NON-VISUAL CONNECTION WITH NATURE
In the previous blog, we saw how visual connection with nature benefits our overall health and affects our mind in a positive way. It took care of one sense of the human body and that is vision, but what about the other 4 senses? If by engaging only one sense can be so impactful on our mind and body, imagine how much the other senses including the first one will make an impact on us. The other four senses include the sense of smell, the ability to hear, the sense of taste, the feeling of touch. These senses can be experienced separately, although the experience is multiplied and the health effect is intensified if multiple senses are experienced at the same time or engaged together as one experience.
Now imagine yourself walking barefoot on a beach with your eyes closed and feeling the cool and pleasant breeze on your skin, the sound of waves crashing to the shore hitting your ears and you are moving towards the water feeling the texture of slightly warm sand, and as you keep walking you feel the wet sand and water and then you open your eyes and see the infinite view. How would you feel? The combination of all the senses experienced at the same time makes it wonderful and memorable. This is the beauty of nature.
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The visual connection with nature is related to the sense of vision, and the non visual connection with nature includes the sense of smell, touch, ability to hear and taste. Nature has abundance of all these. The aromas of a variety of flowers, the sounds of birds and animals, the touch of different types of textures and materials and the taste of various edible plants.
To enhance the experience of our day to day life, Biophilic design is an innovative approach which suggests us that we should incorporate all these elements of nature which soothes our brain while being indoors, performing our day to day activities and reminds us of being outdoors in nature. Speaking of workspace, there should also be a perfect balance of facilities which help in our work with simulated or constructed nature.
Auditory: How does one feel while walking in a forest while hearing different type of sounds? In a forest, there are sounds of various animals and birds, sounds of leaves moving with breeze and so on. Now imagine yourself sitting in an office and all you hear is traffic noises and other urban sounds, after a point you will feel stressed, annoyed and unable to focus. So what if we overlap the urban sounds by digitally simulations of nature sounds and you will be able to hear ocean sounds, forest sounds while sitting in your office. This has some health benefits also like it accelerates healing after a psychological stress, reduces cognitive fatigue, and helps motivation.
Olfactory: The sense of smell directly connects to our brain and refreshes memories. But how can we include scents of nature in the built environment? In the build environment, we can mechanically release plant oils to produce powerful scents which remind us of being in nature. The olfactory exposure such as plants oils and other herbs and essential oils have positive healing process and can improve human immune system, calm ourselves and also energizes.
Haptic: This sense is related to the sense of touch. Animal lovers can easily relate to this, the touch of animal’s fur can have positive effects on our brain, calming effects and also increase affection between humans and animals. The act of touching real plant life also helps us reduce stress. These examples are enough for us to understand how the experience of touching the elements of nature such as water, plants, and other natural materials may have positive outcomes on our mind and body. In the built environment we can include this experience by involving highly textured fabrics that mimic natural material textures like fur. Other textured materials which can be used are stone, wood.
Gustatory: This sense is related to the ability to taste. Our constant curiosity to learn about nature helps us reach to the edible plants to gain knowledge which also has positive health benefits. This can be included in the built environment by practising gardening, including edible plants. Imagine yourself having lunch with your colleagues on a shaded terrace with pleasant breeze surrounded by gardening, where you can pluck and wash and eat fresh salads.
Whether it’s a workspace or a hospital or a residence, this little experience can be beneficial in any space and improve your physical as well as mental health and helps reduces stress.
In the next blog find out more details on Biophilia
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