördüklerini, ne duyduklarını ve nasıl hissettiklerini soruyor. Soruyu o anda sormak, insanların ruh hâllerini sonradan hatırlarken yaptıkları yanılgıların önüne geçiyor. Nisan 2018 ile Ekim 2021 arasında 1.292 katılımcı bu sorulara toplam 26.856 kez cevap verdi. Kuşlarla karşılaşmanın iyi etkisi hem sağlıklı insanlarda hem de dünyada en yaygın ruhsal hastalık olan depresyon tanısı almış kişilerde görüldü. Ancak araştırmacılar bir deney yapmadı, yalnızca gözlem yaptı. Bu yüzden iyileşmenin kuşlardan kaynaklandığı kanıtlanmış değil; kuşların bulunduğu yerler başka açılardan da daha hoş olabilir.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Bird vocalization
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