• “A growing body of evidence suggests that humans are hard-wired not just to enjoy a pleasant view of nature, but to actually exploit it, much like a drug, to relax and refresh after a stressful experience. . . [S]imply viewing a garden or another natural vista can quickly reduce blood pressure and pulse rate and can even increase brain activity that controls mood-lifting feelings.”¹
• In a controlled experiment involving 112 young adults who carried out stressful activities, “[S]itting in a room with tree views promoted more rapid decline in diastolic blood pressure than sitting in a viewless room. Subsequently walking in a nature reserve initially fostered blood pressure change that indicated greater stress reduction than afforded by walking in urban surroundings.”²
• “[P]atients recovering from gallbladder surgery had more favorable postoperative courses if their windows overlooked a small stand of trees rather than a brick wall.  Compared to patients with the wall view, those with the natural window view had shorter postoperative hospital stays, elicited far fewer negative comments ('patient is upset') in nurses’ notes, tended to have lower scores for minor postsurgical complications such as persistent headache or nausea, and needed fewer doses of narcotic pain drugs.”³
• Subjects exposed to stress in a computer laboratory recovered more quickly when the room was decorated with plants than they did when the room was undecorated or decorated with attractive art objects.⁴

• In research on patient anxiety in a dental fears clinic, patients felt less stressed when a large mural depicting a natural scene was hung on a wall of the waiting room, in contrast to when the wall was blank.⁵
• Patients recovering from open-heart surgery who were exposed to pictures of nature with water experienced less postoperative anxiety than patients exposed to other types of pictures. Patients exposed to abstract pictures had higher anxiety than patients without any picture at all. Also, four days after surgery, patients who had been exposed to any type of visual stimulation were able to complete a visual-perceptual functioning test faster than patients exposed to no art.⁶

“Healing gardens” are increasingly incorporated into the design of medical and other facilities because they are understood to have restorative effects.⁷

Horticultural activities have been shown to have restorative effects. For more information, visit the following websites (links are provided under “Websites” at the bottom of this page): American Horticultural Therapy Association, Gardening for Good, Horticultural Therapy Institute, and Plants at Work.

“Green roofs” are sometimes used.⁸

The Art Research Institute produces and markets vivid nature images that serve the founders’ purpose of a creating “a unique interior architecture focused specifically on the upliftment and transformation of the clinical treatment environment with nature imagery.” Interior settings look like windows (“INDOWS,” in the vendor’s term).⁹ As one healthcare design book described it, “In the [Stanford University Medical Clinic] Cardiac Transplant ICU, [an] electronic window simulates a constantly changing view of the outdoors. The installation offers a patient visual stimulation in a room that often cannot be placed on an outside wall.”¹⁰

Among the nature art used by hospitals are the Smithsonian’s “Healing Gardens” exhibition of quilts, which travels among hospitals¹¹; and a “Healing Grotto” water sculpture complete with a soft waterfall in Texas.¹² 

A thorough and helpful discussion of whys and hows of therapeutic-garden design appears in a paper by Roger Ulrich, “Health Benefits of Gardens in Hospitals,” presented at the conference, Plants for People http://www.plantsatwork.org/pdf/SymposiumUlrich.pdf

Footnotes