VIDEO: Trees can ‘positively influence mental health’
According to a recent study, people suffering from depression in urban areas needed lower doses of anti-depressants if they had access to trees on a daily basis. Watch the video below for more:
Researchers from the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research, the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research and Leipzig University found that people who had daily access to a green space, including trees on sidewalks, were less likely to require higher doses of anti-depressants.
The correlation between trees and mental health was made after analyzing 10 000 participants in a study that showed that the more trees someone has around their home, the less their chances of being prescribed antidepressants are.
The study has brought important issues to the fore, such as environmental inequalities, where urban areas with lower income earning people tend to have fewer trees. Evidently, planting trees in these areas is a way to remedy inequalities while improving the mental health of the residents.
