With almost half of us working from home, many people will be no strangers to forgetting to leave the house. You get up, work, exercise, have dinner, watch tv, go to bed. Feel familiar? Even when we know the benefits of going outside can include improving moods, help you be more active and connect you to your local community.
However, one benefit many of us are overlooking is birds. Yes. Just birds. Not an acronym, not a play on words. Just our feathered, flying friends in the sky. Does this sound like I’m losing my marbles? It’s probably because I haven’t been around birds today!
Right but seriously, it turns out that being near birds – even just in your garden, no need to go to a sanctuary or anything – can be incredibly beneficial to our mental health and wellbeing.
Birdsong can help anxiety
If you’re feeling anxious, tense, or stressed, it may be worth following the most annoying mental health advice beyond yoga and actually going outside and chances are, you won’t even have to go far to reap the benefits of it.
This is because studies have shown that birdsong – the name of the sounds birds make when they chirp away to each other – is incredibly beneficial to our mental health and just being around it can help to alleviate difficult symptoms of mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression, and paranoia.
Our very own lifestyle editor has spoken anecdotally about how birdsong has helped her saying, “my mood is way better in the mornings because all the swifts are out, they heal my soul on a level I cannot explain.”
Interestingly, scientists can’t quite explain it either. A recent study from King’s College London explains that “the mental health benefits of everyday encounters with birdlife for mental health are poorly understood … [W]e know little about the specific features within green and blue spaces which are driving these benefits.”
Birdsong could be part of future mental health treatments
While the researchers are still unsure of what exactly it is about birdsong that calms us, they do believe that birdsong could be part of future treatments for mental health disorders saying:
“Visits to habitats with a high degree of birdlife could become part of social prescribing schemes, playing a role in preventing mental health difficulties and complementing more traditional interventions.”
Maybe we really should be entering our Snow White eras and connecting with nature. Or at least the birds in our gardens.