It’s well known that time spent in nature helps our mental well-being, but could we gain a similar boost from time spent in virtual reality-based nature? That was the question posed by research from UC Irvine, and they found that exposure to green space in VR does in fact help to reduce our blood pressure and increase our mental well-being.

The researchers examined the short-term response of a group of pregnant women, all of whom lived in cities, to exposure to green space via virtual reality.

“Even short exposure to a virtual green space environment showed physiological and affective stress reduction among pregnant women,” the researchers explain.

“It’s not the same as the real world, but this study helps inform city planners who are creating urban spaces. It proves the importance of green space to the well-being and mental health of the population living in those spaces.”

Virtual impact

When we’re exposed to green space in real life it provides a number of benefits to our well-being, including lower risk of Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and mortality, while also ensuring improved pregnancy outcomes.

Whether exposure to green space triggers similar physiological mechanisms in a virtual environment, especially among special populations, such as pregnant women, is under-explored.

The researchers recruited a group of healthy pregnant women, each of whom began the experiment by having their anxiety triggered via a lab-based stress test. Each was then shown a number of videos, some depicting a park, some a street view with a green space, and some a street without any greenery.

A range of measurements were taken before and after each video, including their heart rate, blood pressure, saliva, and skin conductance level, while each participant also completed a questionnaire about positive and negative emotions.

The results show that visual exposure to the green space in VR was linked with a reduction in salivary alpha-amylase, which is commonly linked with stress, as well as lower systolic blood pressure. The participants also reported more positive emotions compared to when they were exposed to the non-green environment. Of the three videos, the park secured the biggest boost among the volunteers.